Adding to Our Nest: The Oscar Chronicles

“No one goes to that store just to LOOK, Michelle,” my friend Debbie would later remind me, but that day, in the crowded pet store filled with tiny kittens and wagging tails, that was truly my intention.  As my daughter and I oohed and aahed at the balls of fur and teeth, we looked across the room and saw a tiny face – smaller than any dog we had ever had, but clearly full of personality. The information card said he was a Havachon (a Havanese – Bichon cross), his sable-colored fur soft as a cloud, and as we watched him tussle with his siblings, we fell head-first in love. We held him and hugged him and took pictures, and I breathed in that sweet puppy breath. The store was about to close, so with one last kiss, we put him back in the enclosure. My last view as we walked out the door of our local pet store was of a little face with black button eyes searching mine, tiny bear-like paws pressed up against the glass.

It had been a long journey to that day.  Earlier in the year, I had tentatively asked our vet, Dr. A, about getting a second dog as a companion for our sweet Rosie. With our now empty nest, it seemed like a natural next step, but I was reluctant to make a change to our current pet dynamic.  I broached the subject gingerly, half hoping the vet would discourage me.  Instead, Dr. A replied with a grin, “I think it would change Rosie’s life.” For every reason I had why NOT, Dr. A had two more reasons why it would be amazing. Dr. A suggested getting a male dog, preferably someone much smaller than our very large doodle, to make the transition easier. Rosie and I left the office that day deep in thought – Rosie because she had endured another checkup and vaccines, and me, wondering about adding to our family.

As winter faded slowly into spring, thoughts of another dog went on the back burner. Life moved like it was on fast forward: there were projects and travel and graduation and college girls moving back home. All that came to a grinding halt in early June, when some dear family members unexpectedly lost their beloved dog.

Suddenly waiting didn’t seem like such a good idea, because life has a way of reminding you about how quickly things can change.

The next morning after the pet-store visit, I woke up thinking I’d lost my mind.  Surely we couldn’t pick the first puppy we’d met. I had been gearing up for meticulous research and an overload of information. Knowing that the puppy we couldn’t forget was right down the street, I stepped up my search in earnest, checking the entire mid-State area for available rescues. We visited the local shelter, but there were no small dogs or puppies available, or anywhere else in the mid-State area.  While it was a wonderful sign for our community, it meant we were out of options, at least in the short term.

Driving away from the shelter, my dear husband said, “Well, do you want to go back to the pet store, just to look?” Of course I did.  We walked in and there he was – our little prince charming, sleeping next to his sisters. Todd (who had seen the pictures the day before and proclaimed, “That’s our dog!”) seemed just as charmed as we were, and our other daughter, seeing him for the first time, was smitten.  After a flurry of paperwork, we were driving home with our new, very tiny baby.
 

When we walked in with the new puppy, Rosie’s expression was priceless: she literally grinned. She snuffled his neck and belly, and lay on the floor watching him as he slept. We had been warned it would take up to two weeks for them to get along.  Instead, it was instant friendship. Oscar Wilde, as he soon became known, was Rosie’s biggest fan and the little brother Rosie had been waiting for.

Most days it is chaos in our house.  Long nights with a new baby led to teething and chewing everything in sight, potty training and learning to walk politely on a leash.  But despite all that, I wouldn’t change a thing… and despite the frayed tail, the stolen toys, and the spitty, chewed-up ears, neither would Rosie.

To see more adventures of Rosie and Oscar, follow them on Instagram at Bean and Sprout.

 

A Leap of Faith

Ahead of my 20-year-old daughter was a daunting 16-hour journey. She would fly alone to Paris overnight, make her way through customs, reclaim her luggage and transfer to a train to southern France, then find a cab to take her to the university. It would be a long day by anyone's standards. She was not only the first person from her school to study at this university; this semester, she was the only student from her school studying in France. She was, in every sense, alone.

With her belongings packed into one bursting suitcase and her backpack stuffed with the necessities in case her luggage was lost, she made her way down the long international hallway. Watching her walk away was one of the hardest things I've ever done as a parent. Never mind she had dreamed of studying abroad since middle school. Never mind she was going for only one semester, less than six full months. It felt like I was letting go forever.

My list of fears was long and varied, from the realistic to the ridiculous. "What if she gets sick or hurt?  What if there is a terrorist attack? What if she's lonely? What if she can't get her phone to work with the international plan? What if she hates her classes?"

What if.
What if.
What if.
  
Many of my fears were realized.  She was a little lonely, and overwhelmed at first. Getting a bank account set up was complicated, made more so by the prepaid food stipend that curiously didn't go into effect for the first six weeks she was there. Her classes were entirely in French, hard enough by itself, but even more challenging because the southern France dialect is so different from the Parisian French taught in school. From a parental standpoint, I could provide no support other than moral.  This was her journey, both literally and metaphorically.

As the days turned to weeks, our daughter began to thrive.  By the time the first break came along, she decided to go Paris for a few days, and when her newfound friends had other plans, she went alone. She stayed in a hostel, took a million pictures, savored macarons, and walked through Paris in the snow. Her smile took my breath away.

A few months into the semester we visited her in her new home in Montpellier. We had rented a small apartment, and after we arrived in town, she came to meet us. Todd waited for her down on the street, watching for her as she made her way via the tram many blocks away. As he scanned the street, he said, his eyes slid past a slender woman striding confidently his way, laden with bags. It wasn't until she was almost upon him that he realized this self- possessed young woman was our daughter.
Her journey had caused her to grow in ways we'd never imagined.

After that pivotal moment in Montpellier, I realized that my fretting prevented me from seeing opportunities instead of potential disasters. Because for all my worrying, never did I think, "What if she has the most amazing experience of her life?"

Parenting is such a leap of faith, in big ways and small, that it's easy to get caught up in the what-ifs that make you want to hold on for dear life. But what if, as parents, we choose to see infinite possibilities instead of just challenges?  I hope my girls continue to have big, bold, life-changing experiences. For myself, I hope that when their next adventure rolls around, my leap of faith will be to choose the right what-ifs - those that offer opportunities and joy.

Home for the Holidays

"I'm dreaming tonight,
of a place I love,
even more than I usually do..."



It's been a year of change and growth for our family. Not that every year isn't important, but 2017 feels particularly significant. One daughter studied abroad for the spring semester, and the other started college in the fall. Todd and I have started learning how to be "just us" again. For the first time since the youngest was a baby, we've spent more time apart as a family than together. Now, with the holidays looming, this momentous year is drawing to an end.

Like so many milestones in 2017, this holiday season is bittersweet.  We’ve pulled the Christmas decorations down from the attic, but except for lights out front, everything is still in boxes.  In the coming days, I will set out preschool crafts and handmade decorations, favorite photos and the crèche we got from my mom years ago.  It's going to sting a little to do this process alone, but clearly, this house is not going to decorate itself.  Judging by the way December seems to be on fast forward, Christmas is coming whether I'm ready or not.

We always buy a live tree, and since the girls were little we’ve visited the same Christmas tree farm. Buying a tree is a process – well, my family would probably describe it as an ordeal. Someone (ahem: me) is a little particular about her trees. This year, Todd and I will choose the tree alone, leaving just Todd to smile and nod as I debate the merits of one giant tree over another. None of us are ready to give up the tradition of decorating the tree together, so while the lights will go up in a week or so, the treasured ornaments will wait until the youngest arrives home right before Christmas.

With this potent mix of nostalgia and anticipation, it's hard not to get caught up in the idea of the perfect Christmas. In my fantasy, the holiday season looks like one long Hallmark commercial.  Rosy-cheeked daughters arrive home from college with smiles and hugs.  The kitchen table is once again full.  Dinners are delicious and Martha Stewart-worthy. Decorations are carefully arranged on the tree, while holiday music plays softly in the background.  Everyone snuggles on the couch, sipping hot chocolate, as we watch A Christmas Story for the hundredth time.  On Christmas morning, we wear matching pajamas and enjoy homemade Christmas treats for breakfast, while the girls delight in the stockings we still stuff with care.  There is laughter and love and happy contentment.

 

The reality is that our girls will arrive home as if from battle, mentally drained and physically exhausted.  Finals and end-of-semester papers will have taken their toll after weeks of too little sleep and too much stress. Odds are pretty good that at least one child will be recovering from whatever crud was making its way around campus.  Cuddling on the couch will be interrupted by two very needy pets who insist on getting their fair share of attention. Since I am a master procrastinator, the baking will not be finished, and I'll still be wrapping presents on Christmas Eve. There will be smiles and hugs, but there will also be grumbling and squabbling, and last-minute shopping, because real life is not a Hallmark commercial. And we have never, not ever, had matching pajamas.

It's a little hard to let go of that dream, isn't it? The Hallmark version of the holidays looks so pretty on the outside. But as easy and carefree as the fantasy would be, I'll take my real, messy, wonderful family, with all their quirks and flaws, any day.  It's those people that I love and cherish, and whether the holiday season brings joy or frustration, laughter or tears, we will all be together.  That is the greatest gift this holiday season, one which is without measure.

The New Normal

We are more than two months into the "empty nest" phase of life, and with that has come a lot of growth, introspection and heavy sighing. Of all the adjustments I've made, one of the hardest has been dinner time.  The kitchen is the hub in our house - both girls did homework at the kitchen table, and frequently we were putting the finishing touches on dinner while one or both daughters scurried to finish the last of their work for the day.  Throughout the years, no matter what evening activities came up, we did our best to eat together - no cell phones, no television, just the four of us sharing a meal and some company. It was a commitment, one that Todd and I did not take lightly.   I'm not going to lie - plenty of nights there wasn't a whole lot of chit chat from our younger family members. But it was familiar, and comforting, and had been our routine for 20 years. It was one of the ways we connected as a family.

So it was only natural that when our youngest left for college, I found food shopping, cooking, and mealtimes challenging. My grocery cart, which had once been filled to the top with things like Kind Bars, pretzel Goldfish and the makings for homemade granola, now included only a single loaf of bread and a couple chicken breasts.  Thinking about dinner time without the girls was even worse.  My fears included everything from how I would prepare food for two people to worrying that we would start eating on TV trays while watching Wheel of Fortune.  After all, it was only us.

Unspoken was my deepest, darkest fear - what if we didn't have anything left to say?  What if, after years of discussing school projects and the next day's schedule, we had run out of things to talk about? What if, in those nonstop years of mom-life, I had become (GASP) boring?

Those first couple weeks were tough.  Deciding what to eat - a decision that had long been guided by what everyone was "in the mood for" - came down to what sounded palatable.  Sitting at the nearly-empty table with a golf-ball sized lump in my throat made eating a challenge. We ate a LOT of leftovers.   Through trial and error, we found out what dishes froze and defrosted well (Italian: good! Mexican: not so much.). Some nights, when we were both working late, dinner was scrambled eggs and toast, despite those two lonely chicken breasts sitting in the fridge. We navigated around each other in the small kitchen, unused to the freedom of open space. Besides the sting of the empty seats at the table, it just felt ... odd.

As the days turned into weeks, though, a new normal began to take shape.  I'm a firm believer that given enough time, people can get used to anything, and dinner time at the Palmer house was no exception. We've fallen into a routine of sorts... chatting in the den while dinner simmers, or one of us hanging out in the kitchen, cocktail in hand, while the other does meal prep. It took some getting used to cooking for two, but we still don't own TV trays, and almost every night dinner is at our kitchen table.

Occasionally, one of the girls will call during dinner and it is almost like old times.We put them on speaker phone and for a few minutes we can pretend that all of us are sitting down together. When the phone call ends, I sigh and look wistfully at their empty spot.

But the new normal kicks back in, and suddenly we are back to just us, where the kitchen is a little quieter, but the biggest fear, the one I didn't dare speak aloud, proved to be completely unfounded.  Although our dinner discussions no longer include "20 Questions" style grilling of teenage girls, it turns out we have a lot to talk about. Apparently, I'm not boring (yay me!), at least not to my husband of 28 years. We laugh a lot. Thirty years of inside jokes means that often one of us will start to speak and the other will burst out laughing, because we know what's coming next.

Unlike the occasional punchline at dinner, we don't know what's coming next. As old routines give way to new, I struggle to embrace the unknown even as I know, in my heart, that things will never be like they were. But as the "new normal" has shown me, I may not know what's coming, but the future is wide open, and it's up to me to embrace it.

Slowing Down for the Little Things

I stepped outside a couple weeks ago and saw what I thought was a piece of grass in our outdoor kitty's water bowl.  Even though I was rushing (as I always am, it seems, during the month of May) I stopped to look closer.  It wasn't a leaf... it was a tiny inchworm, who had climbed up to get a drink.

I squatted down like a toddler and just watched.  His body was on the rim, and his head was down inside the bowl.  Perhaps sensing my presence, he stopped drinking, and made his way around the bowl (and around, and around, but that's another blog entry all about finding your way...).

Life goes by so fast that sometimes it seems impossible to slow down and appreicate the little things.  In my case, it was truly a little thing... an insect so small that if I had not glanced over at just the right moment, I never would have noticed.  How often do I neglect to listen, or look, or just take a moment to appreciate?

Andy Bernard said on The Office finale, "I wish there was a way to know you were in the 'good old days' before you've even left them."  And he's right - the busy-ness of life can make those "good old days" go by in a flash.  But school's out, summer is finally here, and I am slowing down to enjoy the experiences that life brings... both big and small.

World Book Night 2013

In the dead of winter, when everything in middle Tennessee is brown and gray, there is one particular event that gets me ready for spring: the applications for World Book Night arrive.  I check my e-mail, and there it is! The list of World Book Night (WBN) titles are announced, and people around the country can apply to be a WBN giver... to receive the honor of handing out FREE copies of a book in your community on April 23rd.


Team Palmer on World Book Night 2013

I was lucky enough to be picked again this year, and let me tell you, as a passionate reader, few events compare to this night.  I got to give out a book by one of my favorite authors: John Green's Looking for Alaska.  With my entourage (both girls came along for support and photography skills) we headed to our local coffee house, JoZoara's, to offer free books to the community. We met up with other WBN givers and members of the local One Book Committee.

As you can see, I am just beaming -  what a great night! At the end of the night, around the country, more than 25,000 people had given away free books in their community. To learn more about World Book Night or to be a giver next year, check out their website at http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/.





Isabelle sharing the love of reading



With my dear friend Sandee - her first night as a WBN Giver

Fellow book givers Shawna (left) and Sandee (right),
along with One Book Co-Chair Laura Beth.
What a fun evening!

Hey.... Remember Me?

It's been a long, long 4 months.  As I write this, I am hanging my head in embarrassment - no blog entries, no book reviews, not even a word since July? Really?

I promise I didn't forget you.  Its not that I haven't been writing. I'm including a link to my recent book reviews in one of our local publications, to help make up for my lack of entries here. I really do have lots to write about - I just haven't taken the time to .... ahem... actually write.

But with the winter closing in, it's reading time, my favorite time of year to snuggle down on the couch and grab a book. This is one of the best seasons for  new releases, too, so there's lots of new stuff out there.

Don't hold your breath but maybe, just maybe, I can start writing some reviews again too.


Here are a few reviews from over the summer and early fall:

The Fault in Our Stars

Broken Harbor

Hot Summer Reads

April Fool's Day!

I have to hang my head a little when I make this confession. I haven't updated my blog because, well... I haven't been reading, at least nothing that I felt I could write about.  You see, my reading has recently been much like my junk food diet of tortilla chips and gummy bears: tasty but not satisfying.  Don't get me wrong - there is definitely a time and a place for "fluff" reading, but just like gummy bears, after a while you start to realize that there is something missing in your diet.

My reading in the past month has included the following: multiple issues of People and Entertainment Weekly, the first two books in the Shades of Grey trilogy (because clearly, the first book was not enough), various other romances, and the latest J.D. Robb futuristic mystery.  I took a short break from my junk food diet and read Colum McCann's  lovely Let the Great World Spin, and thank heavens I did - I might have gotten the book version of scurvy.

There's really no talking myself out of this, but fortunately, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. I finally have a few new things on my nightstand that I'm excited about.  Hopefully my next entry will find me back to a healthy diet of literature - mixed in with the "treats" that I so enjoy. 

 

The Sanctity of the Page

I love my Kindle, but there is nothing like holding an actual book in your hand.  I know that's passé. I realize that the physical book may one day be a thing of the past, like vinyl records.  But I hope that day will be a long time coming, because for me, an actual book is something to be treasured.

Perhaps this all began in my youth, when I would read a book cover to cover, then flip back to the beginning and start again.  If you are going to read a book four or five times, you better make sure you're careful with it.  To this day, I treat my books gently: the spines remain unbroken, the book jacket carefully removed so that it with doesn't get torn or damaged, and the pages completely unmarked, except for a small sign of a corner turned down occasionally.

I've learned that this obsession is not shared by everyone, and believe me, it is a hard lesson.   Many of my books come from the library, and except for the occasional grocery list or library receipt tucked inside, most are in excellent condition.  Tonight, however, I opened my borrowed copy of Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann, and I literally gasped. There was highlighting! And underlining! And writen notes!  In a library book!!  The horror!!!

Recently, author Lisa Lutz posted a question on her Facebook page: "What are the biggest gripes for librarians or patrons?"  It was no surprise that most of the complaints were about the books themselves and how they are treated. The answers ranged from hilarious to downright disgusting.  Dead spiders, food particles, and hair found stuck inside; photos, a bag of pills (!) and receipts used as bookmarks; dog-eared pages (yep, that would be me); books that reek of smoke.  Need I go on? It makes me want to grab my bottle of Purell each time I sit down to read.

So this is my fervent plea: if you borrow a book, treat it gently.  Some day, these lovely tomes will be a thing of the past.  

Mourning the Last of Steig Larsson

It's taken me more than a year.  When I received my Kindle in the summer of 2010, one of the first books I purchased was The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig  Larsson.  It is the last of his Millennium Trilogy, and the only one of the series I had not yet read.  And there it sat, waiting patiently, while I sampled and downloaded and borrowed lots of other books. Steig Larsson passed away in 2004 before his trilogy was published, and Hornet's Nest is his last completed novel. To read Hornet's Nest meant the end, forever, of Larsson's incredible writing.

Larsson's first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, continues to rock the publishing world.  Despite being published posthumously, Dragon Tattoo spent months on the New York Times bestseller list and has sold more than 48 million hard and digital copies worldwide.  Now that the movie has come out, the series has seen another boost on the bestseller lists.  There is good reason for all this popularity - the series is fabulous.  Hornet's Nest lives up to the reputation of its predecessors, with plenty of action and a thoroughly satisfying ending filled with vengeance and justice for all.

As the trilogy's main character, Lisbeth Salandar is a kick-ass, hard-core heroine who is as dysfunctional as she is brilliant. The last book captures the true essence of Lisbeth, who manages to defeat the bad guys while confined to her hospital bed, recuperating from a bullet to the brain.  As I finally started Hornet's Nest, it was a bittersweet experience - this young woman, who I had come to admire and know so well through Larsson's series, would never again grace the pages of another novel.  I believe that had Larssson not passed away, Lisbeth would have risen again to battle evil and corruption, albeit in her own disturbing way.

Characters like Lisbeth Salandar come along once in ... well, a millennium. Thank you, Steig Larsson, for sharing your talent and imagination.  You are truly missed.

Happy New Year 2012

I love the holiday season, I really do, but this year I was even more keenly aware of the books that sat on my nightstand, my Kindle, and at the library waiting to be read.  It seems each year is busier than the one before, and this year, my reading really took a back seat to shopping, baking, and the overall craziness of life.

But with 2011 behind us, it is time to look forward to all I have to read and talk about this coming year.  I just finished V is for Vendetta, Sue Grafton's latest alphabet mystery, and next up is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, my book club's choice this month. Waiting in reserve is a great nonfiction about a guy who buys and tries to run a Korean deli in New York, as well as the newest Flavia de Luce novel.

What would the new year be without resolutions? I resolve to be more faithful to this blog, to write even just a few paragraphs when I don't have a whole review to post.  It's been more than a year since I started "Turn of the Page," and sharing my love of reading has never been more enjoyable.

Happy New Year!

Untold Story

For my parents' generation, their "where were you" moments include the first man on the moon and JFK being assassinated.  For our generation, it includes many landmark events, but two will be forever linked in my mind: Princess Diana of Wales on her wedding day, and again on that horrific night in Paris when she died.  She was such a beautiful, loving mother and an incredible advocate for AIDS, particularly in children, and to have that life cut short was simply devastating.

Untold Story imagines another ending to Princess Diana's life: one that involves a yaht, a lazy security staff, and a rowboat.  In Monica Ali's new novel,  she has invisioned a world where Princess Diana appears to the world as drown, but in fact, has faked her death, left everyone but her closest confidante behind, and started a new life in the United States.

As part of her new life,"Lydia" has no children, few good friends, and no meaningful relationships.  Her need to escape life under worldwide scrutiny has come at a tremendous cost - the loss of her children, her family, and everything she knows. But in return, she can shop, eat at restaurants, swim in her pool, and volunteer at an animal shelter, all without worrying about what photo or ugly comments will emerge next.  At least, until the Princess' most obsessed paparazzi stumbles upon her living in a tiny Midwest town.

Ali's book is a wonderful glimpse into the world that Princess Diana might have had, under very unusual circumstances.  Ali is very careful never to refer to the Princess by name, but her identity is obvious, from the cover of the book to the intimate details she includes of the Royal Family. Ali did a tremendous amount of research about Diana's life, and the fruits of that research makes the story even more delicious.

As a teenager, I watched in awe as Diana walked down the aisle at St. Paul's Cathedral.  Many years later, as a mother myself, I stood in shock and cried as I watched coverage of the wreckage that would end her life.  The best part of Untold Story was getting to meet Princess Diana again, even if it was only a woman created out of talented Ms. Ali's imagination.

An Embarrassment of Riches

I've had something of a reading drought this summer.  It's not that there hasn't been plenty to choose from, just that nothing is appealing.  Kind of like when you go out to eat, and nothing on the menu looks good.  Maybe it's been my mood, but with a few exceptions, nothing's really stuck with me.

So you can imagine my delight when I hit the mother lode at my public library this week.  Our library is small but mighty, and has a good selection of new titles.  I have learned over the years to make the most of the library's reservation system, but since none of my books on holds were available yet, I took a spin through the new fiction shelves.

I was like a kid in a candy store when I found not one, but four (yes, four!!) books that I had been hoping to read.  I started with Untold Story by Monica Ali, then quickly moved on to South of Superior, by Ellen Airgood.  Filling out my stack were Jennifer Haigh's newest, Faith, and the creepy Robopocolypse, by Daniel H. Wilson.

Reviews will be coming soon on Untold Story and a few others, but in the meantime, I've been reading like a woman on a mission.  It has been a true delight getting to know some new characters, a few new authors, and most of all, some stories I could really sink my teeth into. My wonderful husband purchased a lovely, bright red hammock for me this summer, but up until now, it's been too hot to use it.  Now I have both the cooler weather and a stack of delicious books.  Heaven!

To Read or To E-Read: That is the Question

2010 was the year of the e-reader.  Everywhere you turned there were ads for the newest, biggest,  and fanciest e-readers, with Amazon's Kindle and Barnes and Nobles' Nook leading the charge.

I received an Amazon Kindle as a surprise birthday gift this August from my generous brother-in-law.  Mine is the Version 3 (not with the 3 G) which features built-in wi-fi and the fabulous pearl e-ink technology.  As an e-reader, it is wonderful.  It has the ability to organize books into categories (or bookshelves, if you will) and can hold thousands of titles.  Amazon's convenient access to the online store on the Kindle screen makes downloading books fast and simple,although not necessarily inexpensive. The screen is crystal clear and offers variable font sizes, making reading a pleasure.

As a true bibliophile, I have conflicting feelings about the Kindle.  First, there is the lack of tactile sensation - there's no smell of "new book," and certainly no feel of the page under your hand or the weight of the book on your chest.  It's hard to flip back to a section of the book to look for something - Kindle has a search engine but I've found it difficult to use.  When you have those "ah ha" moments in a book, you want to rush back to just the right spot when you missed a clue or critical comment.  With the Kindle, that is a challenge.  And unlike the Nook and most other e-readers, the Kindle does not have the ability to download books from your local library.  The cache of "free" books you hear about is somewhat of an urban legend; there are free books out there (particularly if they were written before the Civil War), but unless you are looking for a classic, it requires some work to find them.  Most Amazon books for Kindle fall in the $9.99 to $11.99 range - similar in price to the actual book.

But on the other hand...ahhhh, the Kindle.  It's lightweight, portable, and can hold as many books as I want and still fit in my bag.  With an e-reader, gone are the days of hauling an actual piece of luggage filled with books for a week's vacation.  One of the best features is the ability to "sample."  It's like being in a virtual bookstore.  You can browse and sample almost any book available, and try it for free...all from the comfort of your own home.  If there is one drawback to the samples, it's that my list of books to read grows longer every day.

For now, ours is a blended family of physical books and e-books. On my Christmas list was a copy of The Distant Hours by favorite author Kate Morton.  Her books are so beautifully written that I knew I wanted the lovely, dense hardback - an electronic copy simply wouldn't do.  But the Kindle is loaded with lots of new stuff too, like Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas  - because you can never, ever, have too many books.  Happy new year!

A Woman's Worst Nightmare

When I was in college, I had a part-time job doing surveys, and during one particularly fun period, I would sit in model homes on weekends and survey the people who toured them.  It was somewhat creepy - there were long hours alone, and I never knew who was going to walk through the door. In Still Missing, Chevy Stevens takes a similar situation and turns it into a woman's worst nightmare.

Annie O'Sullivan is a young, single realtor with a quirky family and a tragic past.  (I realize we might not know each other, but I don't believe in "spoilers," so I won't reveal anything that will ruin the plot).  She is abducted from the house she is showing one pleasant afternoon, and taken by a seemingly-harmless, jovial man who ties her up,drugs her, and takes her to a house custom-fitted for her confinement.  Thus begins a period of abuse, dependence, and depravity which Annie (and we, as readers) endures.

Still Missing's strength comes not from the plot itself - some of the details and the final plot twist are weak at times - but in the insight into what it means to be held captive, and to be entirely dependent on someone else for survival.  At one point in her captivity, Annie says that you may firmly believe that the sky is blue, but if the only person you see for months tells you that it's green, eventually you will start to question yourself.  While those of us that live without abuse find that hard to believe, it is a way of life for many people.

Even with it's flaws, Still Missing is a gripping and haunting book - read it, but do so with the lights on.