I love getting boxes from Amazon.com.

Today was a little different. I saw the little brown box resting next to my front door, and I knew what it held. Kathleen Woodiwiss’s last book, Everlasting, was released this week. I had preordered it from the place I get most of my purchases — Amazon.com. That little box held the last new story I will ever read by a woman I greatly admire.

With a taste of bittersweet, I opened the box. There it was. Exactly what I’d expected. It looked so… small. I’m used to Ms. Woodiwiss’s books being epics, and the fan in me is sad this last book won’t take me a lifetime to read. Heck, as fast as I plow through books, I’ll finish it before this weekend. Then I won’t have another one to look forward to.

I have other authors I love to read. Garwood. Howell. Aitken. Deveraux. And a myriad of others. A quick mention of Karyn Monk because I have recently discovered she tastes of the same type of epic Woodiwiss wrote, and I have found her stories stay with me because I’m reluctant to let her characters go. So I have others to read, and there will be more stories to treasure, more keepers to shelve and then pull down in a few months to enjoy again.

But that little box left me melancholy.