Until Again (9 page)

They’d been a great team that way.

Becky touched the page and tried to read the description, though her thoughts were far away. She had no idea how long she drifted off, but when she focused on the words again, she realized she’d been spending more time on this tonight than she should. It was late, and she had to present a project tomorrow.

She closed the book and stood up from her desk. She moved to put the journal back on her bookshelf. Before she did, though, she kissed the journal’s spine.

“Until again,” she said before sliding the book into its place.

This story jumps forward four years in
Blue.
In that novel, Becky and Chris have drifted further apart and both are experiencing significant crises. Chris believes that he has lost his daughter and he feels disconnected from his life while he pines for the past. Becky has bounced back from the pain of divorce better (Polly has remarried and created a stable home for her daughter) but she’s starting to feel dizzy spells and other reminders of when she was sick.

Meanwhile, Tamarisk, separated from the storytellers who created it, has continued to evolve. Miea has grown into the role of queen, though the challenges of guiding a kingdom like Tamarisk are never easy. Her biggest challenge is that a blight similar to the Great Blight that nearly destroyed Tamarisk has been spotted. The kingdom’s greatest scientists can’t say what’s wrong, and the blight is spreading.

At the height of their desperation, Becky and Miea reach out for answers – and somehow discover each other. Miea finds a way to bring Becky to Tamarisk and Becky marvels at seeing the world her father and she created when things were better between them. She makes several trips to Tamarisk, each proving wondrous. The discovery that Tamarisk has come to life gives Becky and Chris the opportunity to reconnect. Eventually, Becky even finds a way to bring Chris there.

Circumstances, however, have not changed. The blight continues to ravage Tamarisk, and Becky is feeling increasingly sicker. Becky, Miea, and Chris have come together at this remarkable juncture – but what does it mean for their future?

I’m currently in the process of revising my first two novels, both of which had been published under the name “Ronald Anthony” (“Ronald” for “Aronica” and “Anthony” in honor of my father). The first,
The Forever Year
is the story of Jesse Sienna, a man in his thirties, and Mickey, the elderly father Jesse’s never really gotten the chance to know. When Mickey shares a story with Jesse from his distant past, Jesse learns things about his father that none of his siblings are aware of, and he learns something about romantic love that he never believed possible.
New York Times
bestselling author Lisa Kleypas called it, “Wry, tender, beautifully written,” and the novel has been translated into several languages, but I frankly think it needs work. I’m planning to have a cleaned-up version of
The Forever Year
out under my name early in 2012.

The other Ronald Anthony novel that I’ll be republishing under my name is
Flash and Dazzle.
This is the story of Rich Flaster (“Flash”) and Eric Dazman (“Dazzle”), two guys in their late twenties who have been best friends since college and who have become emerging stars in New York’s advertising world. Things could not be better for them, until Eric gets sick. Then they discover how much they truly mean to each other while also discovering how little they really knew each other. I’m planning to have
Flash and Dazzle
out in revised form in the spring of 2012.

Neither of these novels has any magic of the Tamarisk variety in them. If that’s the only part of
Blue
or
Until Again
that you’ve liked (assuming, of course, that you liked anything in these stories at all), then
The Forever Year
and
Flash and Dazzle
aren’t for you. However, many of the themes I’ve explored in the Tamarisk stories are in the earlier novels as well – family dynamics, relationships put to the test under difficult circumstances, dealing with crises, and redefining connections, to name a few. If you get the chance to read them, I’ll be interested in your thoughts.

As always, you can reach me at
[email protected]
with any questions, comments, or interpretations.

Thanks so much for reading.