Cold Water on a Roaring Flame

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

There was immediate silence as though cold water had been poured on a roaring flame.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

After having devoured our gratefully-received evening meal and enjoying a good night’s sleep at the strangest accommodation of our trip, Dad and I headed out bright and early for the third-and-final leg of our France At War tour.

If I think back, I’m pretty sure we spent most of the 4 hour drive attempting some semblance of conversation while mentally preparing ourselves for what we knew was to come.

Having seen our fair share of military memorials and graves by this point, we were fairly certain this last stretch was destined to be the most emotional of all. I mean, we were culminating the whole thing with a Remembrance Day ceremony at Vimy Ridge. As far as World War history goes, as a Canadian, it doesn’t get much more emotionally poignant than that.

I think I was putting so much mental effort into preparing myself for the wave of despair I knew to expect at Vimy that I neglected to spare a thought for our next step: Dieppe.

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Top Five Books of 2025

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

“…I kept having those sudden, subtle, and possibly microchemical raptures – little lights flicking deep inside the brain tissue – that some people experience when they finally find words for a very simple and yet till then utterly unspeakable feeling. When someone else’s words enter your consciousness like that, they become small conceptual light-marks.”

-Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your holiday season was as beautiful as it could be, whatever the circumstances in which you spent it.

Our little family, unfortunately, spent the two weeks battling various iterations of the flu (aside for my 6 year old who somehow managed to remain completely healthy) but we still found little moments to cherish each other and bathe in gratitude for all that we have. Thankfully we are all much healthier now!

In anticipation of, hopefully, a much more robust year of writing I wanted to start 2026 off right by celebrating an achievement from 2025 that I’m particularly proud of – I crushed my reading goal! I had set it at a modest 25 books (for 2025, obviously. I know, I know, how clever) and ended up finishing 52 instead. This meant that not only did I meet my declared goal but also my secret goal to read one book per week over the course of the year. Did I read one book per week? Maybe not. But…I read the equivalent! So I’m counting it.

I thought I would start this year off easy with a look at the top 5 books I read last year and why they were so impactful.

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Remnants of Life

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And now that they were long gone, these intriguing remnants of the lives they’d led were all the proof that remained that they had ever been here.

Mike Gayle, The Museum of Ordinary People

I came across the quote above while reading Mike Gayle’s wonderful novel and it struck me once again when I started to think about this long-overdue chapter of my France travelogue.

It seems a lot of the novels I’ve been reading lately have been focused in some way on what we leave behind when we exit this plane. I guess it’s something I myself have been thinking about a lot since I had children. It’s both nice and heartbreaking to think that my two beautiful daughters will be the majority of my legacy. Discussions about instinctual procreation aside, I love the idea that once (many, many, many years from now) I’ve moved on from this life, a part of me will live on in them.

Cue “He Lives in You” from The Lion King.

That miracle being acknowledged, I hate the thought of ever leaving them. Even if they too have already lived long and full lives once my time comes.

Wow. That got dark. Moving on.

Something else I thought about in preparation for this post is that even people as famous as Richard the First of England and Joan of Arc of France did not leave significantly more stuff behind when their time on earth ended. Sure, the Lionheart has left castles and jewels and progeny but…as far as material evidence of who he really was at his core? Not much.

The ultimate equalizer, death.

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Things that have Never Been

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

OK, OK, I know it’s not the new year. But it kind of is in a sense for me. I’ve restarted my exercise regime for the first time since my 2.5-year-old was born and it feels amazing. I’m also writing at a minimum twice a week now which has not happened consistently since before kids.

And I’m reading. Oh, I’m reading up a storm.

Not only am I reading, dear reader, but I’m reading with a promise to review. Yes, I finally signed up for Netgalley. Nothing like a social commitment to challenge oneself.

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Done Questioning

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

Do not let what you think they think of you make you stop and question everything you are.

Carrie Fisher

I’m not sure what your opinion on the late, great Carrie Fisher is. Despite having found her tweets incredibly confounding, what long-form writing of hers I was exposed to really stayed with me. Postcards from the Edge might be the first book I’ve ever read where the author’s voice truly struck me as unique.

Now…this may say more about where I was in my reading journey and life overall at the time than being any kind of disparaging comment on anything I had read previously but…I digress.

The point is, whether she meant this or not, in reading that book I truly felt as if Ms. Fisher herself was speaking to me – trying to explain something about who she was and what her seemingly glamorous life was or had been like. It went beyond memoir or autobiography, despite being fiction. Like cracking open a soul.

Her book confirmed what I had already surmised: I wanted to write and I wanted to write in my own voice – not one that was prescribed to me.

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A Bookish Atmosphere

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This place has atmosphere, different from a bookshop with just new books. In here you sense the weight of time stretching way back to the past.

Michiko Aoyama, What You Are Looking For is in The Library

I’ve always found that for both writing and reading, atmosphere is important to me. Now, this is not to say that I can only read or write in a specific location. Only that to fully focus my creative mind, I need to feel comfortable in my surroundings.

When we first saw the house we now call home, back in January, it was not initially what I thought we had been looking for. Most of the houses we had looked at leading up to this one had been just out of town with at least an acre of land (one actually had 5!) They were my vision of an oasis of tranquility where we could escape just a little from the frantic pace of modern life.

Having looked at all these beautiful country homes, we decided to check this one out for a very specific reason. I had grown up only a 5-minute walk from my elementary school and I remember truly loving being so close…especially as someone who has never been a morning person and for whom mornings were less than tranquil. This house would give the girls the same experience growing up but it was far from the secluded country retreat I had been dreaming about. Regardless, it seemed to be perfectly situated for the kids on a quiet cul-de-sac close to not only their school but also the walking path, fair grounds and library. And that meant something.

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A Glimpse

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

For years I functioned fairly well in the world, but I had an underlying sense that I was fooling people, and I was driven to achieve in order to counter that suspicion. And when I was with other people, would avoid dropping my guard out of fear that they would glimpse the real me and blow my whole act to pieces. – No Bad Parts, Richard C. Schwartz PhD.

Have you ever read something so heart wrenchingly personal that you immediately feel the writer was actually addressing you? It’s happened to me before but never as intensely as when I read that quote above. I’m still a little shaken by it, to be honest. It could have been written by me.

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Marvels and Possibilities

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And then another thought floated in there, sneaking in while I was feeling so open to wonders and marvels and possibilities: maybe that means there’s a path for me too, a plan that won’t fail, and I just haven’t found it yet. – Shauna Robinson, The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks

Hello dear readers. It’s been a while.

When I look at how long ago I published my last post (January), I feel a shudder of disappointment in myself and my lack of commitment to this corner of the internet that I have so lovingly built. As these waves of self-doubt start to overwhelm me, I have to fight to keep my head above these murky waters and remind myself that it’s OK. I am OK. No, wait, I’m better than OK. And I’ll tell you why.

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Reading Roundup: December 2023

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.

Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid

Happy New Year Everyone!

Well, the last month flew by and I did not get any writing done. However, I managed to squeeze in quite a bit of reading so I’m going to go ahead and call that a win.

I couldn’t help but choose the Lemony Snicket quote above to kick off my first post of the year as one of my main hopes for 2024 is to finally wrest myself from the persistent phone addiction that has had me in a chokehold since the pandemic. Part of my strategy to achieve this includes bringing a book everywhere I go to get out of the habit of pulling out my phone whenever I need to wait even 5 minutes for something. Another change I’ll be making is no more phone in the bathroom (don’t lie, you do it too). Hopefully these small changes will lead to even more reading this year…one can only hope!

But, without further ado, let’s take a look at all the wonderful things I managed to read in December, shall we? Who knows, maybe you’ll find your next great inspiration here. I certainly took something away from each and every one of these articles, blogs and books; do let me know if you do too, it’s the reason I write these posts in the first place. Happy Reading!

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Resolving 2024

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

Dawn. A cool, clear dawn, with strands of coral cloud parting like old wool to allow the sun to rise through them.

Morgan Llywelyn, Bard

Holy moly we only have two more weeks left to go until 2024. Is anyone else in shock? Anyone else think it’s still actually September because there is no way it’s December 17th? No? Just me? Cool, cool.

It has been a hell of a Fall and beginning of Winter for our household. I think I’m on cold number 4 since September, as are my husband and the kids. For all the amazing moments we get with young kids, the constant illness is definitely a drain on the system.

So, I’m giving myself the gift of the last two weeks of December off from work and writing commitments. Now, that doesn’t mean I can’t schedule some blog posts for the new year if I feel like it but I’m not going to stress myself out trying to post one every Sunday (or beat myself up when some weeks aren’t possible). Merry Christmas to me!

I couldn’t go out without posting my annual Resolution post though. So here it is. May it serve, if nothing else, as a reminder that resolutions are wonderful but not required. If your year turns out to look differently than you planned in a flurry of productivity at the beginning…that’s OK! I think the point is to commit to growing every year, even if we end up growing in ways which are unforeseen.

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