Coming Together: With Sommer

Author's Note:

My father died from leukemia when I was four. It wasn't long between diagnoses and death, sadly. Mere weeks was all it took due to various circumstances. That's why you're holding this book. That's the whole thing in a nutshell.

Recently, the man and I watched a movie that I didn't think was very good at all. I think I might have even thrown out a few zingers and snide remarks along the way. But at the end of this never ending film was a scene with a small boy and his dead father. The father had just died. The boy was alone with him. I surprised myself by suddenly falling to pieces. It was as if I had a rip cord and someone had pulled it, allowing all that stuff I guess I still carry around in me to fall out in a messy riot around my feet. You'd think I'd be over it by now—well, you might not, but for some reason I do. See, I turned 39 this year (not sure how that happened) and my father's death is still a factor in my life.

It has—not to be dramatic—influenced a lot of how I see the world. How I process people, events, and circumstances. It affects my parenting and if you guessed it's affected how I deal with men, you would be right. Thank goodness, I navigated that treacherous course and found a stellar one I still have in my clutches… I mean, we are still happily married.

I'm fairly well known in my writing life and my real life for my sense of humor. I'm told for the most part I get it from him. Also his smile, coloring, facial expressions and mannerisms (I have my mother's eyes). What I did not get from him was years and years of memories and a lifetime of interaction and love.

My modest hope for this book is that even a few sales will buy someone like my dad and some little girl (or little boy) an extra year or two of memories and time. But I'm greedy so I really wish for—in a perfect world—thirty or more. I would hope that this book could prevent sentences that start with "Your grandfather, who died when I was young…" Which is how I start my sentences to my kids about my dad.

That is my modest hope for this book. So, you there, holding it, thank you. From the bottom of my hearts. My thirty-nine year old heart and my four year old heart that still beats on inside of me when I miss my dad.

So, speaking of that sense of humor I inherited—yes, I think my dad would get a kick out of sexy books benefiting people. Sexy books are powerful. They can entertain, stimulate, titillate, and thanks to amazing people like Alessia Brio and her merry band of smut peddlers, sexy books can save.

Here we go. On with the book. Thanks to Mr. Tandy for the foreword. (He is one of my favorite editors and in my eyes a hero as a survivor, a husband to his lovely wife and a father to his young son.) This one's for you, dad. I love you, I love you, I love you. Always have, always will.

XOXO

~ Sommer