I wrote a post years ago about receiving a big box of books. Collected by a dear friend and signed by the authors, this box was a gift of words and strength. Yesterday, I came home to find a similarly sized box. It was marked by the telltale geometric logo of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and I knew right away what was inside. But how could it be? The Rosemary Spell doesn’t release until December 1. How could it be sitting in my foyer?
I dropped my grocery bags and ran to the kitchen. I used scissors to open the box, eager but careful. I pulled back the cardboard flaps, and there they were. Stacks of my book. The Rosemary Spell.
This box of books is different from that one I received years ago because all the books in the box are the same, and I wrote them. But its arrival similarly marks the end of a long journey, and it is also a box filled with words and strength, strength I drew from so many places, including the wonderful books that have meant so much to me throughout my life.
Seeing the books in the box, imagining each copy in a reader’s hands, I dare to hope that The Rosemary Spell will go out into the world and matter to people. When I think of all the books that have been packed in boxes and shipped all over the world to homes and stores and libraries and schools, I can’t help but marvel at the company I’m in. Books carry whole lives and whole worlds in their pages, and receiving a box of books, cutting through the tape, pulling back the cardboard is akin to opening up the world.
The Rosemary Spell will not be available to the public until December 1st, but it waits, ready to give words and strength to all who open the book and unpack its story.