How is it that time passes so differently the older we get? Events from our past can seem long ago while almost in the same moment as if yesterday. Like yesterday it seems I read finalized sections of Beyond the Ripples to Mom. Together we would walk, she still using sticks then, to one of our special places, especially pleased if the sun was shining. I would read aloud a newly crafted chapter about Annie or Amelia and Gloria, and Mom might share something. Some time after my May 2019 release of Ripples I recognized glimpses of my beloved grandmother, Whowho, in the sometimes controlling and bold personality of Gloria. Yet, even while writing the book, I knew how some of Gloria’s earliest responses to her growing dementia was informed by my time with Mom.

What I love most about the creation of this story is how its first seeds came from the note I placed in a bottle and tossed into the Willamette River five decades ago. And I feel as if yesterday the deep appreciation and thrill upon receiving not only a response but a lovely first blurb about Ripples from author Jane Kirkpatrick.

“Memoirist Dede Montgomery has the uncanny ability to create the quality of presence inside story. This time, it’s through her fiction. Whether at the Columbia River shoreline with a man struggling to gather up a bottle with a note inside or in a restaurant with a waitress witnessing a meeting that will change lives, we are there, moved by these characters, cheering them on and celebrating how interconnected we humans are. Beyond the Ripples will capture your heart.”
–Jane Kirkpatrick, Award-winning author of Everything She Didn’t Say.

Since then I have heard from readers who read Beyond the Ripples before diving into Humanity’s Grace, and others who began HG first. Choose either or both. Perhaps you too will find what many other readers have in the pages of my books: reminders about the power of hope and those serendipitous connections that reach out to us each day.

Learn more about Beyond the Ripples. Look for it in your library, see reviews on Amazon, purchase it from Bookshop.org or inquire with your favorite bookseller.

Watch the trailer below. Russ was very proud of his bottle toss. I reminded him I did the rest. Not sure it sold any books, but it was fun to make.

Learn more about Beyond the Ripples.