Excerpt from Twelve Months by Steven Manchester

Hi guys!! I wanted to share a book excerpt with you today from Twelve Months by Steven Manchester. This sounds like a very moving book. I really like the cover too. It's so simple and pretty.

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• Publisher: Story Plant, The
• Publication date: 8/14/2012
• Pages: 326

Purchase: Amazon | B&N

Overview

Don DiMarco has a very good life – a family he loves, a comfortable lifestyle, passions and interests that keep him amused. He also thought he had time, but that turned out not to be the case. Faced with news that might have immediately felled most, Don now wonders if he has time enough. Time enough to show his wife the romance he didn’t always lavish on her. Time enough to live out his most ambitious fantasies. Time enough to close the circle on some of his most aching unresolved relationships. Summoning an inner strength he barely realized he possessed, Don sets off to prove that twelve months is time enough to live a life in full.

A glorious celebration of each and every moment that we’re given here on Earth, as well as the eternal bonds that we all share, TWELVE MONTHS is a stirring testament to the power of the human spirit.

Excerpt 

On Sunday morning, we decided to spend the second half of our getaway in Oak Bluffs and Edgartown. My wife insisted, "We have to visit the gingerbread houses in Oak Bluffs first." Known by the locals as "the Cottage Colony," this cliquey community is famous for its storybook gingerbread cottages, three hundred thirty in all, encircling Trinity Park. With rocking chairs on the front porches and candle-lit Japanese lanterns glowing at night, names such as Time Remembered, Rose Crest and Alice’s Wonderland made Bella coo. Many of the gothic resort cottages – adorned with their ornamental scroll work, decorative shingling, porch aprons, arched double doors and candy cane colors of pink, blue and green – contained miniature gardens behind white picket fences.
      “They look like doll houses,” I said.
      She nodded. “They’re wonderful.”
      Rising out of the center was the Tabernacle, an open-air cathedral with dominant wrought iron arches, colored windows and an octagonal cupola. The Trinity United Methodist Church was just next door. It had a classic New England spire that had been hit three times by lightning. With blown-glass windows and a stamped-tin interior, I remembered visiting it as a kid. "It's still my favorite," I told Bella.
      Beyond the summer cottages that rented for more than it would have cost us to put both Madison and Pudge through college, the Annual Oak Bluffs Harbor Festival beckoned.
      It was a junk-food junkie’s paradise. The air was thick with the distinct aromas of cotton candy and fried dough. While a live band played on the dock and young children competed in a chalk art contest on the cement walkway, we ate as we walked along and looked at the boats. I'd given my belly a rest, so we shared a pulled pork sandwich from a local Bar-B-Q smokehouse, and then an expensive lobster roll overflowing with claw meat. I’m dying, I figured, but I’m not dead yet. At the end of the dock, a heavy-set woman dressed like a rag doll yelled out, "Strawberry shortcakes! Get your strawberry shortcakes here!"
      We stopped and I turned to Bella. “Oh, good…fruit!” I said, excitedly.
      She laughed, and we bought one and split it. It was made with fresh strawberries, a real shortcake and sweet whipped cream. Two bites in, I almost told Raggedy Ann that I loved her.
      As we strolled further down the pier, I stopped and gave Bella a hug. I was starting to understand that it wasn’t so much about doing anything; about feeling or even thinking anything. It was about being; being who I was, and being with the woman who owned my heart. I looked into her eyes and kissed her again.
      “What is it?” she asked.
      “Nothing,” I said. “It’s just that I love you.”
      We hugged for a while, swaying together on the dock, while the crowd milled around us. Sometimes all we have to do is breathe, I thought. The rest is out of our hands.



Thank you Steven for providing this excerpt to feature on my blog. This book sounds wonderful!