Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Okay, it’s that time of year. I’m kissing summertime goodbye and giving an early and robust wave to my old friend, autumn. I’m ready for pumpkin spice lattes, aren’t you? I’m also ready for my book release this fall…

Before fall gets here, I’m going on one last trip to end my summer. My friend and I are going to Charleston for a few days, where I shall lovingly soak up the last bit of beachy sunshine. Like my soon-to-be-published novel states, summer love never makes it to fall.

So let me share a quick story with you about a childhood romance.

Picture it: my sister and I playing in the yard when I was 8 years old, and she was 11.

We’d spent the majority of fall hiding behind a hedge of bushes, throwing acorns over it, and making sure to do so right as our mysterious boy neighbor sped by on his four-wheeler. Ah, we had gotten his attention, just like we wanted… Then Thanksgiving night came around.

Our aunt just happened to be next-door neighbors with this boy, so, yet again, we’d spend most of that holiday evening standing at their dividing fence tossing mulch at the boy playing basketball.

It was all fun and games until my sister’s ring flew off her finger and over the fence.

And so the anticipation began. . . Would the boy find the ring? Would he romantically swoop in on his four-wheeler and return it to my sister? Would he ask her on a date? Would he even find it at all?

We spent weeks waiting for the charming Cinderella moment to occur, but my aunt called shortly thereafter to explain that she’d found the ring in her backyard, right where we had been mischievously throwing things over the fence.

As fate would have it, the boy finally made his identity known to my sister and me, and he started coming around after school, eating dinner with my family, and swimming in our pool, which was all rather romantic for a couple of kids and an 8-year-old sister observing.

Then the schoolyear ended, and summer came to an end. The childhood romance fizzled out, and, with the ring secured on my sister’s finger, came autumn, where summer love had no place.

The boy moved away. The girl moved on. And I grew up writing love stories. (Coincidence???)

Fast forward to today, and summer is coming to a close. Out with a season of book edits, and in with a season of my book release. While there’s comfort in the things that tie me to summertime (such as my very own book), the upcoming season holds an exciting future for me.

Out with the old, in with the new.

And now for the rest of the year.