Winter Blogfest: Maria Imbalzano

This post is part of Long and Short Reviews’ Winter Blogfest. Leave a comment for a chance to win an ebook of A Song For Another Day.

A New Year’s Eve to Remember

I don’t always look forward to New Year’s Eve with the pressure to do something fun, or at least enjoyable. Where should we go? What should we do? Which group of friends or family do we include? This coming New Year’s Eve may be one for the records with no celebratory gatherings, given our Covid-19 infected world.

I’m so happy to have the memory of last year’s New Year’s Eve, which I spent with two of my high school girlfriends and our husbands. I’ve been friends with these women for over fifty years, which is impossible to believe since none of us feels that old. 

We chose Philadelphia as our destination—about forty-five minutes from our homes (until one of them moved to Los Angeles this past year). We met at the bar at The Notary Hotel, located steps from City Hall, at four p.m. where the catch-up and laughter started immediately. There is no down time when we get together. We took a short break and retired to our rooms to dress for dinner, then started walking to our dinner destination, about a mile and a half away. I love to walk, especially in large cities at night where people are out and about. Although it was cold, it was the perfect night to take in the lights of the city, the people, the electricity. 

Our reservation was at The Love (don’t you adore that name), a homey but beautiful restaurant near Rittenhouse Square. We experienced none of the usual craziness that accompanies dinner out on a holiday. We were seated immediately and were never rushed. Spending this special dinner with the women who shaped my life, along with our husbands, was not only memory filled (like ordering Grasshoppers as our after dinner drink in tribute to our tastes at age 18), but memory-making (the first time in 15 years we had all been together on a New Year’s Eve). 

As if still in our early twenties, we left the restaurant at eleven in search of our next destination (with no reservations), which would hopefully include dancing. After all, we had lived at dance clubs in those earlier years, and despite the few years in between where we raised our families, we still loved to dance. After a few mis-steps, we found one at the bar at The Rittenhouse Hotel, filled with twenty and thirty year olds who probably wondered why we were invading their space. 

We toasted the New Year at midnight, and stayed for another hour of people watching, drinking, and dancing. While walking back to our hotel, we passed lit-up Christmas trees and decorated office buildings, breathing in the crisp, cold air of the new year. 

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I raise my glass to all of you and hope you can recall the memories that make you smile. We all need that in our lives right now. 

Gigi Jenson, an up-and-coming Broadway star, finds herself in Willow Springs, Vermont, for the summer as director of their first annual community revue. This sleepy town is worlds away from her vibrant and beloved New York City, but the experience she'll gain will be invaluable to her career.
Jason Simmons has lived in Willow Springs his entire life. Working several jobs while writing music, he yearns for a contract to record his songs. The one chance he had to make it in Nashville he blew due to stage fright.
When Jason volunteers to help Gigi with the revue, sparks ignite but their dreams are taking them in different directions. Could their love for each other guide them to the same path?

Maria Imbalzano is a retired matrimonial lawyer who now writes full time. Instead of drafting motions, legal memoranda, and briefs, although fascinating, she now spends her days creating memorable characters and taking them on their emotional journeys through her contemporary romance novels.

Her novel, “Unchained Memories,” won the Wisconsin Romance Writers Write Touch Readers’ Award and the ACRA Readers’ Choice Heart of Excellence Award. “Sworn to Forget,” the first of the four-book Sworn Sisters Series was a finalist for the illustrious RONE award as well as the Book Buyers Best Award.

Maria Imbalzano is a retired matrimonial lawyer who now writes full time. Instead of drafting motions, legal memoranda, and briefs, although fascinating, she now spends her days creating memorable characters and taking them on their emotional journeys through her contemporary romance novels.

Her novel, “Unchained Memories,” won the Wisconsin Romance Writers Write Touch Readers’ Award and the ACRA Readers’ Choice Heart of Excellence Award. “Sworn to Forget,” the first of the four-book Sworn Sisters Series was a finalist for the illustrious RONE award as well as the Book Buyers Best Award.

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