February

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Certain months are just harder than most. February is my dreaded month and my heroine, Katherine Hathaway, agrees. In this scene from my soon-to-be-released novel, Brooklyn Bitters, she foresees the hardest month of her life:

I sipped hot tea, stretched out on a recliner, gazing out my bedroom window. February had arrived with a whimper. The vivid colors of fall were now raked or withered, and gray clouds and misty rain cast their gloom over the city. A few Christmas trees laid decaying on the curb and the neighbor a few doors down begrudgingly leaned an old ladder against his house to remove the holiday lights. All of the tragedies in my life happened in February, twenty-eight days holding my breath and waiting for it to be over. 

And here we are, in February. It can’t be a coincidence that February carries such a wallop.