Dear Readers

I’m sitting in our big green easy chair next to the Christmas tree as I listen to Josh Groban singing wonderful carols of Christ’s birth.  Filling me is an overwhelming love for each of my friends and all of my family.  Ornaments, made and collected over the years make our tree a tree of memories from Morgan’s birth through the birth of our grandsons, Jack and Micah.  However, I am at a complete loss to explain the enormous pink blimp-like pig with green spots!

I am grateful for each of you, especially those who write to me!  It has been a difficult year in many ways, and a glorious year in others.  I have, at least for the present, left the comfort of the Deseret Book nest in search of new readers far and wide, and published my books with our own imprint: The Orson Whitney Press.  As of this writing, all of the Alex and Briggie Genealogical Mysteries should be up on Amazon, as well as a new edition of The Last Waltz and The Arthurian Omen.  The coming year should see the re-publication of Pieces of Paris.  We are pleased to offer these books at much lower prices.  This task has absorbed almost all my time.

I was able to publish two new books this year, Foggy with a Chance of Murder (DB) and The Only Way to Paradise (OWP).  Foggy sold very well, even though I wrote it very fast to meet an almost impossible deadline.  Paradise was a labor of love and has enjoyed many incarnations.  I am very grateful to Pam Satran (a NYT bestseller of Women’s Fiction) for her critique to bring it to “the next level.”  Those of you who bought the book when it first came out have an earlier earlier edition.  The current edition is much improved, thanks to Pam.

I was also able to visit my beloved Florence.  I am hoping for at least one more Florentine embrace, but my health, at present, will not permit it.  I am praying that it will improve in time for an October trip to celebrate David’s and my 40^th wedding anniversary.  I need to feel the love in the air of that splendid place, and to visit my dear Elisabetta, Cosimo, and Adriana, whom many of you met when reading Paradise.

Who ever heard of someone inheriting a gold mine?  Well, if you had known my colorful father, you would realize that  he was precisely the sort of character who would buy 1% of such an investment.  While the stocks he left us lost all their value in “the crash,” the gold mine “burps” every now and then (just when we need it to) and we receive a check.  This has been an inestimable blessing in our lives.

By far the greatest blessing, however, has nothing to do with my writing career or my amusing inheritance.  My oldest son (34), Morgan, has met the girl of his dreams and will be married in a few days.  I will gain a wonderful new daughter, and my daughter, Buffy, (who engineered the first date) will finally have a sister.  Best of all, I anticipate new grandchildren!

Grandchildren.  I cannot tell you what a blessing Jack and Micah are in my life.  I anticipate their arrival shortly for the wedding, along with my daughter.  Family is my very greatest blessing—from my dear husband David, who is friend, lover, publisher, and partner in shenanigans (legal, of course), my children Morgan, Buffy, and Greg, and my aforementioned grandchildren.  Holiday time is magical as we spend wonderful time together celebrating the birth of our Savior, give each other thoughtful gifts, and just “hanging out.”  Their love is what keeps me going.

Thanks to all of you for visiting the site.  Enjoy the added features—an Alex and Briggie store, and excerpts from various books, as well as the photos, my blog, bio, and questions for Book Clubs.

Have a New Year full of good health, serenity in the face of chaos, as well as the incomparable comfort of the Spirit!

GG