A whimsical, moving novel about a Retirement Home for literary legends who spar, conjure up new stories, and almost magically change the lives of the people around them.
It\'s a place where the old are made young, the damaged are made whole, and anything is possible.....
As the edges between story and reality blur, a world within a world is created.
As the words flow from him, weaving a tale taken up by the other residents of the Pen, Cecibel is reawakened to the idea of love and forgiveness.
In Cecibel, Alfonse finds a muse who returns him to the passion he thought he lost.
Living quietly as an orderly, refusing to risk again the cost of love, Cecibel never anticipated the impact of meeting her favorite writer, Alfonse Carducci--or the effect he would have on her existence.
A terrible accident destroyed her face and her sister in a split-second decision that Cecibel can never forgive, though she has tried to forget.
Among them are Cecibel Bringer, a young woman who knows first-hand the cost of chasing excess.
A faithful staff of nurses and orderlies surround the writers, and are drawn into Their orbit, as they are forced to reckon with Their own life stories.
Set on the water in one of New England\'s most beautiful locales, the Bar Harbor Home was established specifically for elderly Writers needing a place to live out Their golden years--or final days--in understated luxury and surrounded by congenial literary company.
For Alfonse has an unshakeable case of writer\'s block that distresses him much more than his precarious health.
Only now, at the end of his life, does he comprehend the price of appeasing every desire, and the consequences of forsaking love to pursue greatness.
But now he\'s come to the Bar Harbor Home for the Elderly to spend the remainder of his days among kindred spirits: the publishing industry\'s nearly gone but never forgotten greats.
Alfonse Carducci was a literary giant who lived his life to excess--lovers, alcohol, parties, and literary rivalries.
A whimsical, moving novel about a Retirement Home for literary legends who spar, conjure up new stories, and almost magically change the lives of the people around them
