Today, I’m hosting author Jill Arlene Culiner’s latest release, Words for Patty Jo, a women’s fiction title.
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Title: Words for Patty Jo
Series: N/A
Author: Jill Arlene Culiner
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Length: 260 pages
Release Date: March 16, 2026
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Blurb: A passion for books creates a lasting bond between teenage Patty Jo and David, but small-town prejudice and social differences doom their romance.
After a summer of reading and falling in love, David heads for university, foreign adventure, and a dazzling career; Patty Jo marries slick, over-confident Don Ried.
Yet plans can go horribly wrong. The victim of her violent husband, Patty Jo abandons her home and children to live on the streets of Toronto. David, a high-ranking executive in Paris, is dismayed by the superficiality of corporate success.
Forty years later, Patty Jo and David meet again. Both have defied society; both have fulfilled their dreams. And what if first love was the right one after all, and destiny has the last word?
Available at:
Books2 Read | The Wild Rose Press
What readers are saying:
“In this compelling and wonderfully written story, Jill Arlene Culiner fearlessly challenges romantic illusions to reveal the true components of lasting love as mutual honesty, respect, compassion and steadfastness. It’s a must-read.” –Penny Lynn Cookson, Arts and culture writer
“The characters are authentic and portrayed with remarkable sensitivity. The writing is beautiful, highly effective, yet remarkably subtle.” –Roso Creation
“This is a love story spanning decades, but it is also about the paths we take in life, the people who influence our growth, the highs and lows, and the strength of the human spirit. It is also a reminder that we should never stop dreaming, loving or striving to find our right place in the world. I have no hesitation in recommending this beautifully written story.” –Sally Cronin, Smorgasbord Magazine
Then he sees her. Way over there, sitting by the edge of the grit shoreline, chin in one hand, staring out at the lake’s far side. No sign of the louts she usually hangs around with. She’s alone. Will he go talk to her? Dare break into her peace?
Of course he will. He’s a moth drawn to her dazzling light, although he knows there’s a chance of disappointment. He’ll say something; she’ll answer like a townie, in that bold, vulgar way of townie girls. And the fascination will end. It will be over. Goodbye, good riddance to fantasy.
She doesn’t turn at his approach, probably doesn’t hear the crunch of loafers on pebbles. Obviously, she’s off in a dream, a daydream, a memory, some cosmos that doesn’t include David William Preston Buckley Jr. Without thinking, he sits beside her, crosses his legs.
“You like the lake?”
See? It’s that easy. You don’t hesitate, just plop down, say something banal. Then wonder if she’ll jump to her feet, scram.
She turns, and the bruised-looking, insolent eyes meet his. Defiantly. Unfriendly, yes, but with that touch of curiosity that doesn’t quite discourage. Then, looks away again. No words. No way to continue.
So, he’ll stay here. Stare out at the water too. Worse comes to worst, she’ll hiss an insult, townie-style, something like “get lost, chump,” and he’ll keep on sitting, puppy-love fool, bum aching on the sharp cement-drab stones. It will be a humiliation, true, but not a deadly one—a put-you-in-your-place rebuff that you get over soon enough.
There are plenty of little humiliations in life, like that evening in the car, making out with Malie. When you reached down to cup a breast because she was biting your neck, rubbing against you like a warm cat, she shoved your hand away, said you were filthy-minded. Normal humiliations. They happen to him, to Robert, to all young males on the prowl. Females resist. Normal.
Expressionless, pale, she stares at the lake, ignores him as if he’s worth no more than a crushed paper cup, just like the one shivering in the breeze over there, a castaway, sticky, abandoned after use.
“Yes,” she says reluctantly and after a long time. In such a tiny voice, a sweet sound. “Yes, I like it fine.”
Then he realizes that, despite her seductive looks, she’s shy, painfully so, not standoffish, not hostile. It gives him a soaring high of masculine power. Shy: that’s something he’d never imagined.
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Writer, artist, and teller of tall tales, Jill (J.) Arlene Culiner, was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived on the Great Hungarian Plain, in a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave dwelling, and a haunted house on the English moors. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village where she protects spiders, snakes, and weeds. She delights in hearing any nasty, funny, ridiculous, or romantic story, and when she can’t uncover gossip, she makes it up.
She has won the Tanenbaum Prize in Canadian Jewish History, the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, was shortlisted for the Foreword Magazine Prize, and twice for the Page Turner Awards.
Follow Jill Arlene: Website | Link Tree | Storytelling
Maggie Blackbird 