Okay, then. The truth: internet reviews and ratings are a major part of the “word of mouth” book buzz readers once found via publication reviews and libraries. They give bookstores, editors, and potential readers an idea of how well a book is being received by the public, often influencing sales and promotion attempts.

You’ve just finished reading a novel. (For the sake of random and totally unbiased argument, let’s say it’s one of mine.) You

1. love, love, love it;

2. can’t imagine how anyone on Earth could love, love, love it;

3. think the author needs serious help.

You want to review this book online because

1. everyone should read it – it’s THAT good;

2. nobody should read it – no person’s karma can be THAT bad;

3. the author needs serious help.

There’s no doubt that customer reviews are influential. But if I had a chance to review the reviews, I’d say that some are better than others, and it has little to do with whether or not the reviewer liked the book.

Here’s my subjective list of a few approaches to avoid when writing an online review:

“This book was boring.” Details, please. Which aspect of this book didn’t interest you? Sometimes the type of book one reader finds dull is exactly the sort another reader enjoys.

“I liked the story, but I gave the book one star because it is morally offensive.” Different issues offend different readers. It’s helpful to be honest about your own sensibilities right up front: “This book made me uncomfortable because I believe that dabbling in the supernatural is blasphemous.” (Yes, that criticism has been applied to my books.) In a world where low ratings can hurt sales, please don’t give a competent novel an overall poor review on the sole basis that parts of it didn’t jibe with your personal beliefs.

“I liked this book right up until (MAJOR PLOT REVEAL THAT MAKES IT UNNECESSARY TO READ THE BOOK).” Please. I’m crying, here. Please, please don’t give away plot twists that took authors hours and hours to create, plot twists we hoped would raise the story to the next level, plot twists that … please, don’t.

“The characters in this book were written by someone with an emotional IQ of three.” Try to remember that a real person wrote this book. Don’t be mean. In a related vein, please don’t sacrifice kindness in an attempt to be funny. Okay, maybe the author DOES have an emotional IQ of three, but can you think of a more constructive way to get your point across, something less personal and more related to the story itself?

“This book was just a beach read, not worth my time.” Try to remember that the review is about the book, not how erudite the reader is. Some readers LIKE beach reads.

So, what’s a reviewer to do? Glad you asked.

In my opinion, the best – and most credible – reviews allow readers to draw their own conclusions about whether or not they might like a particular book. The reviewer does this by focusing on the book itself: did the plot keep you turning pages? Were the characters interesting? If something didn’t work for you in the story, why didn’t it? Would this novel maybe appeal to a certain kind of reader? Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

It’s interesting to note that positive reviews can come with their own pitfalls. There are readers who doubt the validity of every five-star review, suspecting that they’ve been written by relatives of the author, friends, or scam pay-for-positive-reviews services (oh, yes there are). Those readers prefer to choose their books based on information gleaned from bad reviews, figuring that at least those comments are honest. And, as mentioned earlier, one person’s poison can be another’s feast.

P.S. This essay is a revision of one I wrote many years ago, before my novel Newport was published…and before it received a one-star review because Kindle didn’t download properly. (It made me laugh, but in a dark, desperate sort of way.)

So, remember: however you feel about that book you plan to review, the power is yours …wield it wisely!

And keep reading!

Letting go of someone you love while assuring them that all will be well feels like an impossible contradiction. It’s almost too much to ask us to do. But nobody gets out of here alive. Helping to ease a soul from this world into the next is a profound event, especially when that soul is the one that brought you here in the first place.

For a while, I couldn’t picture my mom beyond that last hospital bed. Her death came at the end of a long decline, so maybe it’s no surprise that more vital recollections of her got stashed away deep in my consciousness. I needed to access a different set of emotions to help her, and that required focusing on the situation at hand rather than dwelling on memories of stronger days. Still, it seemed unfair that even after Mom passed, the happier, more vital versions of her self remained just beyond my reach. Eventually, with time, they began to re-emerge. They returned in no particular order, drifting from era to era as stories from her childhood in the Bronx and young adulthood mixed with my own memories of the mother I knew. The combination of her completed life and my ongoing lived experiences helped me to understand her better than before. I started to see things I’d missed.

A few years ago, I realized that the image of Mom I “saw” was no longer bound to this world. She’d become a vibrant flash of rose and gold, pulsating with light and love. Freed from the limitations of a body that no longer worked, she visited often. She attended my daughters’ weddings, blessed their newborns, remained a well of love and support. She was there during my brother’s difficult final year, so clear and strong that we spoke about it often. Not only was Mom not “gone,” she was present on her own terms.

I wrote the following on Mother’s Day 2016:

This is my third Mother’s Day without my mom, although I don’t need a special day to think about her. Not a day passes where she doesn’t cross my mind. There is always something I want to share with her, because she always wanted to know. We were her favorite reality show. She used to say that she’d never be ready to leave us, because she’d always want to see what happened next.

It will always startle me to look around a room during family gatherings and not see my mom where she usually was (right smack in the middle of whatever we were doing). But apparently she meant it when she said she’d never be ready to leave us, because I can finally say for certain that she is still here.

That’s what it’s called. Christmas creep. That’s when Christmas decorations and merchandise start appearing on retail shelves in early dribs and drabs. You may be buying Halloween candy when you hear your first Christmas carol of the year.

This isn’t a surprise. Commercial Christmas prep sped up years ago. For most merchants, the winter holiday season provides a major hunk of annual sales, so why not begin the spending reminders early? That’s especially true of a year like this one, where Thanksgiving falls late enough to leave only about four shopping weeks before Christmas. I could be irritated (Crass Commercialism!!!), but the fact is, I don’t really care. In fact, I kind of like it.

I’m not alone. Studies show that experiencing early decorations for the winter holidays spikes dopamine, the “reward” hormone that makes us feel good. The sparkling lights and colorful displays, the music we hear only seasonally … all of this helps us feel better than we did before. It makes sense that the early-decorating trend would spread beyond retail to homes.

Winter holidays bring the promise of light in the darkness, no matter what the odds. In a world filled with anxiety and sadness, that can lift beyond dopamine. Hope is the ultimate hygge.

This doesn’t explain the intensification of Halloween.

Halloween candy started hitting the shelves in mid-August, which is also when Spirit Halloween stores start popping up in retail spaces with nothing else to do. As with Christmas, early Halloween prep has seeped into non-commercial settings as well. I passed my first Halloween-decorated home about two weeks ago. (I’m not including my neighborhood giant skeleton, which stays up all year round and fulfills the apparently recent requirement that every neighborhood have one.)

Last year, there was more decorating for Halloween in my neighborhood than I could remember ever seeing before. I’m not talking charming, feel-good, “Welcome, Fall” stuff. I’m not even talking Mysterious Gothic. I’m talking blood, guts, and more fear than should ever fit into one yard. (Full disclosure: my “Scary Meter” doesn’t rise above those little floaty ghosts made from tissues and attached to tree branches.)

So, why do we do THAT thing? It seems so anti-hygge.

Our senses are heightened when we’re afraid and, once again, our brain releases dopamine. The key is knowing that no matter how scared (or grossed out) we may feel, we are safe. Deep inside, we know that after the scary experience ends, we will be fundamentally okay.

I’m guessing that unlike real life, the chemical rush of all that blood and gore puts us in a situation we believe we can actually control.

Maybe we start decorating early because we want to absorb every possible high from a time of year that lifts us out of the ordinary and into something magical. After all, the holidays themselves pass quickly. It doesn’t take long after Halloween for us to mentally finish with fall and jump into winter celebrations. As for Christmas, by the time New Year’s Day rolls around, most of us wish those same decorations that brought so much joy would just pack themselves away so that we can move on to organizing for the new year.

But that’s okay. At that point, the beginning creep of the next holiday season is only seven months away.

I still wasn’t a football fan in the years that followed. Baltimore’s attempts to acquire a new football team flew right over my head. Franchises bypassing Baltimore for Jacksonville and Charlotte? Didn’t register. I barely remember failed plans to buy the L.A. Rams.

It took until 1996 for Baltimore to land a football team. While the acquisition didn’t occupy prime space in my brain, I do remember the irony of a city that hated losing their beloved Colts to Indianapolis doing something similar to Cleveland and their Browns.

The team officially became the Baltimore Ravens on March 29, 1996, exactly twelve years after the Colts left. Their name was chosen via a telephone survey of over 30,000 fans. “Ravens” won in a landslide, easily beating out “Marauders” and “Americans.” I thought that if asked, I would have chosen “Ravens,” too. I still knew nothing about football, but it was fun having an opinion about something so many people were talking about.

Two months later, at a packed event held at Baltimore’s Harborplace, the Ravens officially introduced their team logo, uniforms, and colors (purple, black, and metallic gold). Football was back in Baltimore. Although I still didn’t understand the game, I was beginning to understand the camaraderie that came along with it.

As years passed, I realized that despite my own football disconnect, I’d somehow raised Ravens fans. Game days were exciting for my girls. Listening to the whoops and groans coming from downstairs, I felt I was missing out by not watching with them. Wanting to join in was the last push I needed to finally learn the game.

I came for the camaraderie and the snacks, but I didn’t know the half of it back then. Obviously, being a Ravens fan meant instant community in Baltimore. I just didn’t realize how many fans I’d meet outside of Ravens territory:

Granville Island, Vancouver: My husband doubles back to the restaurant we just left to retrieve the Ravens windbreaker he left behind. The hostess whips around from behind the counter, windbreaker in hand. This native British Columbian is a die-hard Lamar Jackson fan eager to talk Baltimore football.

Thunder Bay, Ontario: We may be chillaxing at a place on the northwest shore of Lake Superior, but being Baltimore Ravens fans scores us a free beer flight from the general manager. The Ravens originally snagged him with their defense, and he’s never let go. His dream is to attend a game at M&T Bank Stadium.

Savannah, GA: On a Sunday afternoon, a Flock of Ravens fans gathers as usual at an outdoor bar to watch the game. This is where we meet a trainer for the Buffalo Bills who hopes his NFL career arc eventually leads him to Baltimore.

Reykjavik, Iceland: It’s a few days before Christmas, cold enough that my husband wears his Ravens knit hat. A car passes our part of the sidewalk. “Go Ravens!” its inhabitants holler out the window.

Of course, team recognition works both ways. My daughter’s choice to wear her Ravens hat in Philadelphia sparked a different sort of conversation as several Philadelphia Eagles fans assured us that their team would beat our team that season (I don’t want to talk about it). The exchange was good-natured … but maybe don’t wear the hat in Pittsburgh.

There’s a lot wrong with this world. There are problems with football, too, but rooting for the same team provides that rare opportunity when we’re all on the same side, hoping for the same outcome. I’d like to think that any time this happens, we have an opportunity to bridge some gaps and establish a more human connection.

A new NFL season starts today. Watch responsibly. Be kind. And – Go Ravens!

Those plastic tubs are where the problem lies.

I’ve written before about my major concern with my journals: what happens to them when I’m no longer available to explain, defend, discuss the entries? What happens if someone reads a section that not only makes them feel less than they are, but doesn’t represent how I truly felt about them? After all, my journal entries are not erudite reflections on the world around me. They’re more like workbooks, gathering my scattered thoughts and helping me reel them in. They can read pretty rough.

Because one concern is never enough, lately I’ve developed an additional one. Never mind what I’ve written in those volumes; what about the stuff I haven’t written? I’ve shared pivotal experiences and important conversations with people who matter deeply to me, yet didn’t record them in my journal. Could that make it seem like what happened between us didn’t matter, that it had no impact at all?

There are reasons why some significant events don’t show up in my journal pages, and none of those reasons have anything to do with not making a cut. Sometimes, a situation is too important or profound for words to do it justice. That may sound odd, given that I’m a writer. But I have great respect for both the depth of words and the reach of action, and some events feel too multidimensional to be confined by only two. Reflecting them accurately on paper requires time and space, and I don’t always have enough of either.

Sometimes, something that happens hurts too much. I need time for the fabric of my life to rearrange before I can write about the hit, because committing it to paper makes it “real.” This means an event can be long past by the time I get to it, the emotion of it diluted to a point where I can handle it.

I won’t lie: the weight of what to do with these journals has exercised a tiny bit of a chilling effect on what I write. There are thoughts I don’t want to commit to paper … which would seem to negate the point of a journal altogether. But journaling still works for me. My journal remains a place to process emotions that have nowhere else to go. My little part of the universe is probably a safer place because I keep a journal. I’m just more aware these days of causing future hurt.

I used to joke that I would reread each of my journals at the end of my life, burning or keeping pages as I went along. Back then, that day felt far enough away that I could smile at the image.

I’m not smiling anymore.

Whatever I decide to do with that mountain of journals, I hope they’re merely a footnote in the way people remember me. The absence of complete documentation only proves that I was too busy actually living to take the time to write everything down. I was fully present: loving, absorbing, being there. The journals aren’t an unabridged autobiography – they’re just the scrap paper that helped me show up for the real thing.

I get that. Change can feel catastrophic, even if it’s something we’ve always dreamed about. It often feels like a door slams behind us long before we’re ready to leave the building.

Sometimes I miss parts of my life so intensely that they’re almost tangible. But the past I long for is illusory. I forget that those times I miss so much often felt as uncertain and messy as the present can feel right now. Even if I could re-insert myself into the past, I’m not the same person I was back then, and I wouldn’t react to situations in the same way.

Clinging to the past is grasping at a vapor.

Much of my longing isn’t for the times themselves but for what they represent. I miss my children’s childhoods, but I don’t need to go back to actively raising them. What I really miss is the ability to protect them, nurture them, watch them absorb new experiences and knowledge. I miss the mom friends I had back in those days, watching their children grow alongside mine. When I miss practicing law, it doesn’t mean I want to dive back into the intensity of that world–it’s missing a sense of accomplishment and purpose, using my mind in a very specific way. And missing my band days? No, I don’t want to sing in a band anymore. I just miss who I was back then, the rush of being onstage, the chance to craft a song.

I appreciate the opportunity to time-travel through my memories. Distance provides insight. Revisiting the past helps me understand more than I did the first time I passed through.

Maybe this is what I’d tell my mom, who cried long after she moved into the new house she eventually came to love: change doesn’t move us forward in a straight line–it’s multidimensional. Everything we’ve experienced stays with us. When I loosen my grip on a past event itself, memory gives me new ways to understand who I was then and am now.

And this can lead to some really wonderful places.

For those unfamiliar with mummering, it involves people disguising themselves and coming to your house to make you guess who they are. Their heads will be covered with cloth, making them resemble the Scarecrow from the 1939 movie version of The Wizard of Oz. Their hodgepodge clothing might be stuffed with rags or pillows so that if you poke them (this is a poking situation), you won’t be able to ascertain their body shape. If you answer their knock on the door, they will distort their voices to ask “Any mummers allowed in?” I’m not sure what happens if you say “No.”

Once you figure out a mummer’s identity, they will remove their mask. Then you’ll get to feed them, provide drinks, and become a mummer yourself so that you can join them at their next stop.

This sounds like a zombie apocalypse movie to me.

Mummering has a long history in Newfoundland, most likely brought by settlers from Ireland in the early 19th century. Still, I can’t unknow the fact that mummering was outlawed in Newfoundland in 1861 after a group of masked mummers killed a man.

Which basically confirms every one of my deepest fears.

Newfoundland may be ground zero for mummering, but since the tradition usually occurs around Christmas, I thought a June visit would be safe. It wasn’t. The St. Anthony Iceberg Festival celebrates icebergs, Vikings, spring … and Newfoundland culture. This meant that most of the events happening throughout the region happily promised a visit from mummers. I took these as warnings and knew I’d have to choose carefully if I didn’t want to miss out on other experiences.

I took a closer look at my fear. Which part of mummering concerned me the most? It was supposed to be fun. What made me want to hide?

Covered faces. Disguised voices. Concealed identity. What could possibly go wrong? But if I was being honest, the scariest part to me was that a mummer might force me to engage. I avoid audience participation at all costs. I did not want to be the target of revelry, no matter how “fun” it was cracked up to be.

Continuing southeast across Newfoundland, I finally found a mummering experience I could deal with on my own, safe terms: a performance at the Twillingate New World Island Dinner Theater. It was a Newfoundland “kitchen party” filled with songs and traditions, including … guess. Up on the stage far away from me, dancing mummers appeared. They pranced around with ugly sticks and enthusiasm. I told myself they couldn’t reach me without alighting from the stage and bolting over rows of tables. There was no chance for contact. All I had to do was watch and learn.

I did not hyperventilate or run from the room. Nor did I look away.

But–I still don’t want to meet mummers up close and personal.

Context is everything. I do understand the need to create diversions and entertainment in the midst of a long, isolated winter.

But, please, don’t come to my house.

Late May through early June is the best time to catch sight of icebergs as they drift down Iceberg Alley, a maritime corridor stretching from Labrador down the coast of Newfoundland. There are several prime iceberg-viewing spots along their way south: Twillingate, Bonavista, St. John’s–we plan to hit them all. But for now we’re in St. Lunaire-Griquet/St. Anthony, at the tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula, just in time for the region’s Iceberg Festival. Even though it’s mid-June, the Iceberg Festival is a celebration of spring’s arrival.

We’re not alone in our fascination with these giant frozen visitors. During our travels, we meet people from all over the world who have come simply to follow the icebergs. They find them on their own or make use of the many Facebook groups and websites tracking the location of the season’s behemoths. Icebergfinder.com in particular uses satellite data as well as crowd-sourced photos to keep searchers informed and on the move. You can even sign up for iceberg alerts.

Most of the icebergs we see along Iceberg Alley broke off from glaciers in western Greenland maybe three to six years ago. They’re at least 10,000 years old, but their drift south from the frigid Arctic is the beginning of their end. By the time they reach Iceberg Alley, their days are numbered. They can’t survive the warmer air and water temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean.

We see this with our own personal iceberg in the cove. It changes every day. First, the smaller side breaks off, leaving the “mother ship” in a spurt of independence. Each day, the runaway part of the iceberg floats closer to the shore. It breaks into multiple pieces along the way. One morning, I look out the window to see most of the pieces (“bergy bits” or “growlers,” depending on the size) scattered across various points of our shore.

These particular bits seem destined to melt all alone on our remote shore, but some bergy bits get put to use before they can vanish completely. Icebergs are composed of snow that fell thousands of years ago, long before the atmosphere contained modern pollution and industrial chemicals. Because of this, water from the trapped ice is remarkably clean. Ice cubes made from iceberg water are a thing: people harvest the ice to use in drinks. Local restaurants hack off pieces of bergy bits to chill cocktails. Quidi Vidi Brewery in St. John’s is proud to brew Iceberg Beer, crafted with iceberg water potentially 10,000 to 25,000 years old.

I know that everything has a life cycle. Still, it seems to me that something that has survived for thousands and thousands of years, navigated ocean currents far from home, and finally sailed majestically along the Newfoundland coast (to our viewing pleasure) deserves a better death than the slow, lonely melt we witness outside our windows. The remaining hunk of our iceberg looks smaller and more resigned with each passing day. It’s still in place when we leave, but it’s noticeably diminished, like it knows it’s only a matter of time before it, too, breaks apart to disappear upon the shore.

I hope it at least ends up in a cocktail.

This time I crossed the border in New York. WAZE diverted me from the busy Champlain crossing on I-87, leading me along back roads to enter Lacolle, Quebec from Overton Corners, NY. There were no snaking lines here. The only other car in sight pulled away from the customs booth as I stopped and awaited my turn to be ushered forward.

The customs officer was a Québécois, jovial and enviably bilingual. He started with a joke about how eager I’d been to roll my car forward to his booth. He breezed through a few standard questions about where I was going and how long I planned to stay. Then he veered into questions I’d never heard at a border crossing before: how long had my husband and I been married? Which one of us was the patient one (one of us had to be for a marriage to last so long)? There were a few obligatory questions about weapons and dangerous substances, but they were tossed out as if the answers didn’t really matter, sort of like when my neighborhood wine store asks me (an obvious product of the last century) if I have I.D. This official was more interested in whether we had sufficient medical insurance in place to cover this trip …

…which is when it hit me. The difference between this border crossing and my last went beyond the fact that this was not a popular crossing point. Our customs officer didn’t believe there was a chance in the world that we were dangerous. Why? Because in his perception, we were old. Cute, basically harmless old people just sort of meandering across the border for a little holiday. He was more concerned about senility and medical coverage than he was about whether or not we had an arsenal stashed in our trunk.

I wanted to jump up and down and yell, “Oh, yeah? I could STILL be dangerous if I wanted!” But that seemed like a bad move.

Besides, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

In 2019, I still dyed my hair dark, resting in the illusion that it somehow made me more vital. I’d reached the Peace Arch after driving across the U.S. from the East Coast to Seattle and was about to drive back through Canada. My perception of my own capability was riding high. In fact, I had every intention of taking another massive road trip the following year.

But a lot happened in the years following that 2019 border crossing. Loss, births, weddings …life-altering events come at you no matter where you are, and back then, we absorbed each change against the frightening backdrop of a global pandemic. Why shouldn’t someone in 2026 perceive me differently from my six-and-a-half-years-younger self? I WAS different.

At least that perception thing cuts both ways. The way others perceive us can be startling, but my own shifting thoughts and understanding are what allow me to view each trip through a different lens. I see things I missed before, discover details that once seemed irrelevant.

I wasn’t quite ready to leave the customs checkpoint. The encounter felt like a fun welcome to Quebec. Besides, I’m convinced that with a little more time and conversation, the customs officer might have figured out that like most people, I don’t fit the stereotype he conjured by merely noting the birthdate on my passport.

That’s the real gift of travel, after all. It keeps giving us chances to look beyond generalizations, both in the people we meet and in ourselves.

I switched my odometer from miles to kilometers and pulled away from the booth. Sure, people might perceive me differently than they did six years ago, but I see the world differently now, too. And, honestly? Trying to stay the exact same person forever is highly overrated.

This is not the week for that. I’m prepping for a road trip. There are lists and superseding lists spread across my kitchen countertops. Random piles of supplies are staged in different areas of the house, waiting for me to figure out the most efficient way to pack them into my Prius. Add to the mix our five-year-old granddaughter, come to stay for a few days. Toys, art supplies, and books have joined the cacophony. There’s an air-mattress on my bedroom floor piled high with enough stuffed buddies to populate a pre-school class. A visit with Charlotte is laced with wonderful question after question and a great deal of interactive play. It’s the very best kind of exhausting.

This is just another phase of my life. I’ve always been busy. There have always been things to do, tasks to complete, schedules to juggle. The cast of characters and needs may change, but I’ve always been more of a verb than a noun.

Virginia Woolf famously wrote that in order for a woman to write fiction, she needs (among other things) a room of her own, uninterrupted space to not only create but to think. I would expand that: in order for a woman to navigate the demands of a hectic life, she needs a place of her own to not only create and think, but to simply BE. The space can be tiny. Sometimes, it’s by necessity carved out of a bigger room. But it needs to be wholly hers, arranged as she needs to inspire clarity amidst the whirlwind outside its boundaries.

It took a long time for me to admit that I sometimes require a moment (or twenty) to recalibrate. We’re programmed to keep going. It feels like weakness to need a breather, however brief. But energy can’t continually pour out without providing an opportunity for it to refill.

I do have a space of my own. It probably speaks only to me, but that’s all it has to do. It’s my island of calm, my place to take a deep breath, gather my thoughts, and remember who I mean to be.

The most effective re-fuel allows you to bring your best to the world once you re-emerge into it. I’m not always good at that. I have to be careful to use my space for renewal rather than escape. But I’m a work-in-progress and a huge fan of tiny fresh starts.

Like now. It’s time to leave this room, assess all the moving pieces, and add my own unique energy to the constantly shifting mosaic that is life.