Let me tell you something about turning seventy. Nobody throws you a parade. There's no certificate that arrives in the mail congratulating you on making it this far. What you do get is a whole lot of people treating you like you're already halfway to the grave, speaking a little louder when they talk to you, asking if you need help with things, you've been doing perfectly well since you were six years old in 1955. Well, I've got news for everyone: I'm seventy years old, and I'm not dead yet. Not even close. My husband? Yes, he's dead. It's been five years now. And for a long time, too long, if I'm being honest, I acted as if I'd died right along with him. Wore my widow's weeds like they were sewn onto my skin. Became a professional mourner. An expert at being the sad woman at the end of the pew, the one people whispered about at church socials. "Poor thing," they'd say. "She's taking it so hard." And I was. God knows I was. Forty-eight years of marriage doesn't just evaporate because someone's heart stops beating. You don't just shake it off like water after a swim. But here's what I've figured out, sitting in this house that's too quiet, eating dinner at a table set for one, watching television shows he would have hated: I earned the right to have the life I want now. Not the life everyone thinks I should have. Not the life that looks appropriate for a woman my age. The life I want. George Burns, now there was a man who understood something about aging, once said, "You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old." I've got that quote taped to my bathroom mirror, right next to the magnifying mirror I use to pluck the chin hairs that have decided to throw a party on my face without my permission. Every morning, I look at those words, and I think: He's right. Getting older is mandatory. Getting old? That's a choice. And I'm choosing not to.

The Night Diver A Diego De LaCruz Thriller Night in New York did not fall gently in 1979. It came down hard over brick walls, rusted fire escapes, and rain-slicked streets that seemed to hold every secret the city wanted buried. In The Night Driver, Diego De LaCruz moves through that darkness behind the wheel of a yellow Checker cab, hunting for answers in a city where danger waits at every curb. Under the sodium glow of tenement windows and streetlamps, he is not alone. Sakura stands beside him, silent and lethal, as the two of them face a world of ambushes, betrayal, and violence that never announces itself until it is too late. This is not the polished New York of postcards and nostalgia. This is the old city. Gritty. Damaged. Alive. The Night Driver is a hard-edged thriller about loyalty, survival, and war in the shadows, where every wet street can turn into a battlefield, and every ride can become the last.

For the first few years after Tommy died, I couldn't imagine being anything other than his widow; always married to him in my heart. His wife. Even though he wasn't here anymore, I was still playing the role. Still being Mrs. Tommy Simmons. Still making his favorite butterbeans and cornbread and any kind of fried meat, even though there was nobody there to eat it. Still sleeping on my side of the bed, leaving his side untouched, like he might come back and need the space. I was an extension of him. A footnote. The plus-one who'd lost her plus. And here's the thing nobody tells you about being a widow in your sixties: you're supposed to be okay with that. You're supposed to wear your grief like a badge of honor, prove your love by how thoroughly you disappear into the absence of your husband. Well, I tried that. I really did. And it nearly killed me. The isolation was crushing. The loneliness was like a physical weight on my chest. I was a receptionist at a Regional Hospital and a Lay Chaplain. I saw people every day. My granddaughter Miranda and her wonderful son, my six-year-old great-grandson, Eric, lived with me. They were such joy to my aching heart. But, not the same as having my own life.

Hi im deone Graham. I wrote the Many masks of a borderline. It's my memoir. https://a.co/d/04wNvFMe check it out. Thank you

Hi there! So happy to be here. Actually found this group because a scammer posing as pulpwood book club sent me an email. When doing my due diligence came across a post about it being fraud. I just self published my first book and my second book is about to head to the editor.