Alice! A huge fan

Hi! I’m Charlotte and I just wanted to tell you that I’m a huge fan of both the Shiloh and Alice series. However, I really really love the Alice series. I got my first Alice book when I was 11 and over time I read the series out of order for the first time. Then that year for Christmas I asked for the whole series, which now sit on a special shelf. I have read the whole series through I think about 4 times now, I actually finished the last book today. I just wanted to say thank you, over the years I have become really connected to the characters and whenever I feel down I just pull out one of the books. Alice has taught me so much about so many different things. I think the most important being about body image and relationships. I’ve struggled lately with body image, as I’m a 15 year old girl, but just reading the books has really retaught me that the important thing is that you’re healthy. So if you’ve read to here, thank you. You’re books have had such a big impact on my life. I hope you stay safe during this crazy time.

Thank you so much for writing to me.  I’m staying as safe as I can–so safe, in fact, that my car battery went dead and I had to get a new one.  I’m delighted that the Alice books mean so much to you.  I think that the majority of letters I get from Alice fans deal with body image or relationships.  Girls, especially, have a tendency to choose some small aspect of their body and maximize it’s importance.  For example, I was born with a brown mole, about the size of a penny, on my right buttock.  I didn’t think much about it until an aunt jokingly referred to it as my rotten spot.  I asked my mother if a man would ever marry me because of it, and she said, wisely, that my husband would love me so much it wouldn’t make any difference .  That was a comforting thing to say, but it still took me a long time to believe her, or to realize that people close to you like or love you for your whole self, not some little part of you.  I so enjoyed writing the Alice books and do miss those six months of each of the 28 years it took to write the series.