ATLANTIC OR PACIFIC?

When I received a postcard from my writing buddy who is spending a long Christmas holiday with her husband in Hawaii, I was jealous momentarily. It reminded me of the twenty years we owned two condos in a lovely resort on Maui and went there twice a year. Sometimes I had to turn down an invitation to do something or go somewhere with the excuse, “I have to go to Maui.”

This often met with a somewhat sarcastic, “You HAVE to go to Maui?” Yet it was true. When you own property and, especially if you rent it out to others, as we did, it’s important to show up often to make sure the cleaning people are doing a good job and replace any items the guests need. Since selling those condos, we haven’t been back as often, but the sights and sounds and the interesting people we met found their way into my romance novel, STRANGER IN PARADISE, so I can relive them. Originally published by Kensington, I got my rights back, and it’s now an e-book.

Also, during the holidays, we went to San Francisco to visit friends and relatives and I was able to view a documentary on the local PBS station. It was titled, “The Iceberg that Sank the Titanic,” and described how icebergs are formed near Greenland and then, perhaps thousands of years later, break off and begin a long journey into the shipping lanes of the Atlantic.

I was interested in it, not only because of my novel COLD APRIL, about the famous ship, but because the small publisher who has published a few of my books, also published a Titanic book titled DANGEROUS AFFAIRS by Gardner Brooks. I had read the book and knew that the author began with a short Prologue about how a single snowflake, joining with trillions of others, caused a piece of a glacier near Greenland to break off from the rest and begin a journey into the history books in 1912.

Like my own novel about the famous ship, copies of DANGEROUS AFFAIRS continue to sell despite the hundredth anniversary of its sinking having occurred more than two years ago. Although I didn’t expect it, I can certainly understand readers’ continued fascination with a story that was too incredible to be believed. The largest ship in the world, on its maiden voyage, filled with some of the wealthiest people of the time, strikes an iceberg and sinks in less than four hours, taking more than 1500 lives. Epic!

But, this being January, when it comes to thinking about either a freezing Atlantic Ocean or the warm Pacific surrounding Hawaii, I’ll pick the Pacific. Now I just need my knee to heal so I can book a flight.