PLEASE NOTE-In order to assist in some small way, I am donating all royalties I receive from the sale of this book to help with relief for my fellow neighbors here in Columbia, SC from the devastating flooding. Many in my beautiful city have lost everything and since most did not have flood insurance they are truly lost. I hope you will help and by so doing 1/3 of what you will spend is helping someone in need. God bless and Thank you. Sandy Vassallo Now for the synopsis: At the age of 63, Maddy Hudson is content with her life. On most days she feels young at heart and grateful for her life in South Carolina. Although her husband is gone, she has her daughter, two precious grandchildren and a close circle of friends. One summer morning, Maddy learns of ninety-five year old Katherine Tweed's passing. Since Katherine, "Katie" held a special place in her heart for most of her life, Maddy makes a quick decision to return to her hometown of Madison, Ohio with her best friend Lena Sullivan to pay her respects and spend a little time in the small lakeside town. Maddy then spends a couple of weeks reconnecting with her past, while Lena struggles with some personal issues. The short time she and Lena spend along the shores of Lake Erie bring back a flood of memories and emotions, some wonderful and some painful, of the time, in the summer of 1958 when at the age of seven, Maddy would meet the illusive and mysterious Katie Tweed while out playing with her best friend, Billy Murphy, a rough and tumble kid who lived around the corner. Maddy and Billy would learn that all the crazy stories which had circulated the neighborhood with regards to "Old Lady Tweed" were anything but true. They would come to know the kind and lonely recluse as Katie, beautiful, kind-hearted, a lover of art and music, and Maddy, in particular, would not only come to love her, but would need her desperately when tragedy would make its way into her young life. While reconnecting with both the carefree days of her childhood and the painful memory of personal loss, Maddy will make a few more discoveries along the way, proving that once in a blue moon, good things come our way when we least expect them.
About the Author: Sandy Vassallo, retired mother of two, lives in South Carolina with her husband John of forty-two years. She is a retired teacher who spent thirty-four years in public education and spent twenty-four of those years teaching art to both high school and middle school students. After losing her mother in 2004 to breast cancer and then receiving the same diagnosis herself that same year, Sandy took to writing. In 2006 she published her first novel and soon discovered she had found a true passion and since publishing that first novel is now happy to be publishing her fifth. Aside from writing Sandy loves spending time with family, particularly her precious and beautiful grandchildren. She loves painting and drawing when she can pry herself away from writing and loves to travel with her husband and best friend John.