But first news about Boreas

It’s been quiet on the Boreas front. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything going on here. There is! By now, paperback editions of three of the Boreas titles have been published. Hurray! Children still love the series and sales are steady. And maybe, just maybe… Boreas will make the jump to America like I did. That pleases me enormously.

And now about The Memory Maker

Meanwhile, I have been busy writing new books. This time in English. There is a wonderful middle grade out on submission: The Memory Maker in which Georgia “Izzy” Isherwood grapples with the loss of her mother. Her only real comfort is an old, worn t-shirt that still carries the familiar scent of her mother’s perfume. But as the scent begins to fade, so does Izzy’s sense of connection to the woman she loves. Scared that the memory of her mother will slip away, Izzy embarks on a quest to preserve the scent–and the memories it holds–forever. 

When she meets Augusta Leigh, a peculiar old woman with a gift for crafting perfumes, Izzy believes she’s found the answer to her problem. Augusta claims to be a “Nose”–a master perfume make capable of capturing scents from the past. Together with her quirky new friend, Sammie Goldblum, an artist who uses his talents to preserve his heritage through Yiddish, Izzy tries to convince Augusta to recreate her mother’s scent–and maybe the scents of other lost loved ones, too. In the process, Izzy hopes she’ll never forget. 

Augusta refuses time and again. It turns out that the once renowned Nose has lost her sense of smell and is now homeless. It’s a devastating revelation, one that shatters Izzy’s plan to fix the past. But it’s Sammie, with his deep understanding of tikkun olam (repairing the world through good deeds), who shows Izzy that perhaps the true path to healing is not to cling to what’s lost, but to give back to the world and the people around her. 

With themes of memory, family, and healing through kindness, The Memory Maker is an evocative, sensory-driven novel that blends scent with everyday life. It’s a story about love, letting go, and the ways we can mend the world when we let go of our fears. 

Here is a photo of some of the research I did for this wonderful book: