I have a vivid memory of my mother’s fortieth birthday party. I must have been fourteen. We’d just moved back from Germany and were settling into a new house with one of those dramatic catwalks overlooking the living room. I remember standing up there, looking down at all her friends, listening to the “over the hill” jokes, and thinking forty was so…old.
Time, of course, has a sense of humor.
As the calendar flips toward my own fortieth at the end of the month, it feels like a good moment to take stock of what got me here.
In my thirties, I earned a PhD.
Moved cross-country. Then moved again. And again.
Published my first academic book.
Signed a two-book fiction deal.
At thirty-five, I married.
At thirty-five, I was widowed.
I published The Resemblance.
Moved to Nashville.
Published The Professor.
And now, just shy of forty, I’m about to become a first-time homeowner, with a wedding and a new book on the way.
Needless to say, my thirties have been full. Joy and heartbreak. Beginnings and endings. Thirty-five was a particularly wonderful and terrible year.
But if the last ten years have taught me anything, it’s this: take nothing for granted. Not a phone call. Not a friendship. Not time with the people you love. Not even the feeling of the sun on your skin. We’re promised nothing.
So here’s to living with our hearts wide open.
And in that spirit, I’m sharing a few of the big and small things that have moved me this birthday month.
A few books I’ve loved lately.
The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett: A funny and tender novel about an old man’s cross-country quest to find his high-school crush—joined by his daughter, two orphans, and a death-predicting cat.
Come hear me in conversation with Annie at Wine & Words Book Fair on March 8th.
Pinky Swear by Danielle Girard: One of the most original thrillers I’ve read in a long time. When Lexi’s best friend and surrogate, Mara, goes missing, she’ll stop at nothing to find her. But as the truth unravels, we’re left to wonder: how well do we know our friends—and how far would we go for the people we love.
Served Him Right by Lisa Unger: This book pulled me out of a reading slump—an unputdownable thriller that blends tense domestic suspense with a sharp exploration of power, sisterhood, and revenge. Add voodoo dolls, hidden rituals, and generational herbal lore, and you have a dark, mesmerizing mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end.
What’s been in my inbox and inspiring me lately.
As a professor, I taught German language, literature, and film—but literature was always my favorite. What better place to explore the human condition than in stories? That’s why I love Maria Popova’s The Marginalian. She turns to authors, poets, and philosophers to uncover what they can teach us about the beauty and complexity of being alive.
Two of my favorites:
Love Anyway — Popova reflects on loving in the face of certain loss. It echoes that Flaming Lips lyric: “Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die.” Simple, devastating, and true. So why love at all? Because loving is part of living. We don’t stop living because we know we’ll die. Why stop loving because love may end?
Probable Impossibilities — Here, Popova writes about the staggering odds stacked against our existence—the countless conditions that had to align for any of us to be here at all. It’s a beautiful reminder of how precious each life is.
A few words I can’t stop thinking about.
“What I know about living is the pain is never just ours
Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo
So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window
When I can see what I couldn’t see before.”
— from “The Nutritionist” by Andrea Gibson
I read this poem in the year after Gray died, and it’s stayed with me since.
That first year, I talked about his death constantly. It was all I could think about. What surprised me was how speaking my grief invited others to share theirs. Losses, divorces, illnesses—the quiet heartbreaks they’d been carrying alone. My grief became a window, and through it we could see one another more clearly.
This month I’ll turn forty, and Gray will not. I’ve lived five years he didn’t get to see. In that time, I’ve learned that grief doesn’t just mark what we’ve lost; it deepens our tenderness for what remains.
And maybe that’s the work of living: to speak our pain when we can, to listen when others do, and to meet one another with gentleness. If my thirties taught me anything, it’s that grief and joy can coexist.
It feels like every other show lately is based on a novel, and I’ve been binging His & Hers, adapted from Alice Feeney’s thriller. The book is set in a small English village, but the series relocates the story to Dahlonega, Georgia, the town where I was first married. I can’t help scanning each scene for familiar landmarks. Georgia does make a pretty perfect backdrop for crime dramas. (And if any studios are reading, The Resemblance and The Professor are set in Athens, just saying!)
Former news anchor Anna Andrews, played by the phenomenal Tessa Thompson, is among the first reporters on the scene of a gruesome murder in the North Georgia woods. Her estranged husband is the lead detective. Neither wants to admit how closely they’re connected to the victim.
What follows is a tense cat-and-mouse game, except both cat and mouse seem capable of murder and sabotage. A few moments require some suspension of disbelief (why is the lead detective still on the case when he has so many clear conflicts of interest?!), but overall it’s a gripping whodunit and a lesson in strategic withholding and backstory.
As always, I’m looking for recommendations. If you’re watching something you love, send it my way in the comments.
I own a lot of books. This becomes especially clear every time I move.
I do donate and pass them along. My mom probably has the largest secondhand library. But when I feel that little twinge of guilt at the very heavy books we’re moving, I think of a New York Times essay by Roger Rosenblatt and his simple defense:
“I would no sooner get rid of them than I would an old friend.”
What happens when Bowie’s not let in while I write…
Let me in already!
In continued support of our fellow Nashville Authors, this month’s highlight is Jimin Han and her latest book, The Apology.
Part ghost story and part family epic, The Apology is an incisive tale of sisterhood and diaspora, reaching back to the days of Japanese colonialism and the Korean War, and told through the singular voice of a defiant, funny, and unforgettable centenarian.
Jimin has her own newsletter. As a sign-up thank you, you'll receive an exclusive, behind-the-scenes pictorial of her trip to Korea that helped her in her research for The Apology. You can subscribe to her newsletter here.
A few updates from the author life.
The big marketing push for Indie Darling hasn’t started yet, which is, if I’m honest, a little nerve-racking.
Will people hear about it?
Will they buy it?
Will they like it?
I don’t know! I hope so!
But advance reader copies are slowly making their way into the world. One landed in my mother’s hands and, if you have the good fortune to know her or have been following for a while, you know she’s my most enthusiastic champion. She tucked it into her suitcase for vacation, which means Indie Darling has officially gone international. Hello from Antigua!
And if you’re wondering what to get me for my fortieth birthday, might I suggest the extremely practical and not-at-all self-serving gift of preordering Indie Darling? It ships, it sings, and it requires no wrapping.
And thank you, as always, for reading and sharing this little corner of the internet. This letter box wouldn’t mean much without the people who open it.
Until next time,
—Lauren
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