The Solace

These transcendent, lyrical essays on the West announced Gretel Ehrlich as a major American writer—“Wyoming has found its Whitman” (Annie Dillard). Poet and filmmaker Gretel Ehrlich went to Wyoming in 1975 to make the first in a series of documentaries when her partner died. Ehrlich stayed on and found she couldn’t leave. The Solace of Open Spaces is a chronicle of her first years on “the planet of Wyoming,” a personal journey into a place, a feeling, and a way of life. Ehrlich captures both the otherworldly beauty and cruelty of the natural forces—the harsh wind, bitter cold, and swiftly changing seasons—in the remote reaches of the American West. She brings depth, tenderness, and humor to her portraits of the peculiar souls who also call it home: hermits and ranchers, rodeo cowboys and schoolteachers, dreamers and realists. Together, these essays form an evocative and vibrant tribute to the life Ehrlich chose and the geography she loves. Originally written as journal entries addressed to a friend, The Solace of Open Spaces is raw, meditative, electrifying, and uncommonly wise. In prose “as expansive as a Wyoming vista, as charged as a bolt of prairie lightning,” Ehrlich explores the magical interplay between our interior lives and the world around us (Newsday).

Mark Casey did not expect to fall in love. But from the minute he saw Joanne Lynch across the garden of a Dublin pub, it seemed that nothing else was possible. They soon start a relationship that is as chaotic and exciting as the city they share. But Mark is guiltily drawn back to his family and the land they have farmed for generations, as he discovers the truth behind a feud that threatens to destroy this passionate love affair. Just as they appear to have brought the warring factions together, one single tragic moment undoes everything. Solace is a beautiful, breathtaking story about the city and the country, the old and the new, the thrill of new love and the inescapable bond between parents and children.

How can we find solace when we face the death of loved ones? How can we find solace in our own death? When philosopher Joshua Glasgow's mother was diagnosed with cancer, he struggled to answer these questions for her and for himself. Though death and immortality introduce some of the most basic and existentially compelling questions in philosophy, Glasgow found that the dominant theories came up short. Recalling the last months of his mother's life, Glasgow reveals the breakthrough he finally arrived at for himself, from which readers can learn and find solace. When we are grateful for life, we value all of it, and this includes death, its natural culmination. Just as we are grateful for the value in our lives, we can affirm this value in death. This is how to face death in a way that is both rational and comforting--in a way that provides solace. Too often we think about death as nothing but a loss. But if we shift our thinking, we can focus on how the goodness of life radiates to all its parts, even to death itself. In this way, we can find solace in death without having to resort to sentimentalism, and we can do so in a way that is equally relevant for the religious and non-religious. This path to solace provides a reassuring and significant tool for those grappling with the fact that we pass away.

In Consolations David Whyte unpacks aspects of being human that many of us spend our lives trying vainly to avoid - loss, heartbreak, vulnerability, fear - boldly reinterpreting them, fully embracing their complexity, never shying away from paradox in his relentless search for meaning. Beginning with 'Alone' and closing with 'Withdrawal', each piece in this life-affirming book is a meditation on meaning and context, an invitation to shift and broaden our perspectives on life: pain and joy, honesty and anger, confession and vulnerability, the experience of feeling overwhelmed and the desire to run away from it all. Through this lens, procrastination may be a necessary ripening; hiding an act of freedom; and shyness something that accompanies the first stage of revelation. Consolations invites readers into a poetic and thoughtful consideration of words whose meaning and interpretation influence the paths we choose and the way we traverse them throughout our lives.

Maria Isidora Schalalci's husband, Albert, is suffering from kidney failure but refuses to accept the standard form of treatment. Albert if a curmudgeon, however Maria stays with him and tolerates his shenanigans, and through her tenacity Albert escapes the inevitable. The willow tree by the pond, her hiding place from her husband, helps her maintain her sanity.

Second chances always come with a price. Colonel Liam Wessex is happy to see Jamie Callahan and Kyle Brannigan finally married, but it leaves him wishing his own life wasn’t such a mess. With his classified identity revealed to the British public, Liam struggles with the transition into civilian life. When MI6 Agent Oliver Archer stumbles back into his world, Liam has a second chance to make things right between them, if only the prickly agent would let him close again. Oliver thought he’d done enough to cut Liam out of his life for good after a disastrous night together during their youth. But when terrorists target London and Liam is called back to active duty, they’re forced to work together for the good of queen and country. Liam may not be the spoiled prince Oliver once knew but that doesn’t make up for the heartache he caused. Amidst royal engagements and clandestine missions, Liam and Oliver find themselves facing a threat that could tear them apart all over again. In the Solace is the sixth and final book in an M/M military science fiction fantasy series full of British royalty, forced proximity, second chance romance and spicy romance for fans of Vicious by VE Schwab and Marvel’s X-Men and Avengers. The series should be read in order.

Using small-town life as a springboard to explore the loftiest of ideas, Haven Kimmel’s irresistibly smart and generous first novel is at once a romance and a haunting meditation on grief and faith. Langston Braverman returns to Haddington, Indiana (pop. 3,062) after walking out on an academic career that has equipped her for little but lording it over other people. Amos Townsend is trying to minister to a congregation that would prefer simple affirmations to his esoteric brand of theology. What draws these difficult—if not impossible—people together are two wounded little girls who call themselves Immaculata and Epiphany. They are the daughters of Langston’s childhood friend and the witnesses to her murder. And their need for love is so urgent that neither Langston nor Amos can resist it, though they do their best to resist each other. Deftly walking the tightrope between tragedy and comedy, The Solace of Leaving Early is a joyous story about finding one’s better self through accepting the shortcomings of others.