Another Burst of Light

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Around a year ago I wrote an essay about my friend Jamie Sumner. It was more or less a book review disguised as a love letter. Or perhaps it was a love letter disguised as a book review?

Either way, that particular blogpost allowed me to:

1) satisfy my sometimes insatiable need to overshare personal stories;
2) praise and promote Jamie’s splendiferous memoir about her skirmish with infertility;
3) express my gratitude for all the support Jamie offers up while I cope with my mother’s slow but steady demise from dementia.

She shoots arrows of light into the sky for me, she does. Yup. I email Jamie to tell her I’m flying down to Florida and what does she write in return? She tells me not to worry; she’ll be “shooting prayers into the sky like arrows.”

I’ve felt those arrows. Those prayers. That light of hers pushing away the darkness. Jamie’s presence in my life has been nothing short of miraculous.

But here’s the thing: Jamie isn’t just an arrow-shooting friend. She’s also the mother of three beautiful children, one of whom is differently-abled. (Her firstborn, Charlie, has Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome and cerebral palsy).

Charlie is the inspiration for Jamie’s new book–the book I expect to be one of the most talked-about, gushed over, and positively reviewed Middle-Grade novels on the planet. Friendsx, I give you:

So, okay, maybe this here blogpost is yet another love letter disguised as a book promo or perhaps it’s a book promo disguised as a love letter? Either way, it’s allowing me to:

1) congratulate Jamie on her BOOK RELEASE DAY! release-day (We authors take this very seriously. I mean, hello? Your shiny new book is born today! It’s like your birthday, only it has fewer candles and more words.);
2) tell everyone I know to go out and buy this book. Buy it now. Today. Buy it before midnight and, if you prove to me you did, I will shoot a few beams of light in your general direction.