Town Books

I am sure this book is about Worcester, Massachusetts. It is about what happens under the pavement of an old industrial town in New England, about the secrets of previous lives, about the separation of the rich and the poor, the established and the Bohemian in American society, mixed with faint memories of the German experience in the great War of generations past and about the persecution of Jews and artists now and then.

I love Jack O'Connell. Love his characters, setting (especially), and the strange way he tells a story. Read one and you will read them all. I know you will...if you like a quirky set of characters, a David Lynch way of presenting a story, you will love this. Take me to the Combat Zone where midgets, lesbians, and just about anyone you can imagine RULE!

O'Connell is the intelligent reader's Elmore Leonard. A writer with an eclectic vision that dangerously intersects with contemporary reality.This writer deserves a huge following. I have no doubt that it will come eventually.

I am a big-time O'Connell fan. I had to special order Box 9 because it was out of print. I can't wait until the next O'Connell book comes out. He has a wonderful way of telling a quirky story. It includes dwarfs, porno houses, strange photos, lesbian groups, unusual mail carriers, and God knows what. If you are a fan of Tom Robbins or William Kotzwinkle, you will love Jack O'Connell.

Small Town Affairs is a warming romantic novel with the element of suspense that keeps the reader wondering what will happen next to Olivia McDougle. The characters are very believable and the plot has twists that make for an interesting story. From the beginning, it grabbed my interest as I enjoy small town lifestyles. It's intriguing and very well written. I highly recommend this book.

Joyce Brennan has crafted a balanced, well-constructed story of intrigue, killing and small-town gossip. The characters are convincing, believable and well-drawn, Olivia McDougle, after discovering her faithless fiancé in a compromising position, leaves a high-paying job in New York City, and returns to the comfort and security of the small town she was raised in and her elderly aunt. But her life is neither comfortable nor secure. It is subject to gossip, rumors and speculation, all of which, lead to dire events. A very satisfying book, highly recommended.

Olivia McDougle abruptly left a promising career with an adverting agency in New York City to return to her hometown in Rexford, Ohio. Engaged to be married Olivia was traumatized when she discovered her fiancé was unfaithful in their relationship.

She returned to the home of her Aunt Etta, who had raised her when her parents were killed in tragic deaths. In Rexford Olivia became the editor of the local newspaper. Shortly after taking the assignment, she was confronted with a disastrous conflict with the local, influential, and powerful Judge Gillette, his supercilious daughter, and his subservient wife.

Joyce Brennan has a flair for blending a romantic novel with suspense, greed and misdirected political power. In a plot that includes blackmail, retaliation, attempted murder, and integrity in news reporting, Joyce includes plot twists, sub plots, and dialog that kept the story moving to a climatic surprise ending.

Joyce brilliantly created a cast of characters that insure her readers of more to come. The development of Olivia McDougle, Dr. Mitch James, a trio of Olivia's friends, and the townspeople of Rexford all play an important part in the development of the plot. The flow of the narrative and the appeal of the locale add to the genuine feeling of reality that I experienced throughout my reading.

I found "Small Town Affairs" entertaining, suspenseful reading. Filled with believable characters, a creative plot, and a natural flow of dialog, the story lends itself to a follow up sequel. I want to hear more of the surprising events in the lives of Olivia McDougle and Mitch James, and am looking forward to Joyce Brennan's next book.


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Small Town Affairs is one of those books that you can curl up by the fire and just keep reading. That is exactly what I did with this book! I needed to escape working for awhile and this book with its twists and turns did exactly that! The chapters are intriguing and you wanted to know what was going to happen to Olivia next. As I continued on with my reading, I never good guess which way the story was going to go. I look forward to reading more of Joyce Brennan's books in the future.

Where else can you find a picture of a 20 foot mosquito? As long as Minnesotans can fry up a limit of bluegills as the sun sets late on a hot summer day, we should feel secure in our abilty to defeat the Saracens.

Small Town Minnesota A To Z by Minnesota native Tony Andersen is an engaging and nostalgic look at a wide variety of small-town communities in Minnesota from Argyle to Zumbro Falls. Most of these distinctive Minnesota communities have fewer than 1,000 people. Full-color photographs and an engaging text written with wry humor and replete with candid, anecdotal stories of conversations and adventures with small-town folk make Small Town Minnesota A To Z an engaging and refreshing tribute to an outstanding Midwestern state, as well as a less crowded, less hyper, and less pressure-intense way of life.

The photos and stories are amazing. I wish I could write somthing that would do this book justice, but I guess that's why Bill Holm wrote the forward. His words describe perfectly the beauty of this book.

What a unique book! At times the writing flows just like poetry, ...."A forest thick with pine and poplar was interrupted only by the ribbon of road and clearings of shimmering lakes..." and other times it feels like a talking about fish stories with a friend in a local cafe..."My trusty rod and reel were packed in the trunk, just in case." If you've never been to Minnesota, or don't have a concept of what 'Small Town Minnesota Nice' really is, then pick up this book. And if you've ever visited a small town in Minnesota, or anywhere, read this book to feel welcomed back again! I truly couldn't put it down from Argyle to Zumbro Falls!

I love true stories that detail a personal, spiritual journey and this book was a terrific example of that.

Post 9/11 and post two children in 20 months, Herzog questions what kind of world we really live in. So, over the course of a summer, he travels nearly all of the 50 states and ties the world together without ever leaving the U.S.

He finds the socioeconomic treasures he is hunting for in towns like Moscow and Siberia, Maine, Bagdad, Arizona and Jerusulem, Oklahoma.

Considering his family life, it was a gutsy journey and his humor is present during all of his stops. He brings the reader to a hopeful and sunny place in what many of us view as a dismal world. It is a reminder that people all really want the same things in life and asks us to remember the simple things that mean the most.

Highly recommended.

Not since Blue Highways have I read an American travel memoir as deftly written and engaging as Brad Herzog's SMALL WORLD. The author is rather unique in the world of travel writing in that he conjures up a clever itinerary taking him through a series of small towns and then manages to find great insight and exotic stories within these tiniest dots on the map.

SMALL WORLD is creative nonfiction at its finest. Herzog has the detailed eye of a journalist, the evocative writing style of a novelist and the soul of a poet. Each chapter of the book is essentially an essay meshing geography, history, conversation and relevant philosophical tangents. Not only does Herzog manage to weave these elements together seamlessly, but the series of essays themselves form a cohesive narrative of his journey from beginning to end.

The best travel narratives take you on a trip, but they also take you on a journey of self-examination. SMALL WORLD does this and more. It offers geography put into historical context. It provides tales of laughter and grief and anger and absurdity. It is a celebraton of the myriad American subcultures -- ranchers and farmers and artists and nudists and hermits and hillbillies -- without bias and with great affection for life's diversity. It is easy to for travel writers to poke fun at the locales they pass through -- and many do -- but it is much more impressive to write profoundly, as Herzog does.

SMALL WORLD is about people surviving in the nation's nooks and crannies -- saving a town, protecting a river, perpetuating a lifestyle, maintaining their heritage, holding onto a dream. It is a fascinating examination of the state of the union, post 9/11. Buy this book, and enjoy the ride!

Eighteen years ago as his high school English teacher, I had the privilege of reading and grading the writing of Brad Herzog. Brad was an accomplished writer in high school and his published writing has lived up to the promise of those "A" papers about the Chicago White Sox. Since then, I have enjoyed his Sports 100, States of Mind, and, most recently, Small World: A Microcosmic Journey. I also have been pleased to come across articles by Brad in airline magazines.

Brad Herzog's travel books, States of Mind and Small World, can stand proudly next to those of Mark Twain or John Steinbeck or even Jules Verne. In fact, Brad named his 21-foot Winnebago Rialta after Phileas Fogg, Verne's circumnavigator of Around the World in Eighty Days. As a twenty-first century traveler, Brad covered the United States in about 40 days in August-September, 2002. He visited small towns with international names like Rome (Oregon), Athens (New York), Paris (Kentucky) and Bagdad (Arizona). In each town (populations from 50 to 8000) Brad found ways to meet residents and learn their histories and prejudices. He introduces the reader to ranchers in southeast Oregon with definite views of the government's draconian environmental policies, to the workings of the famous Claiborne horse farm in Kentucky, to hippies in London, Wisconsin, and to nudists in Athens, New York, where Brad hesitantly went native. Dying mining towns like Congo, Ohio, and Bagdad, Arizona, have their spokesmen and the Hare Krishnas in Calcutta, West Virginia, get an even-handed treatment.

In the introduction, Brad distinguishes between tourists and travelers: "It has been said that tourists leave home to escape the world, while travelers aim to experience it." With Brad's help the reader experiences a little-published side of the United States, things we don't see at Disney World or the Sears tower. When Brad matches his sometimes liberal views against those of residents who are scratching to make a living or have watched helplessly as natural or man-made forces have changed their lives, he doesn't always come out the victor. And he readily acknowledges his growing ambivalence about his previous certainties.

One of Brad's strengths in writing is his ability to summarize the history of an area and make it relevant to the present day. The reader learns about Basque immigrants to Oregon, the running of a grain elevator, Dutch immigrants in Amsterdam, Montana, the devastating effects of racial discrimination in Cairo, Illinois, migrant workers in Mecca, California. Brad even met a modern-day Thoreau in Siberia, Maine--Donna Chase, who lived without electricity or even a phone until recently.

This is a book to be tasted and chewed. Plan on taking time reading it with an atlas nearby to check on the directions in case you want to visit in person. Buy your own copy; you'll want to re-read this book.

Helen Palmer

Brad Herzog takes readers on a descriptive tour of "famous" locations such as Athens, Jerusalem, Moscow, Mecca, Congo, London, Cambridge, Baghdad, Rome, etc without crossing any ocean. One wonders how Mr. Herzog accomplished his feat of visiting these locales yet not transverse by air or sea the Atlantic or the Pacific (except to Hawaii). Simply, he stayed inside the United States where he went from Cairo to New Madrid, Missouri or searched for David in Jerusalem, Arkansas. Mr. Herzog makes a powerful case that the states have plenty of interesting locations so that the vacationer might not ignore feeling that there is as much culture and history to absorb in Moscow, Idaho as in Moscow, Russia. The author makes the case that in deed there is plenty to see when one traces the three mile train from London to Cambridge, Illinois.

Small World: A Microcosmic Journey is a delightful insightful look at the vast treasures waiting for Americans within their own nation for a lot less than going overseas. The book is written in such a way so that the casual reader gets a taste of a unique locale while being able to put the book down and pick up this fine reference tome another day (I read the book over ten days). The audience will picture Kerouac and Kuralt touring together with Herzog as their driver at places like Versailles and Paris.

Harriet Klausner

When I was in fifth grade, I thought this was the funniest and most entertaining book in the world. Twenty years later, despite high school, college and law school, my opinion of it is just as high. This is a wild, wacky, cult-classic that kids, young adults and even parents can read, enjoy and re-read over and over.

The sequel to _The Snarkout Boys & the Avocado of Death_, the book features the return of snarkers Walter, Winston and Rat, as well as Uncle Flipping; Osgood Sigerson and Dr. Sacker; the Mighty Gorilla; and that rascally Napoleon of Crime, Wallace Nussbaum. Just as the young snarkers discover the Dharma Buns Coffee House and a rising Transylvanian poet, the city of Baconburg begins to be terrorized nightly by something dark and fast and ... furry? A werewolf?! Quick, grab your stuffed Indian fruit bat and defend yourself!

Just as in _Avocado_, Pinkwater writes simply and clearly, deftly weaving the different plot-threads into a (literally) blazing finale. Quite simply, this is a great, often gut-busting, blissfully zany ride. (I only wish he'd write another one!) I ordered a copy off the internet, read it twice, and am donating it to my local library so that kids can enjoy it just as much as I did, back 'in the day'. Praise St. Barbara of Blint, five burning stars!

Sequel to The Snarkout Boys and The Avacado of Death, this is another great book by D.M. Pinkwater. While it obviously couldn't compare to the original, simply because the first was SO good, this book is still great. I read the Avacado of Death when I was in middle school (for the first time at least), and didn't discover the sequel until I was in college. So naturally that's a rather long time and my expectations were a little high I'm sure. Still, it was great to see all the characters again, and see Walter and Winston having another adventure. This book is fun to read and I highly reccomend it.

When I read this book in my early nubile childhood , I thought it was just a pretty darn funny piece o' work. Now that I'm a wee bit older and wiser I look back on Snarkout with a sort of awe, respecting it for the sheer genious and underground artistry. Werewolves, crazy speeches, donuts, hotdogs, cult movies, bitter rejects and terrible poets. Every man woman and child should experience belly lauaghter. It deserves to be the first cult classic childrens book.

Snarking: sneaking out when your parents are asleep, esp. to go to the theater and see the latest (or oldest) movie. Master snarkers Winston, Walter, and Rat have the technique down pat and somewhat uneventful until one night when Rat decides she wants to go to the Dharma Buns Coffee House. That night begins an adventure replete with werewolves, poets, borgelnuskies, the Napoleon of crime, and other assorted good guys and bad guys.

The town of Baconburg has never seen such a hodgepodge of people and adventures. At least not since "The Snarkout Boys & the Avocado of Death." But as long as they don't run out of Indian fruit bats, everything and everyone should turn out okay.

First published in 1984, the story doesn't seem out of date for young people born in the past few years. But to adults, parents, even young senior adults, some references bring a sense of nostalgia: Drive in movies, shopping malls. Although this is not the first in the series, the story stands alone quite well -- it actually makes one want to find the rest and read/listen to them, too. The action is swift, the characters interesting, and the plot complicated in a witty, twisted sort of way.

Pinkwater takes the reader from the familiar to the bizarre to the impossible in just a short ride. He's created a weird alternate reality that is fun for readers of all ages. In his narration he rushes headlong from beginning to end, leaving the listener breathless and tickling your fancy.

I read this book when i was about in 6th grade and read it a couple times each year i was in middle school. Now im a sophomore in high school and missing this book. So i bought it used i love it so much! Its great and it really grabs your attention. There aren't many slow parts. I really reccomend this book to anyone who can get their hands on in. Its not a disappointment!

Do you like good books with no horror in them? Well, if so, this is the book you need to read. Do you like rescues? This book is full of rescues. This is one of the best books I have ever read. It is a great book!It is full of adventure and action. This book can be read by all ages. The adventure starts out at the beginning and it gets better as the book goes on. If you have ever dreamed of being a hero, if you have ever dreamed of tempting fate, or leaving a decision to the flip of a coin, then here is the perfect book for you. It will keep you on edge from the first page until the last. Once you start reading it you won't want to put it down!

This is a great book. i am reading it in my class and i absoulutly love it! the adventures with nick marco and linda are thrill a minute. you should deffinatly buy this book!

For Nicholas "Nicky" Herrera, his life is simply defined by getting through the day. His very Catholic mother has a habit of reminding him how much he's like his older brother, Salvatore. His police officer father tries to keep the family peace. His other brother, Paulie, is the smart one. For Nick, who is barely making it through the tenth grade, he's finally decided that there's nothing more in his future than surviving, and possibly working at the docks or in sanitation like the goals of his best friend, Marco.

Until one day, Nick rescues a little girl from the tracks of the subway. Suddenly, he's a hero, and every quarter he tosses keeps coming up heads. When he garners the attention of Linda Lanko, the daughter of the richest developer in New York, he realizes that there might be a purpose to his life after all. Rescue opportunities are now popping up all over, and word-of-mouth throughout the city has turned Nick into a modern-day hero of Superman proportions.

Nick's heroism, of course, brings him all sorts of problems that he never even imagined. While on one hand his life now seems charmed, his personal relationships--with his family, with Marco, with Linda--are taking twists and turns into unfamiliar territory.

Then tragedy strikes a number of devastating blows all in quick succession, and Nick realizes that being a hero isn't all it's cracked up to be. Who is Nick Herrera, really, and what's his purpose in life? It's suddenly the most important thing in his life to figure it out, and the way he does that will leave the reader breathless.

SPEEDING BULLET is a compelling, quick read that had me staying up late to finish it. You won't be disappointed when you pick up your own copy!

This is a fantastic book! Made me laugh out loud. Has the greatest lines!
This book has fabulous characters, one of whom is a teacher that sees and inspires greatness in her students in a way that is so relatable to them!This is such a provocative book in the sense that it is so real! Karlene is dealing with classic issues that all teens no matter what geography or time they live in deal with. I am using this book with my reading group to inspire a love of words as well as a sense that anyone can make it with hard work no matter what situations one encounters. Karlene is a magnificent girl in an average environment that is progressing towards her wonderfulness as the book progresses! I recommend the book to teens and adults alike.

Remember spelldowns? This book is way bigger than a classroom spelldown. Karlene Bridges is a phenomenal speller. She studies what she calls "chapters" in the dictionary, like the "Tt chapter" and the "Kk chapter." She lives and breathes spelling.

Karlene's home life is held together by her mother and her burning desire to be the National Spelling Bee champion. Life with an unpredictable alcoholic father makes her world a bit of a roller coaster ride. There are times she recalls tender memories, but mostly there are erratic drunken moments filled with disappointment.

The arrival of Mrs. Harrison, a new Latin teacher, fills Karlene's life with hope. A lover of language, Mrs. Harrison becomes coach and mentor to the young speller. Karlene is welcomed into the Harrisons' home and encouraged in her efforts to excel. With Mrs. Harrison's guidance, contests are won, and Karlene inches closer to her dream.

In SPELLDOWN, Karon Luddy brings the spelling world to life for readers. Her story is filled with intriguing characters and terrific vocabulary words. Even the chapter titles will increase your knowledge of words. Luddy keeps readers on the edge of their seats as they observe each spelling contest and watch Karlene grow.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

While Spelldown is listed as a YA book, I beg to disagree. Karlene, the 13 year old narrator, is a child of the late '60s, and readers who were young then are now adults. Readers will be reminded of those years as this charming young lady narrates her life as an articulate, mature, and vibrant adolescent, who is living in a poor, loving, but dysfunctional family. At times, Karlene is the "adult" trying to create a "normal" family life for her younger siblings and herself. Adults, as well as teens, will identify with Karlene and her world. I hope there will be a sequel; Karlene has captured my heart.

I confess that I am a personal friend of the author, Karon Luddy. I have known her since 1976, and she was a student in several of my English classes. What follows is a paragraph I wrote to her after reading SPELLDOWN. The "crummy little novel" remark was just part of our competing-authors banter from previous emails. WARNING -- the end of the paragraph contains a "spoiler" of sorts. My recommendation: buy it and read it.

"I am so proud of you. Your crummy little novel is absolutely brilliant. I'm a thousand percent jealous! I loved every page, every paragraph, every sentence. The wordplay is mind-boggling! It is so intelligent, so beyond intelligent. But mostly I just loved Karlene. Right from the beginning, so intelligent and independent-minded, half-child, half-adult manque, an astute observer, and yet she does the dishes without complaint and chops down and hauls home and decorates a Christmas tree without feeling sorry for herself. The details you incorporated make it all seem so undeniably real, and Southern, and personal. And I love that at the heart of the novel is the girl's search to understand love, especially family love. She's surrounded by it, immersed in it, but can't comprehend it. At the end, she seems to let go of the need to get an intellectual grip on it and just accepts it, happy that it's real."

Having had an interest in ghost towns since the 1960s, I have accumulated a large collection of books on the subject. I can say without any reservation that the books by the late Muriel Sibell Wolle and also books by Lambert Florin are in a class all their own. I have not seen this particular addition because mine was printed in 1974. The first printing was in 1949. This latest version should be the best of all.

Muriel's books are what ghost town books should be. They are filled with stories about the towns and the people who lived in them and that brings the towns to life. I also have many newer books on ghost towns but none come close to those by Wolle or Florin. For example, newer books by Philip Varney have nice color pictures but they lack the real heart of ghost town books... the stories. Varney and later authors tend to simply present dry facts and statistics about the towns (and not many of them!) accompanied by color pictures. They treat the towns more as scenery while largely ignoring the history that makes the towns so interesting. Wolle and Florin's books are mostly text and the are illustrated by charming b&w drawings. Wolle, an artist, did her own sketches. I have no problem with color photographs of ghost towns since I am a professional photographer myself and ghost towns are one of my specialties but there is just a timeless quality and moodiness to sketches and b&w photographs that link them to the past.

It's hard to put Stampede to Timberline down once one begins to read it. In fact, reading it has rekindled a dream I have had about moving to Colorado (I am retired), getting an old but rugged 4WD vehicle with good ground clearance and searching for more of these towns and mining camps. Be warned that if you are not from Colorado or are otherwise not used to driving on mountain passes, you will be in for a shock when you try to get to some of these towns. Some of the "roads" are so narrow that one car barely fits on it with it's wheels hanging over cliffs that may be thousands of feet high. Some of them couldn't even be called trails! They're more like incredibly steep boulder strewn riverbeds that cling to cliff faces. You will read about some of Muriel's adventures on those roads in this book.

The only negative about Wolle's books and those by Florin is that they are dated and many of the towns described in them are greatly changed since the books were first written. Some towns have vanished; some have crumbled to near oblivion; some have been re-born and are thriving. But no other books about ghost towns give you greater background information on these old towns and mining camps or treat you with such fascinating reading.

Wolle and Florin made a tremendous contribution in preserving the memory of these towns. Their books should be the foundation of any library about ghost towns. I cannot recommend this book or Florin's books more highly.

RETURNS YOU TO A TIME IN THE WEST WHEN THE GHOSTOWNS WERE ALIVE.

I ENJOYED THE BOOK AS IT TELLS IT LIKE IT WAS.

REAL GOOD STUFF ON BLOODY BRIDLES WAITE, ONE OF MY UNSUNG HEROES OF THE WEST. THE GOVERNOR COMES ALIVE IN THIS BOOK AS THE TRUE HERO OF LABOR.

IF YOU LIKE HISTORY AND WANT THE FACTS, THIS IS THE BOOK THAT DOES JUST THAT.

I have been researching the area of Colorado where my great grandparents were pioneer settlers in the 1870s. Their town, Rosita, in Custer County, is listed in many "ghost town" books, with a paragraph or two about its history. That's what I was expecting with Stampede to Timberline, but this book provided much more in-depth information.

In the 1940s, Muriel Sibell Wolle traveled to Rosita, and dozens of other old mining areas. She interviewed the oldest residents she could find. She asked them to recall details of the earliest days of the area and she recorded their stories in this book.

In this book, I was delighted to find historical details about the area I have researched, that I have not found anywhere else. This is a large book, and every locale included in it has first- hand reports of historical information. This book was a huge undertaking and accomplishment for Muriel Sibell Wolle.

I would very much recommend Stampede to Timberline for students of Colorado history and for tourists, as well.

My boys are 5 and 3 and I have been looking for a "regular" book to read to them when I came across this on Amazon. My boys find Harry Potter scary at this point. Every night, we read a bit more and they can't wait to see what happens with Trevor and his friends. I have started reading ahead b/c once I am done reading to them, I want to see what happens next. Great read!!

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is full of suspense, adventurous, imaginative, and the plot is original. The story moved fast and I kept me interested until the end. One of the author's strengths in writing is in his descriptions. I could clearly see in my mind's eye the places, sights, and sounds of the book as well as I could visualize the characters as I read. This book is a great read for young teens; especially boys. I highly recommend it for readers who like adventure, mysteries, and technology.

I read a lot of children's fiction. This is one of the top five children's books I've read all year.

The villains are believable. The excitement is real. The personalities of the protagonists are three-dimensional.

This book takes me back to the Danny Dunn books of my childhood. A great read for young teens and preteens.

The Strange Town series kicks off with this fun first volume entitled "The Woods Behind Trevor Malone's House". It follows a young inquisitive trio of best friends through an amazing adventure that occurs in their small strange town. There's a lot of mystery and adventure, balanced with humor. It's a fast page turner with general heaps of excitement, that's great for the imagination. Can't wait to see the next book in the series.

As an african-american man with a latino wife, I began reading this book feeling priveleged enough by my wife's background to fully understand and relate to the hispanic culture depicted here so intensively. At first, though, having to bother my wife for some translations in the beginning, and being somewhat putoff by the main character's escape from near calamity had me negatively prejudging the effect this book would have on me. But in the end, even though the effects of the opening explosion on both the main character and her best friend were never revisited, leaving me to question why it was even included in the first place, when I finished the book, like a fellow reviewer wrote, the characters certainly stayed with me. Ms. Santiago has a notable poetic writing ability and, I might add, a knack for crafting pretty exquisite sex scenes. Overall, a much-needed positive and uplifting depicting of a hispanic family's rise from humble beginnings to movers and shakers still devoted to life together, in addition to warmly depicting the young single parents unenviable task of raising children into young adults while finding room to nurture your own spiritual and sensual needs also. Can't wait to read more by this gifted writer.

I don't understand why this book haven't gotten enough light. As an African-American, I can understand the comparisons with the novel Waiting to Exhale; meaning that this book has the same fire. It's actually better! There's nothing better than writing a story about everyday life--in NYC that is! Get this book, it's worth your time and money. It's not overhyped like many books; it's truly underrated. Go out and get it now! It's hot!

This is the story of a single mom who falls in love again just as her children are getting ready to leave the nest. She is a Latina, her new love is African American. The story is set in New York city where he's a young Johnny Cochran - except he only defends the good guys - and she's a spokesperson for the NYPD. The story is obviously told by an insider - the author worked in New York politics - and it's told with a woman's point of view. I savored this book and its characters are still with me. I feel that I know them. The writing too touched my heart with poetry

Soledad Santiago does a very good job in showing the constant pressure of single parenthood and also the tension that cultures within other cultures ignites when one social group abuses another. This book deals with issues that are becoming more and more relevant in our society.