* Remarriage is on the rise for Americans ages 55 and older. In 2013, 67% of previously married adults ages 55 to 67 had remarried. (Pew Research)
* According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 800,000 people are widowed each year in the United States. Nearly 700,000 women lose their husbands each year and will be widows for an average of 14 years.
* Opiate misuse affects countless people across the United States. More than 289 million prescriptions were written for opioid analgesic pain relievers in 2012. Coinciding with the seemingly ubiquitous prescriptions is rampant misuse. Between 2005 and 2011, opioid-related emergency department visits increased by more than 200 percent, and 61% of the 47,055 deaths owing to drug use in 2014 were indebted to opiates, both prescription medication and heroin. ( Facing Addiction in America report)
* Americans are travelling to Cuba in record numbers. Cuba received 3.52 million visitors last year, up 17.4 percent from 2014. American visits rose 77 percent to 161,000, not counting hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans. Industry experts worry the island will be unable to absorb an even greater expected surge when scheduled U.S. commercial airline and ferry services begin. (Reuters)
AUDIENCE:
* Women over forty (a huge consumer market that is vastly underserved in literature)
* Women who have fallen in love later in life or who are looking for love later in life
* Women who have experienced the death of a spouse and who are ready to begin a new life chapter
* Any parent whose child has struggled with drug addiction
* Generation Yers (New Adult) and Baby Boomers who live in Vermont or New England.
* Generation Yers (New Adult) and Baby Boomers overall
* New and young adults who know someone who is or was addicted
* Anyone who, as a child, lost a parent or whose parents divorced
* Anyone who traveled to Cuba when it first opened to Americans
