Jane is having trouble coping with her only child’s death. She just assumes he was someone special to her. She hadn’t been a part of her daughters life for the last year or so, and she doesn’t know who Caleb is. Jane is forty years old and lost her twenty year old daughter, Melody to addiction. The first time Jane lays eyes on Caleb, it is at her daughter, Melody’s gravesite.

The title of this book fits perfectly and while reading, I found myself falling in love with this story and it’s characters. There is no better feeling as a reader than having zero expectations for a book and being blown away by it! That’s exactly what happened to me while reading Jane’s Melody. Books upon books to feed a boy’s feverish dreams and the boy now grown, it’s still books that kindle the memories of those dreams on these long winter nights. Books that taught without preaching the difference between wrong and right. Books to help me escape, books for courage when I needed to stay and fight. And while I've walked through my own hell, made my own mistakes, and found my own redemption, always there have been books.

Nothing has affected me as much as reading has. Walls of worlds bound and waiting for me. The heavy door, the warmth, the light, the old wood floors-the bookstore! Smells of paper and leather and ink. Salvation Army bells, white lights strung in sidewalk trees, bundled shoppers, hunched and hurrying, kicking up little snowdrifts scattered by the wind. Johnson waiting at her door the smell of Avon powder, her smile as she pressed an envelope into my palm-ten dollars and a peppermint candy cane thank you!Įvening now, running downtown. I remember snowmen and igloos and icy trails through the white and wondrous woods. I remember rubber bands and ink stained hands. I feel the canvas newspaper bag on my shoulders, the weight of Sunday's headlines heavy on my mind. Foghorns blowing on the mist-covered bay. I remember racing to dress, struggling with my boots – “Here, don't forget your mittens.” I remember the soft thump of that first footstep, the tracks looking back, and everything new and blanketed in quiet white. If your book club or organization would like to arrange an appearance from me, either in person or via Skype, please send me a private message at Facebook with your request. Cultivator of roses, apparently to feed a mob of blacktail deer.

Recreational pilot and provider of foodstuffs to one very hungry Maine Coon.

Jane's Melody by Ryan Winfield