5/18/26
Sincere thanks to everyone for their thoughts, prayers, and nice words following yesterday’s newsletter. She is awake and alert and — at 100 years and seven months old — got to go on her first helicopter ride. My sister and I have been advised to stay home, for now. Our parents are there with her.
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My youngest son had a scholarship awards presentation last night. His mother and I attended. He received a scholarship based solely on the strength of an essay he wrote, beating out I don’t know how many other kids. I probably sounded like a broken record, but I impressed that upon him afterward — how it was something he wrote that opened that door for him. And how it was the strength of that same writing that helped get him into Colgate. There hasn’t been a day in eighteen years when I haven’t been proud of this kid, and I tell him all the time — but sometimes a parent needs to put an exclamation point on that.
Today is Senior Skip Day. Wednesday is his final jazz band concert. Graduation in in two weeks. And then, in August, he’s off to college for Political Science and Classical Studies. And after that?
Well, after that, I suspect his writing will take him anywhere he wants to go.
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Mary returns home today, so I’d better get the house straightened up. But before I do that, let’s do this:
Women In Horror Year: Day 37
A Fresh Start by Somer Canon
Still hurting from her divorce, Melissa Caan makes a drastic life change for herself and her two young children by moving them out to a rural home.
But the country life came with some extras that she wasn't counting on. Doors are slamming, she and her children are violently attacked by unseen hands, and her elderly neighbor doesn't like to talk about the murders that happened in the strangely named hollow all those years ago.
Ghost hunters, witches, and a sassy cancer survivor come together to help Melissa fight for the safety of her children and herself.
All she wanted was a fresh start, will she get it?
All of the things Somer Canon excels at as a writer are on glorious display in this novella. Deeply unsettling atmosphere, tiny little bursts of coal black humor, squick when its needed (always in the proper dosage — not too much splatter, and not too little), and human characters that any reader can empathize with. All of that and more combines to make A Fresh Start one of the most enjoyable haunted house stories I’ve read in years. If you haven’t yet tried her stuff, this is a perfect introduction. Short enough that you can read it in an afternoon, perhaps at the beach or maybe on a plane ride. But don’t let that brevity fool you. This story will scare you, thrill you, and absolutely leave you satisfied. Just a fantastic ghost story, and you can’t really ask for anything more than that. A Fresh Start is available in paperback and eBook from Crossroad Press.
