The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers (And Their Muses) (ePub)

Writers only get better with age . . .

Alfonse Carducci was a literary giant who lived his life to excess—with lovers, alcohol, parties, and professional rivalries in abundance. But today he's come to the Bar Harbor Home for the Elderly to spend the remainder of his days among kindred spirits: the literary world's nearly gone but never forgotten greats. 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 glory—for Alfonse has an unshakable case of writer's block that distresses him much more than his precarious health.

Set on the water in one of New England's most beautiful locales, the Bar Harbor Home was established specifically for writers needing a place to live out their golden years—or final days—in understated luxury and surrounded by congenial book lovers. A faithful staff of nurses and orderlies are drawn into their orbit, as they are forced to reckon with their own life stories. Among them is Cecibel Bringer. A terrible accident changed her forever in a split second that Cecibel can never forget. But Cecibel never anticipated the impact of meeting her favorite writer, Alfonse Carducci. In Cecibel, Alfonse finds a muse who returns to him the passion he thought he lost. The words flow from Alfonse, weaving a tale soon taken up by the other residents, and reawaken Cecibel to the idea of love and forgiveness.

As the edges between story and reality blur, a world within a world is created. It's a place where joie de vivre returns, where the old are made young, the damaged are made whole, and anything is possible. . . .