Hello and welcome to Story Time for Grownups. I'm Faith Moore, and this season we're reading

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Each episode, I'll read a few chapters from the book,

pausing from time to time to give brief explanations, so it's easier to follow along. It's like an

audiobook with built-in notes.

So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair, and settle in.

It's story time. Welcome back.

Ooh, this already feels so cozy.

I don't know about where you are, but it is freezing where I am.

It is so cold.

First, it snowed, and then all the snow turned into ice, and the wind is blowing.

Like, I don't even know. I kind of expect to see, like, the Wicked Witch of the West coming by.

Things are flying past the window. Weird, like, flurries of snow are being kind of kicked off the

tops of buildings and then whooshed down the street.

It's nuts. But now we are warm and snug here together. Whether or not you are warm while

you're listening to this, whether or not you are in fact snug, whether or not you are actually

sitting in your cozy chair with your cup of tea. I always like to say

that maybe this podcast can be your cozy chair and be your lovely cup of tea regardless of where you

are and what you're doing right now. So I hope that's true for you. It is true for me. I am

snuggled up in my little closet where I record and it's nice and warm

and I've got my little twinkly light and I'm ready to go. And this feels like the perfect book

to be reading together on a cold and snowy night. Even though currently in the story, it is summer,

it still feels like the kind of book that you want to read kind of of snuggled up by the fire, with people that you love. So,

...