Every month ESSA Natural and ESSA Books offers free books and products.   To be entered in the giveaway every month, all you do is subscribe to ESSA’S LETTERS newsletter. Book giveaways. Excerpts. Short stories. Product giveaways of cosmetics, hair products, household and laundry products. Privacy promised, not too many messages sent, just a few a month.

WINNER’S LIST
Paperback winners, please send your name/mailing address to essa_adams@essanatural.com
eBook winners were sent a private message with the download information.

PAPERBACK WINNERS

A BREATH FLOATS BY (Essa Adams)

• 1dawn@……….United Kingdom
  
• henglish@……..Canada

BLISSTORY JOURNAL (Teri Williams)

• grammycrackers95@ United States
  

eBOOK WINNERS

A Breath Floats By eBooks
1 topsaid246@ United States
2 pranksster@ United States
3 angelikaraven9@ United States
4 green.hope.farm@ United States

5 pchin7455@ Canada

6 birdsooong@ United States
7 sfranga@ United States
8 savanah@touchofenchantment.com United States
9 goddess_les@ United States
10 savvybookreader@ United States
11 dmckinney3@ United States
12 rowenak2811@ United States
13 kitzcat2001@ United States
14 rustyfingers47@ United States
15 lilprincess76mi@ United States
16 dragonseer13@ United States
17 bambi_ny2000@ United States
18 rham@ Canada
19 lumbeegirlm@ United States
20 purrpurrkoshkamb@ United States
21 blackroze37@ United States
22 jacqueline_fish@ United States
23 marlenebreakfield@ United States
24 patronia1@ Canada
25 kristenpuz@ United States
26 mizztuts@ United States
27 yanni_24@ United States
28 alice9simons@ Italy
29 gryffindoreanbrat@ United States
30 karasdesigns@ United States

BLISSTORY JOURNAL eBook

• saphire_40@ United States

KERATONICS SILK SHAMPOO

• yellowfeather199@ United States

Also we could consider friendship among women to be a possible soul mate connection (soulmates) because, in many beliefs soul mates do not require a sexual connection or passionate love interest.  Soul mates are a connection of the heart, in these beliefs, therefore a connection could be mother-daughter, brother-sister connection, or friend-friend.

The list of novels below includes most in the above slideshow. If you have suggestions for this list of friendship fiction for contemporary women’s fiction, please send an email, or better yet, use the comment box below. To order one of the novels, use the link to each in the slideshow for now.

Essa Adams

Author, A Breath Floats By

Friendship fiction novel, eternal friendships between women and men.
Life and death. When it counts most to be able to trust.

THE LIST – FRIENDSHIP FICTION

The Mermaid Chair

Seeking Sara Summers

Husbands May Come and Go But Friends Are Forever

The Beach House

Around Every Corner

A Breath Floats By

The Murderous Urges of Ordinary Women

The Season of Second Chances

The Castaways

Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood

The Help

But Not for Long

First Wives Club

Red Hat Club

Hot Flash Club

A Year On Ladybug Farm

At Home On Ladybug Farm

The Forgotten Garden

The Beach House

How to Make An American Quilt

Quartet of Autumn

Every Last Cuckoo

Winter Solstice

Beach Trip

Libby’s Ashes

The Friday Night Knitting Club

How Close We Come: A Novel of Women’s Friendship

The Wildwater Walking Club

Circle of Friends

The Ladies of Covington Send Their Love

A Woman of Independent Means

The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship

Thursdays At Eight

Chapter Three begins…

Daniel heated soup and toasted baby Swiss cheese sandwiches while Lindsay returned calls from the phone extension, which now reached the narrow enamel table in the kitchen.  She hung up with Sam’s sister just as Haidee called her back.

“Remember– “ she tried to calm Haidee before they hung up at nine o’clock, “remember bad news travels faster than good.”

“Unless,” Haidee said, “someone disappears and no one realizes.”

“Too much television drama?” Lindsay surmised.

“Crime scenes may be my scene soon.”

“So you have to think this way,” Lindsay said.  “Give silver hair to your mother who tries to never think the worst,” to which Haidee replied that the worst had already happened to her and they were all right, so that Lindsay thought, just that fast the child had forgotten about her dad.  Or she didn’t believe Sam would die.

“Good night, Haidee love, and remember to call your dad before eleven.  He’s hopefully leaving the hospital by then.”

“Short on clean dishes,” Daniel said, placing a sandwich on a paper towel in front of her, then a mug of tomato soup.  “Haidee doing okay?”

“I’m so proud of her.”

“She’ll do better now that she’s faced the merciless details of life the hard way.”

Lindsay laughed.  “Yes, yes, the hard way.”

He sat down and with his silvery-blue gaze regarded her face, then her hair.  “You don’t look too awful gray for weathering those episodes.”

“Not too.  But my heart took the beating for all the rest of me.”

“I know.”

“I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, but I want to open The Vintage Gate, LLC.”

“The Vintage Gate, sounds inviting. You really going limited liability company?”

“Umhmm, to protect myself from business problems.  I want this.  But Sam needs my time now.  And I don’t know how to coordinate all the problems of a new business with the dire necessities of a dying man.”

“One moment at a time.”

“One moment at a time,” she echoed, and Daniel sat there just smiling at her until she smiled back.

“You can do it,” he said, and she nodded, feeling she really could.  “Lindsay, you know catastrophes have a way of taking care of themselves, hey, you know that.”  She wanted to agree, but she was thinking she really didn’t know.

After their meal, she layered the dishes in the dishwasher.  There were no new additions since the meal last night.  She had given away too many sets in her need to simplify.  A detriment when she needed extra plates and bowls on days like this.  White ironstone preferred.

“You ready for bed?” Daniel asked with his hand poised over the light switch.

Shocked at the question, knowing better all the same, Lindsay nodded and avoided looking at him.

She simply said, “Good night.”  Her back felt stiff because her willful body wanted to go the other way as she passed through the shortest hall in the world to the living room.  Three steps seemed like thirty.

“See you in the morning,” he called from the back of the kitchen.  He had to turn past the refrigerator in the cubbyhole, and then she heard him climbing the steep, narrow carpeted stairs.

They made it to separate bedrooms, she thought gratefully.  So far so good.  No no, never use Gooee’s expression.

Lindsay heard the weight of his steps on the thick-carpeted floor above the living room.  He entered the large office-slash-library-slash-guest room where, along the windows, she had dressed a full-size wrought iron antique bed with a feather top mattress.  She imagined him on the white goose down comforter removing his shoes, sliding around a little bit, deciding it was all too puffy to suit him.

She went in her room and closed the door, raising the layers of sheers to cascade over the glass panes to the living room.

Itty toddled toward Lindsay, raised her tail, scooted her front feet backward, compacted herself into a square shape and gave a sharp little stomp before she ran beneath her skirt, her tail tickling bare shins.

“There you are,” she cooed, snuggling the petite round skunk.  “My Itty bitty pretty one, smelling sweet as a powder puff.  My soft sweetheart.”

Fern came skidding around the bed.  She nearly tipped onto her nose as she screeched to a halt and wheeled around, acting like she would spray.

“Fluffy Fern, I’m going to pinch your butt.”  She snuggled Itty and tousled Fern after tucking her foot into a thick slipper for something besides toes to grab.  Run away.  Stomp.  Skid back, stomp.  Give a cheerleader twist.  Wheel and pretend to spray.  Fern, named for her proud tail, was three years old and not tired of playing.  “I’m going to pinch you, I’ll pinch you,” Lindsay teased.

“Hey, Lindsay…” Daniel’s voice trailed eerily through the air vent in her ceiling.

She looked up. “Yes?”

“Pinch them for me too,” he said, and she realized he heard every move she made.

“Are you in Sam’s room?”  Sam’s was right over hers for a north lake view.

“No, but I can still hear you.”

“Goodness, thanks for letting me know.  Night then, Daniel…” and he called softly back, “Good night, Lindsay.”

Quietly she put on her nightdress then whispered her prayer for no dreams just as she had since high school, and slid between the warm jersey sheets into the promise of white calm that held her mind safe.

A vision in light came before she slept.

A vision of an old man with long hair pulled back, a fathomless spirit that spun into a younger man with blonde hair pulled back.

A man with olive eyes.  No, an owl.

But she was calm and safe.

A squeal like a teapot going off in the dawn sat her straight up for a second.  Then she dropped onto her pillow and rolled on the bed toward the skunks in their wee bedroom corner by the windows.  If one wanted to live with skunks, she thought, they must be willing to get up at four twenty-four every morning.  That was precisely when her skunks decided to go to bed and began quibbling over which den they would sleep in.

Fern was screaming in wrath today.  Itty was on her side next to Fern, back against the wall, pushing with all her legs to get Fern off the white flannel sheets.  But it was Fern’s bed. I tty’s was the plush den closest to the sweet alfalfa-filled litter pan for a reason.

Lindsay grabbed Itty and went to the mudroom to let Garth and Susanna outside.  In the kitchen, she shook a dozen hulled sunflower seeds out of a canning jar for Itty.  “You’re being a witch this morning.  You do know Great Horned Owls eat skunks?”

Then Lindsay remembered the owl from her sleep, though an owl of a different kind.  She wasn’t supposed to dream if she prayed, so what was going on?

Itty munched seeds with tail high then followed Lindsay for more.  Instead, Lindsay made coffee, dumped lentils in a crockpot for soup, checked the dogs, started dishes and laundry.  She needed breakfast, the dogs and skunks needed fed.

Oh goodness, wake up brain, Daniel was here too.

“Woo-hoo,” a woman’s voice called cheerily from the mudroom.   No, oh no no no! Gooee.  All-encompassing, abominable Gooee.

Lindsay backed toward the cubbyhole door, wanting terribly to flee.  She could hide behind Maimee’s cottage until Gooee decided she was not here.

How did Gooee know she was here?

Lindsay had purposefully not spoken to her for fourteen months.  Truly, the woman was just too out there.  Just too– too– universal-minded. Lindsay was here and now.  Earth unbound. Gooee was always projecting her thoughts into Lindsay’s brain and goodness knows how she managed that, but it worked for her.  Lindsay wanted her privacy and for life to be normal.

“Woo-hoo.  Didn’t someone need beautiful white ironstone china from England?”

This cannot be happening.  Lindsay, uncombed and in her robe, cautiously rounded the corner to face a fresh vision of brown-eyed Gooee in red lip gloss.  The shawl and long, red batik dress spoke her entitlement in the world, and though the undesired guest only had opened the door, not the screen, Lindsay felt intruded upon.

Gooee was a classic seventies Earth mother knockout in a silky gray pageboy.  When she was twenty-two, Lindsay knew, she changed her name from Lois to Gwynevere, meaning ‘fair lady.’  These days she called herself Gooee.  In Gooee’s own words, “might as well get real, darling.”  She had actually dropped down to about two hundred and eighty pounds, Lindsay realized.  Another sixty pounds lost and they would be the same size.  Only Gooee would never have full breasts like her own.  Then Lindsay acknowledged she was being more the witch than Itty.  And that was because she definitely felt put upon at the moment, ironstone dishes or not.

“Hi, darling. I helped set up at a garage sale this morning and noticed these dishes, and just had to follow my instincts and buy them for you. A house-warming gift, my dear, to go with everything, so I know these will be perfect for whatever you needed.”

Gooee stepped inside, standing beside Lindsay, eight inches taller in her wedges. She laid the cardboard box in Lindsay’s arms.

“How did you know?” Lindsay asked, genuinely wondering though pleased with the dishes.

“We just know these things.”

Gooee was often too vague on really important answers. But always cheerful. Too loud, too crude. But brutally honest about herself and what everyone else could feel, if they only wanted to feel universal. ‘The Universe,’ was Gooee’s favorite phrase, given to saying it the way a universal joint salesman says ‘universal joint’ all the livelong day.

Gooee was a contradiction unto herself. In a nutshell, Gooee was as concise as she was long-winded. And the contradictory question on the tip of Lindsay’s tongue, but she was too polite to ask. ‘Was Gooee crazy or the sanest person on the planet?’

“Well, dear, you take those dishes inside, and I’m going to go to my bus for breakfast fruits. We can nibble while we get caught up.” And she went outside.

Lindsay knew to expect the orange bowl of organic fruits with dreadful lemon-honey drizzle. Sam made awful faces. Daniel washed off the drizzle, saying students in Gooee’s high school literature class wouldn’t eat any so Lindsay ended up with theirs.

She did love the ironstone. She peeked around the box, going up the two stairs into the kitchen.

“Hey, did I hear Gooee?” Daniel asked tiredly, scratching at his beard as he walked into the kitchen from the other side.

Lindsay got an electric shock from alarm. Yes! You did. No time to say it out loud.

She practically dropped the box on the pink enamel table beside them and held her arm out, pushing against his chest.

Daniel’s astonished blue eyes registered.

Wildly, Lindsay looked over her shoulder, shoving him.

“Gooee?!” He wheezed, wheeling for the stairs.

Lindsay pushed against his back to propel him. “Go go man!” she hissed loudly. “Go- Go- Go- Go- Go!!!” She heard every step of his escape to preserve their privacy.

Gooee let herself back in, Newfs with her. “I met the puppies.”

“They’ve been here four days today,” Lindsay said calmly.

“And where is he?” The baiting question. Gooee sounded like someone’s aunt about to pinch a cheek. “I see his truck outside.”

Lindsay realized they had been caught. “Sam is using Daniel’s truck.” She never never lied. But she was lying now. “We sold our old truck.” That was true.

Gooee turned from the kitchen to the living room, depositing the plastic bowl on the table without looking, instead her entranced gaze on the cottage. “This is nice. Oh, oh, so nice. I like it. I really like it.” She wandered around the living room like she could buy the place herself. “Oh, but I should be quieter. Sam must be sleeping.” She pointed at the bedroom through the French doors. “Is that your master bedroom?” she whispered.

The doors were open. Empty bed unmade. Itty and Fern were staring them down, standing on the rug belligerently pointing their tails at the ceiling that hid Daniel.

“A face off with skunks,” Gooee whispered. “Universal moment.” She tilted her pretty gray head to the far left, studying them. “They’re very square, aren’t they?”

“When they’re planning to stomp and spray you.” Lindsay warily lifted her gaze to the ceiling for half a second, knowing Daniel could hear everything.

“Sam’s not in bed,” Gooee said slowly. “I was afraid I would wake him.”

“Sam’s gone fishing. Very early.” Lindsay wanted to throw herself around the living room like Ron Conrad in Pants on Fire.

Lies. Dishonesty, rudeness, ingratitude, ungracious hospitality. Oh for goodness sake, she thought, what karma was going to happen to her for this?

Gooee took a seat on the edge of the taupe sofa. “I knew you were in here somewhere. I just kept following the road, and around and around it wound until there was your car. I didn’t know if it was this house or that darling yellow one, but I noticed Daniel’s truck and said, there it is, and Daniel is there already so I won’t be waking them. But you always did get up with the skunks.” Gooee laughed at her cute word play on skunks instead of birds or chickens.

Never mind that, Lindsay thought. She remembered Gooee had her telephone number a few days ago. “How did you know we moved to Koontz Lake?”

“I went by your house yesterday, the signs were out and it was void of furnishings.”

“And you knew we moved over here to Koontz Lake?”

“We just know these things.” And Lindsay wished she would stop saying that. It was never an answer. Definitely not.

“The good thing is now you’re even closer to me.”

“Oh, okay then.” That made her so much more composed.

“I lost your other phone number,” Gooee continued, and Lindsay thought that she had actually torn Gooee’s phone number and address out of her book. Goodness, she almost said that one aloud. She had to stop thinking like this. Gooee could distinctly hear her thoughts, that she knew.

“But now you have a new number,” Gooee said.

No chance in the whole wide universe.

“Your real estate agent was very helpful,” Gooee said.

And Lindsay despaired. Gooee didn’t need the new number, and she certainly didn’t need this address. Say something nice now. “Thank you so much for the pretty dishes. I was hoping to get more, just last night.”

“And here they are darling lady.”

“Yes, and here they are. You found the perfect ones. Really, I love white ironstone.”

“Just following my instincts, darling, and keeping up with my friends, since it’s been so long… I’ve missed you terribly…. Ralph Waldo Emerson.” Gooee turned her head to the right, slightly raised her chin, poised. “Delicious is a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling.

“How beautiful, on their approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed: there is no winter and no night: all tragedies, all ennuis vanish, – all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons.

Please stop, Lindsay begged with her thoughts but Gooee wound on, “Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.”

Lindsay decided this must be the crazy lady. Maimee had a premonition and here she was, all ready to torment and tribulate Lindsay. Maimee’s wish for revenge was Gooee.

“But, darling,” Gooee said, now gazing over Lindsay’s face.  “Let’s not wait to see one another during this lifetime, we only have so long and then we’re gone, what a waste, there may be a thousand years to be apart later.”

Gooee looked like she was taking a deep breath, to see her through the next paragraph, or three, and she rushed on.  “I know I don’t have a stop button on my mouth, lucky for everyone concerned that I don’t have a rewind and play either.  We’re all better off most of the time if we just don’t remember what comes out of me.  But I want you to know that whatever I have done to offend you, I am truly sorry and wish to be forgiven because I really like you.  I love you.  You are such a wonderful person to talk to and you always listen and try to understand everyone and you are so beautiful in your heart, I miss being around someone like you. Because there aren’t too many people like you, Lindsay dear, there really aren’t.  Ralph Waldo Emerson.  ‘When a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal of fortune.’”

Lindsay blinked once and put her hands over her face.  Deeply remorseful, that’s what she was now.  This – this– dear dear woman.

Goodness, this was what Lindsay loved about her.  Gooee would always take the chance and open her beautiful heart to people.  Lindsay knew that she had never been as open as Gooee.  She had never in her life said anything so beautiful to anyone as Gooee just said to her.

“Oh, darling, darling, don’t cry, my apology was to make you glad,” Gooee said in singsong.  “Don’t hide your face.”

“A-shamed,” Lindsay managed, shaking her head.  “Just ashamed.”

“Why ashamed?” Gooee coaxed softly.

She uncovered her face.  “I never said anything or called for months.  I just disappeared.” Lindsay couldn’t tell her why, as some things were better left unsaid, mind reader or not.

“Well, you have a chance to do it all over again.  Right now.”

Lindsay was regaining her composure.  And wondering, just a little bit, why this was a good thing, her getting to do it over.  She met Gooee at a pottery class and, basically, was adopted by her.  But Gooee had such a precious heart that much was so apparent, regardless of her abominable presence and all-encompassing intellect.  People always wished her to go away.  But Gooee only desired to be genuine for their benefit.

Lindsay would try this friendship again.  There just were times Lindsay would have to speak up.

“There’s an upstairs too,” Gooee said, standing. “I want to see.”

Now Lindsay had to speak up.  “There’s no time for me to show you.”

“Oh?  Ohhh.”  She sounded a only little defeated.  “Okay, you have somewhere to go,” and Lindsay agreed, saying, “Yes yes, I still have to shower and dress.”

Gooee started for the kitchen.  “Where are the stairs?  Couldn’t I just take a little self-tour while you get ready?” and Lindsay said, “No-no,” like she was speaking to a toddler.

“Oh.” Gooee paused, now sounding deflated, confused and hurt.

Lindsay decided if they were starting over then she had to tell the truth.  Only some of it.  “Sam is in the hospital.”

“Oh, finally you tell me–”

“What? Finally?”

“We just know these things.”

“Oh, really, Gooee–”

“But if Sam’s in the hospital–” she paused, turning slowly to the bedroom where they could see the silver-blue extended cab pickup parked outside the white fence.  She pointed questioningly.

Goodness, just splendid.  She never could lie.  “Sam is borrowing Daniel’s truck.”  How far was she willing to take this?  Gooee would definitely be back.  She talked to everyone.  And truly, she did not have a censor device between her brain and mouth.  “Okay. Daniel is upstairs,” Lindsay admitted.  “He slept over so we can get back to the hospital early.  He was very tired after midnights.”

“Well I knew that all the time, dear, I was just wondering how long it was going to take for you to tell me.  And I assure you no one will be told so you don’t need to worry yourself over that.  Just between you, me and the lamppost up there, so far, so good.”

Sure, Lindsay thought.

“I’m coming down now,” Daniel called through the vent, true defeat in his tone being he was on the losing team this morning.

“Daniel, dear, I hope you have your clothes on,” Gooee called up the vent.

“He slept upstairs with his clothes,” Lindsay said.

“Oh, I know.”  Gooee laughed.  “I’m just tormenting him.”

“My goodness, Gooee,” she said, “I don’t know how much torment I can take.”  Lindsay went into the kitchen and scooped some of the honey-lemon drizzled fruit for Daniel into one of her own bowls.  “I’ll keep a little fruit. But thank you for bringing all this over.  It’s just that we have to get back to the hospital right away.  Sam may be released.  If not, then I want to be with him.”

“I understand fully, dear, and I’m going to go now but I’ll be back very soon to help you out and we can catch up then.”  Gooee grabbed Daniel by the hand, swinging their arms flirtatiously.  “Daniel is a good friend for you and Sam, I know that, so don’t mind my harassing.”  She hugged Daniel then Lindsay and opened the door to the mudroom.

“Oh, Lindsay,” she said, “I noticed a business for rent on the corner when I turned off the highway several times trying to find you.  And I kept saying to myself, over and over as I passed, ‘Lindsay Davinson is so creative, she could really do something universal with that place.’”

Gooee took off in her seventies white Volkswagen bus with black-and-white Woodstock scenes along both sides.  The image of a newspaper page blowing past the window at six in the morning if Lindsay didn’t know what she was seeing.

Lindsay was scowling for ten minutes after Gooee left.  She ate breakfast, avoiding the fruit.  She grunted agreement with Daniel about the weather and Garth’s soft coat until Daniel broached the Gooee subject that had Lindsay so riled.

“She’s alright, really,” he said.

“Daniel, you never liked her.”

“I never said I didn’t like Gooee.”  Daniel was at the sink rinsing the fruit.  “I don’t like sour drizzle, hey some things a person has to avoid. But Gooee, she’s got a big heart.”

“And mouth.”

“And mouth.  Unfortunately, she will mention me being here to someone she shouldn’t say anything to.  Consequently, we won’t be happy.  But we would do it again if we needed to.  Since we did nothing wrong, Lindsay.”

“Nothing.”

“We do our best to always be able to say we did nothing wrong.  We’re okay.  And Gooee will be Gooee.”

Lindsay was done thinking about Gooee.  She took a shower and Daniel went next.

Lindsay dressed in her flax-colored rustic cardigan and the black denim skirt, didn’t even put on socks with her mules.  She grabbed the Newfer-scooper, an obvious chore, and the leaf rake.  Raking dead grass from what Sam called their postage stamp lawn was the most mindless, therapeutic activity she knew.  She needed mindless.

She had dodged Gooee for fourteen months and now she was back.  Okay, Lindsay would live with that.  She could see all the admirable traits of Gooee, or Gwynevere or Lois.  Or Gougou, that legendary sea witch from Miramichi Bay.  Whoever she was in reality.

She knew she was at this place to build a new life, not leave behind her old life.

Grass sprouts rifled her senses.  Freshly mown lawn.  Rolling on spring grass with Sam.  Piling grass over their giggling girls.  When they were so newly married everything hurt, though it shouldn’t have.  Now she was so extensively married, and everything still hurt.  But she didn’t want to lose him by him dying.

A new life before he died.  That was why they were here.  Lindsay had decided on the tiny village of Koontz Lake because her husband was never planning to leave his crane job, even with two hundred and thirty-one days left.  Otherwise, they might be somewhere truly scenic.

Koontz Lake. Not so scenic.

One of those northern-like villages in the middle of everywhere such as television paradigms.  Almost no one lived here.  Just people passing through on their way to the other place, passing through as they whiled away the weekend, passing through after staying the summer.  A place where nothing changed as everything around you modified.  They needed a place where nothing would change while they went through the greatest adjustment of their middle-aged lives.

She decided to come here because the town had a lake along the east.  A lake felt necessary for their life change.  They could pretend they were retired and seventy instead of Sam barely making fifty.

They always wanted a pontoon and water-faring Newfoundland.  Now they had two Newfs, the cottage she loved, and the lake.  She wanted to get the pontoon now, so Sam could go out and fish.

“I need a pontoon,” she murmured as she raked more slowly, the edge off her stress.

Gooee, the name meant stress for her.  A pontoon meant less stress.  Sam could work, then sit out there and fish.  And be with her, of course.

Read more of Chapter Three here. . . .

Begin at beginning of novel here . . .

Order an ebook for easier reading. . .

Essentially every story is driven by the issues of women worldwide.  Keeping our children safe.  Supporting our friends.  Traveling well.  Making love.  Understanding our dreams and how to reach the goals that represent them.

There are a myriad of life slices for each reader to find exactly what they want in women’s fiction.  With the new genres for spiritual, paranormal, mystic, new age, reincarnation, visionary, lesbian, inspirational,  mystery, women of a certain age, family, relationships, marriage, and of course, romance, the possibilities are endless.

More and more, present day fiction encompasses spirituality and inspirational philosophies.  How to deal with divorce with a more spiritual and loving answer.  Where to find the inspirational momentum in contemporary fiction for parenting, for the loss of a spouse or friend, for dealing with one’s own cancer.

Within contemporary women’s fiction we meet friends who tell us the truth because, in life itself, fiction writing is where the edge of truth is honed.  Since nothing holds more truth than fiction.

These pages and posts on Women’s Fiction Blog will explore the books and movies of contemporary women’s fiction.

I encourage readers to email me with their reviews on favorite books and movies in the contemporary women’s fiction, especially inspirational, divorce, friendship, mature women’s fiction.  I will be posting.

Essa Adams, Author

Contemporary women’s fiction.

Divorce. Friendship. Death. Cancer.

Relationships that transcend a lifetime.

A Breath Floats By

.

.

.

Chapter Two to the end…

Thirteen years ago, Daniel had met Terri.  Lindsay appreciated how the girls adored Terri, who made everything enchanting those first few weeks.  Haidee was six, Natalie seven, Melanie nine.

But Terri was never around after that and Daniel was seldom around.  Then, after almost five years of marriage, he evolved back into their lives full time. Lindsay, to this day, didn’t know what happened but, apparently, Terri walked out.

What Lindsay did know was during the period of Daniel dating Terri, then the first year of his marriage, she hauled herself through a paralyzing depression.

When Haidee was seventeen, going through the second drug rehab program, Lindsay had been around Daniel for a few hours as they painted the side of the house.  Hours later she was unsettled, aroused. She could barely breathe.

Haidee’s counselor mentioned her mood when they were reviewing the appointment schedule.  “You’ve been quiet the last few times I’ve seen you,”

“I’ve been really sad. I guess that’s what it is.”

And for once, she said it.

“A few weeks ago I got to see Daniel after he was away on vacation, and I realized something.  I remember, so easily, the first time I met him, every minute of him being around us, coming and going all these years.  I remember how peaceful he can be, how he brings rational judgment to every situation.  Talking to him about everything.  Waiting for him to show up for twenty years. Needing him to show up.”

She sighed, studying the counselor, who was listening raptly for anything to help Haidee and the family.  Was this information helpful, Lindsay wondered.  No one could hear anyway.  This didn’t count.

“I never told him,” she continued, for Haidee’s sake, if not her own.  “I believe I love him.”

“I believe you do,” the counselor said without judgment.  “Could you tell him?”

“I tried once, when he planned to marry.  He still married and my heart broke.  What could I ask, really.  He is Sam’s best friend.  I was married, we had the girls.”

“You could tell him again. Now.”

“He is Sam’s best friend.  I can’t– we can’t– we can’t hurt Sam.”  And she knew she spoke the truth for Daniel too.

They just couldn’t.  Never.

Lindsay sat on her bed at the cottage for several hours that night scribbling in the theme book.  She was still wearing her skirt and hooded sweatshirt.  The pink glow of lamps barely lit the pages she hoped she could read tomorrow.  These ideas had to be recorded.

She sketched the building dimensions and designated antique sections then those for tools and architectural salvage materials.  Booths for local artists, including in the tiny cottage.

Goodness!  She remembered, at one in the morning, she had left the vulnerable transplants in the yard and didn’t want to lose them to frost.  She slid into her mules, pulled a small flashlight from a basket by the French doors to the deck.  A full moon lit her path.  A wind gust pushed at the small of her back and reeled shadows of black branches from leafless trees over the cold ground.

The box of transplants was gone.  Oh goodness.  Stolen from here?  Lindsay felt a welt of anger raise on her forehead.  She lost her perennials, the cost of being sidetracked.

Maybe Sam moved them.  Since there wasn’t a garage, she searched along the front fence.  Near the old rusty mailbox, she discovered a plot of freshly dug earth surrounding a sheet covered with straw.  She peeked beneath to find the pale green and brown stems.  Sam.  He needed to stop overdoing.

Lindsay returned to her theme book.

She knew a folk artist creating scenes on antique windows.  Lindsay was going to invite her to rent the front of the cottage.  She planned the customer service functions.  The Wyann’s section, a tea and herb section, shelves for natural toiletries.  Chose her order of Cranberry Attic Candles.

Half past three in the morning Sam knocked on the door.  “Lindsay?”

“Hi.”  Her voice croaked.  “Come in, Sam.”

He shuffled across the room to balance on the edge of the dark sage wing chair.  “What are you doing still awake?”

She tried to smile but her face had gone to sleep without her.  “Brainstorming,” she managed.

“I need to go to the hospital.” He shook his head, not looking at her. “Maybe not.”

Lindsay scooted right onto her papers and calculator.  “Sam?”

“Blood in the urine again, too much–”

“Oh Sam, oh no Sam.”  He wouldn’t say he was in pain.  She was pulling on her robe, decided she didn’t need one and grabbed a jacket.

“You can dress, Lindsay, ‘cause I will.”

“You’re lounge pants are fine.  I’ll get your jacket, let’s just go.”

“Call your sister or Daniel to let the dogs out if we aren’t back.”

“I’ll call from Saint Andrew’s, Sam.”

They had an hour and a half drive.  She knew there was ambulance dispatch along their way, but they may not need to stop.

The drive through the dark night was almost over when Sam roused.  “I was fishing after my half-a-day turn yesterday, found a spot by this old wooden bridge, at this guy’s place by the cove.  Good fishing in the cove there, I can go out in waders.  But, you know I wouldn’t go over the bridge to get to the cove.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”  She knew Sam had a modified phobia of bridges, gephyrophobia.  He would only go under or around a wooden bridge, or through the water.

“Those waders are useless.  I slid in the mud under the bridge.  Wonder if that is what caused this,” he said grimacing as pain sliced through her own body in empathy for him.

“Or maybe digging the bed for my flowers,” she suggested but he shook his head, and said, “I didn’t dig anything.”

Goodness, well that was interesting.  Who planted the flowers?  She patted his hand, held on for a while.  “Sam, try to sleep now.  You won’t get much at the hospital.”

“You need to sleep more, Clara Rose, in case you have to play ambulance.  You need more rest, not staying up late like you just did.”

“I will, I promise. I’ll be okay.”

“Then show me,” he challenged as he dozed again. “Show me I can–” The full white moon shone on the back of his grizzly head.

Show you what, Sam, she thought.  You can leave?  Show me you can believe I’ll be all right without you?

Sometime around noon the next day, Lindsay barely steered her car over three miles an hour through the lake area.  Every bone in her body complained from weariness.  She could hardly tap energy to breathe.  She checked the sunvisor mirror for a true assessment of how she felt.  Her eyes were practically sightless with navy-blue stains beneath.  Her dark hair hung wearily along her too flat face.  But the cheeks were high and perky.  Lovely as always, she thought.  If only other parts of her middle-age physique remained so constant.

She parked the Crown Victoria on the southeast side of her house near Maimee’s front door.  And she sat there, windows up, mulling her case.

Their first night of this.  Coming home, alone, leaving him at the hospital to receive care she could not give.  Sitting here in the drive, knowing she had to sleep for both their sakes.  When all she wanted was to go back for him.

If she had gone to bed last night this wouldn’t be so difficult, she thought, angry with herself for her shortsightedness.  She had to keep a balance here.  She could have been fishing with Sam when he got off work.  She couldn’t wait another few days?  Just waited to transplant flowers and work out a business budget?

Lindsay practically crawled out of the car, trying not to notice her neighbor on the tiny front porch of her miniature bungalow flipping through a catalog, with Levis and a tucked in sweatshirt presumably keeping her warm

Newfoundlands in fiction, Garth and Susanna

“I let your dogs out a couple times this morning,” Maimee called to Lindsay, some edge off her usual tone.  “I would hope you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh?”  How?  Lindsay glanced from her cottage to Maimee.

“You wouldn’t want those two horses peeing in your house,” she said gruffly.

“Thank you, Maimee, I entirely forgot to call someone.”

“Well, you won’t ever have to as long as I’m here.”

“But… how?” Lindsay knew she locked the doors.

Maimee stood, stalking to the white door of her bungalow.  “You don’t think I’ve lived next door to that place for forty years and don’t have a key by now, do you?”

“Well, that’s– that’s–”  Nice?  Lindsay contemplated saying.  “That works,” she said instead.

Maimee scowled.  “You want it back?”

“No, no, Maimee.  It seems we’re going to need your help.  Really, thank you.”

“You’ve got it.”  She hurled her catalog inside and slammed the door then shooed Lindsay toward the white cottage, her long spindly legs piloting her down the steps without her holding onto the handrail.  “Now show me, where the dog food is and how many buckets do they eat.”

Lindsay led her into the mudroom, explaining that each dog ate two cups of food, breakfast and supper.  “Slow metabolism,” she said, and gestured to the bowls on the bench tables for tall dogs.  “There’s always water in the bowls.  Oh, and Maimee, please don’t ever let them stay out in the yard when you’re not right there.  Newfs are a favorite breed for dog ‘nappers.”

“Any other pets?”

She imagined Maimee with her other pets.  “I’ll take care of Itty and Fern,” she said, but she was too tired to explain they were skunks.  Anyway, they used a litter pan and would sleep through anything except smoke, mowers and vacuums.  All she had to do was toss raw vegetables and nuts on the floor in an emergency, lock her bedroom door and they wouldn’t miss her for half the day.

Maimee headed out the mudroom door.  “Get some sleep before you drive back to the hospital. He needs you to be rested with what he’s going through.”

Lindsay did have another question, but Maimee was gone.

Really though, how did she know about Sam at the hospital, and that the dogs even needed out?  Lindsay stood there, watching Garth and Susanna eat.  The extracurricular information line was impossibly active around Koontz Lake, she thought, remembering how Mr. Marshall knew she wanted a price on the complex.  Goodness, what if she ever really said anything to someone, or, heaven forbid, her actions were worthy of this gossip, goodness, the ideas that would come out of that information.

Maimee opened the door and stuck her springy-haired head inside.  “By the way.  There’s a crazy lady who lives here at the lake.  Have I mentioned her yet?  Don’t think so ‘cuz those dogs shook me up.  Now she is gonna be able to help you.  She will find all the artists you need for that old antique mall.  Now I know I mentioned that mall closing!”  She swirled her hand around her head.  “Don’t no one floating around here tell me I didn’t.”

Surreal, Lindsay thought, too tired to ask as she watched Maimee stalk away from the door.

A brief impression of her great-uncle cast over her dulled senses, so much she thought he was beside her for a second.  She always thought of Uncle Herron as ancient and spry.  He had to meet Maimee Storganaff.  No no, she would chew him up.

She was in her bedroom when she felt the first breath of the day float by her.  She was too tired, feeling drafts where none should be.  The change of weather breezing through the sparsely insulated cottage, surely.  But it was as if spring just breathed.

Lindsay realized that peri-menopause coming at her entirely too soon hadn’t hit the fan as harshly as this season’s  heart-renching transformation, which was sweeping them ever closer to Sam’s death.

Calm now… breathe…

Hoping his hospital lunch tray reached him by now, she stripped to cotton briefs and fluffy socks to crawl into bed at noon, fluffing up a huge hollow beneath the blankets for herself.

Weary enough to be less wary than ever in the last three decades, she tried to pray not to dream but only fell face downward into an engulfing sleep, cringing, just waiting. . .

A wide-eyed gray seal skidded through the doorway and onto the rug making her two lounging Newfoundlands raise their great heads to grumble.  Even both her skunks lifted their tails.  The dogs, the skunks, they saw the seal!  But goodness, she was dreaming if that creature was in her bedroom.

She struggled to open her eyes but hypnotizing light suspended her.  She was surrounded with heaven thrilling tones, and to make life more dismal, outlandish women wandered through her new cottage.  One of the two in long dresses was singing… the one with turquoise eyes.  A skinny older woman wore shorts.  Another tiny one with sleeves torn off her flannel shirt was pulsing a heartbeat on a flat leather drum.

Cranky Maimee slammed in the front door and thumped through the room with the cottage key on a neck chain.  The scrawly cat on Maimee’s shoulder clung to her floppy gray hair as the old woman slammed her exit so hard Lindsay jerked awake.

Goodness.

Certain the front door slammed, she bolted off the bed landing in front of the French doors to the living room, facing only one of four cottage entrances.

Nothing, except that inexplicable cluster of light bubbles.

She crouched low and hurried to the window, screening her near nudity with the white lace sheers as she ducked behind the towering wardrobe.  No one was in the yard.

She cringed from the icy fear in her spine, waiting.

Had they even gone?

Then a breath. . .  almost a breath floated by.

It was happening all over again.  After thirty years.

She realized this was the first night since Haidee’s birth that she hadn’t slept at least four hours, though she usually slept for nine.  All Lindsay’s life she was instilled to go to sleep even when others did not.  Slumber parties when other girls were awake until dawn, she was dreaming by midnight.  The dreaming started when she was really young and she always felt like she would miss a piece of life if she didn’t sleep, not if she didn’t stay awake.

Reassuringly, two gigantic black dogs rested on the bedroom rug watching her with great interest.  Lindsay realized if someone had been in her cottage, or if a presence of someone were here now, she would be informed. But the dogs were unperturbed.

Goodness, she knew the problem. She didn’t actually pray. She went back to her room, understanding fully the expression of ‘shaking in ones own skin’.

Through the veil of life where time is an illusion, dimensions and eras of time are not differentiated….

In an Ojibwe village at Manitowik Lake, in Northern Ontario near the eastern shore of Lake Superior and Old Woman Bay… during the twilight… Cay ro say sensed the Breath of Spring arrive.  The dreaded day had come to them.

She would never allow her family to be severed again. Lifetimes from now, she knew this grief would remind her to sacrifice… to keep the family as one because this change in her life today Cay ro say could not bear.

She linked her arm more securely with Wah tay see’s.  Her younger sister sang strong for their eldest sister and brother as they retreated by the northern hemlock path into skeletons of sugar maples.  Answering Wah tay see’s song for their new life, Brown Wolf, One Who Leads the Way, faced their family, raising his arm.

Cay ro say stepped higher on the rocks for him to see her, inhaling the stinging lake wind and praying at her biting resentment.

But she could do no more, not after the days spent praying Go ee yaw’s pride away.

Turn to us, please, she pleaded tightly within her breath.  But one of eight horses gifted by their village blocked her sister’s broad back from view.  The final realization.

Go ee yaw would never turn, she knew.  Her sister would stubbornly walk away, the-teacher-who-was-not-so-wise-after-all.

Cay ro say’s expectation in the moment was so heightened she cringed, waiting as she did for a dream.

A breath, a whisper, passed by her shoulder.

She had felt the veil open many times. But not at the noonday.

And the whisper?  A whimper of fear… yes, she heard now.  Though she did not know…. whose fear?  Yet someone so near to her heart she could touch them in comfort if only she had that comfort to give in this moment.

Convulsive sobs broke Wah tay see.  Cay ro say tried to sing and burning tears silenced her too, pain stabbing her throat.

Then, from the rise, lifted ever higher the shrill voices of their grandfather and grandmother.  Tall Heron and Scolding One, mourning, singing. Unfaltering..

Why were Go ee yaw and Brown Wolf so determined to give everything for the sake of their bond?  But Cay ro say knew this departure might well have included herself and her older brother, Mo wa sah.  If they had been given a choice by the Grandmothers, would they have left to be able to stay together?

If not for the dreams.  The people valued her dreams and would not ask her to choose.  Not at this time, they would not… because of what Dreamland sent.

.

Lindsay had slept three hours, just enough to feel like she had a head full of socks.  Yawning repetitiously, Lindsay dressed without taking a shower she was in such a hurry to return to Sam.  Fresh lingerie, her charcoal boucle’ skirt and black yarn cardigan.  She rolled black stockings to her knees and slipped on the black mules.

The phone rang when she was brushing her hair, thinking she needed to warm soup, she was so famished.  She answered in her bedroom, slumping on the edge of the rumpled bed.

“Did you eat?” Daniel asked, and she told him nothing since dinner last night.  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.  “I’ll have something when I get there in ten minutes.  Hey, I’ll drive you back over.  We’ll take your car to bring Sam home.”

He worked midnights last night but there he was, a few miles from Koontz Lake.  Her headache vibrated and she finally thought to agree with him and tell him good-bye.

Lindsay took the dogs outside before Daniel arrived.  She remembered the planted perennials and walked over to snoop for clues, arms folded around her, hands tucked inside the sleeves of her black cardigan.  The sheet was gone and straw lightly covered the flowerbed where plastic markers were sticking in the black earth.  She checked closer and found the flowers correctly labeled.

She heard Maimee hoarsely calling the dogs under her breath.  She tried to pretend she didn’t notice the dogs now at the south gate, watching Maimee place her scrawly gray cat on the hood of the old Buick.  Low in its throat the cat said, “Cwadow.”  Lindsay heard those distinct syllables all the way from her own yard.

“Here’s Cwadow,” Maimee encouraged Garth and Susanna.  “Get Cwadow, get him.”

Garth coiled his upper lip like he would just like to do that, his tongue slapping his nose.

“Garth–” Lindsay warned.

Maimee dropped a cardboard flat of dirt and stems over the fence.  “Here’s a bunch of achillea for your garden,” she said gruffly.  “It’s flathead yarrow, grows a foot, all colors.  Don’t have any more room for them.”

“Maimee, thank you,” Lindsay said, pleased.  She looked over at the dug earth.  “Maimee, do you know anything about these flowers being planted last night?”

“Good you got some straw on those.  They would’ve been shocked by the freeze coming.”  The old woman walked away.

Daniel brought her a sliced beef sandwich with horseradish, potato cakes and pineapple juice.  He had been to his favorite restaurant, besides Kelly’s Steak House.  She ate in the car, her life now speeding west on Highway 30.  She wadded the wrappers in the empty bag, then with one finger touched Daniel’s brown plaid jacket.

“What?” he asked, and gave her a grin that tipped sideways.

“Just checking to see if I’m awake.”

“Hey, why?”

“Today seems surreal.”  The second time she had used that word in a few hours, she thought.  “Things just keep happening without me asking.  But–” she took a deep breath, looked out the side window at flat scenery on the merely functional highway.  “But, if anything was surreal, I wouldn’t be journeying all the way back to a hospital ninety minutes away when my husband is dying.  Surreal or not, I would have had the foresight to move close to a hospital!”

“There are hospitals out here. Plymouth, South Bend, LaPorte, Valpo–”

“Sam just wants that one.  And I didn’t think beyond my needs.”

“Sure you did.  You got him to the lake to fish, didn’t you?”

“You’re right.  We need a pontoon now.  He slipped on the bank under the bridge yesterday.”

“Wooden bridge?” Daniel asked, grimacing, and Lindsay nodded, murmuring, “Mmmhmm,” so that Daniel laughed, no matter how much empathy he had for his friend.  “Big thunderhead could have stayed on the bridge.  But he would just fall off.”

“He will probably be released when we get there.”

“That’s good,” Daniel said.  “Hey, what was going on that they kept him?”

“You know,” she squeezed her eyes shut against the reality of the answer.  “They just don’t know. He won’t allow surgery.  He won’t go beyond blood work, an ultrasound or scan.  Or an MRI.  And definitely not another biopsy.  The specialists can only observe.”

Certainly, admittedly, she knew she was angry with Sam.  But she couldn’t blame him either.  “Ever since I married him, he has said he would never have chemo.  And nothing for life support.  He said it once a year, I swear, just so I wouldn’t forget.”

“He told me too. It’s been real important to him.”

“But there must be a way to help him, Daniel.”

They were told upon arriving at Saint Andrew’s that Sam was being kept over night.  He slept so soundly from the moment they got there that after five hours Lindsay and Daniel left a note for him.  So she wouldn’t disturb him, she whisper-kissed his cheek without touching him, and they left.

The Crown Victoria streaked the dark highway home.  Lindsay realized her inane chattering was getting on her own nerves.  She drifted into silence and rested her head on the seat to watch the lights of homes vanish behind them.

Daniel’s warm hand gently circled hers, offering support.  No words compared as he held her hand like he had so often over the years.  His energy pounded into her.

Almost forty minutes of screaming silence passed.  If she touched his face?

Wondering was pointless.  Daniel would pull back, he would be the strong one for them tonight, he would give them another day or year to contemplate choices.  ‘We’ll know when we’re right,’ he had told her nine years ago.

“Lindsay, if it’s all right, I’ll sleep upstairs in that extra bedroom.”

“Poor Daniel, you probably got less sleep than I did and you’re driving me.”

“I caught a few naps at work.  A few hours this morning before I came over.  I’m fine–”

“But too tired to persevere,” she filled in for him, and he patted her hand saying, “Absolutely fine, but too tired to persevere.”

Read Chapter Three here. . . .

Begin at beginning of novel here . . .

Order an ebook for easier reading. . .

One man proposed that though he does believe in reincarnation, all this talk of soul mates gives him concern that the divorce rate will rise.  He thinks people will be scrambling to get to the one person they believe is only suited for them.  Therefore, he did not want to allow this reincarnation love story on his book list.  My opinion?  Personal fears he may be dealing with for now.  It’s all right.

I think that in writing reincarnation fiction, and giving thought to this for years, I am guessing the chance of getting with your soul mate is one in a hundred.  Why so easy?  Well, to my way of thinking, we seldom get out of our soul group.  And I think our soul mate or soul twin preference is within that soul group. 

A soul group is like a task force to me.  Everyone has their job to accomplish and all are needed to pull it off.  Some do not want to get to work.  Creating more challenges for the others.  But there is love.  There is intimacy that is not understood but appreciated.

Divorce being a part of finding one’s soul mate is unfortunate.  But I will personally stay clear of that arena.  Except to say that people do have reasons to stay together, even when they know they are not with their soul mate.  People also have reason not to pair with their soul mate, especially if that soul mate is dealing with character and moral challenges in a lifetime.

What I am saying.  Love is not enough.

What I am also saying.  We can love more than one person, differently but genuine, just the same.

A Breath Floats By proves that deep love.  Speaks of the spiritual energy we, as a whole, are responsible to maintain for this world and those within.

Do divorce being the answer to getting with one’s soul mate?  Not unless everything falls in place with love.  Then love is enough.

Essa Adams is author of A Breath Floats By and develops life path guidance charts.

Reincarnation poem and two excerpts from reincarnation book…..

The Twilight

James Russell Lowell, 1819 – 1891

Sometimes a breath floats by me

An odor from Dreamland sent,

Which makes the ghost seem nigh me

Of a something that came and went,

Of a life lived somewhere, I know not

In what diviner sphere.

A something too vague, could I name it,

For others to know:

As though I had lived it and dreamed it,

As though I had acted and schemed it

Long ago…..

Prologue – A Reincarnation Characterization

From Jesus’ time to the Druid universities of Britain,

from an Ojibwe village near Lake Superior and lifetimes between.

One soul group emerges in the Midwest with differences to resolve.

Heartbreaks to attend.

Another dimension or another era?  The Circle of Time?

What is time but an illusion? And life, the illusion for the soul.

I often see all of us, the women, standing in the tunnels waiting to be helped into the boats,” said Heather Laurel, glancing at Clara Rose.  “You were there, love.”

“I don’t remember,” said Clara Rose.

“You don’t want to remember,” Maimee stated.

“We were a team,” Sam said.

“Hey, not actually meant to be with one another, as couples?” Daniel pondered.

“Will anyone ever get it?”  Thoroughly exasperated, Gooee turned away.

Excerpt CHAPTER TWO

Sometimes a breath floats by me… An odor from Dreamland sent… Goodness! Certain the front door slammed, she bolted off the bed landing in front of the French doors to the living room. Nothing, except that inexplicable cluster of light bubbles.

She crouched low and hurried to the window, screening her near nudity with the white lace sheers as she ducked behind the towering wardrobe. No one was in the yard.

She cringed from the icy fear in her spine, waiting.

Had they even gone?

Then a breath… almost a breath floated by.

Excerpt CHAPTER FIVE

A life lived somewhere… As though I had lived it and dreamed it… Lindsay marched back into the living room to face a growing wall of light bubbles hovering in golden sunrays. They had to go. She opened her mouth–

A flash of a huge cast iron pot slammed her. A hissing fire-red vessel of water. Heart hammering, backing out too terrified to blink, her hip hit the doorframe. Yelling from the fires. Her own screaming? Fighting futilely at bruising hands hauling her toward a net. Screaming at the angry crowd intent on dipping her. She bit cloth and arm. Her gums ripped. Emptiness, floating. The lights carried her. A breath on a night wind.

Sobbing, she fell to her knees on the hardwood floor. The golden lights in her living room came closer.  Lindsay bowed her head.

Reincarnation Stories Online

Begin reading Chapter One… link

Order A BREATH FLOATS BY paperback, ebook, KINDLE… link

Top of page.

An eternal romance novel. Within this timely, gentle love story of lifetimes anew

A Breath Floats By Novel Online

in the Great Lakes Region, a swirling spiritually-charged world is exposed.

Begin reading Chapter One – Next Scenes… link

What if you realize you married your best friend’s soul mate?

If your sacred work petrifies you with glimpses of tortured deaths in past lives?

What becomes of your soul group if you do not keep your promise this lifetime?

Lindsay Davinson’s husband, Sam, has months to live. While she works to secure her family and career, she realizes one woman who supports her is vying for Sam’s heart.  Through it all, Lindsay becomes aware that her soul group needs her more than she needs them, especially Daniel.

Lindsay, Heather Laurel and Gooee deal with divorce, security, forgiveness, faith and death by using a highly unconventional interpretation.  However, their greatest challenge is the raw honesty required in facing the complexity of their love affairs.

An eternal romance novel.   Within  this timely, gentle love story of lifetimes anew in the Great Lakes Region, a swirling spiritually-charged world is exposed.

BEGIN READING PART ONE - link

Click Part 1 in black menu above….

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Email so I can send you an email when the novel is available in bookstores and through online retailers. Your email will be kept private and only used for my novels and blog notifications.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.Top of page.