Spotlight: Landing by Olivia Hawker

Alan is able to imagine every way critical equipment might break during the launch and landing of Apollo 11. But his experience in preventing cosmic disasters does nothing to prepare him for the pressures of a hasty marriage to a woman he barely knows—or the strain of keeping up appearances amid the shifting social attitudes of the late ’60s. When a crisis at home forces Alan back to earth, he’s faced with a choice he doesn’t know how to make: whether to let go or move forward.

Olivia Hawker’s Landing is part of A Point in Time, a transporting collection of stories about the pivotal moments, past and present, that change lives. Read or listen to each immersive story in a single sitting.

Excerpt

Alan wasn’t sure what exactly love was, how to quantify and measure it, but he knew how he’d felt on that day when he’d first met Carol. He’d been standing in the crowd on Playalinda Beach, with his school buddies gathered around him, all of them waiting in breathless anticipation for Saturn V to billow out its red skirt of fire and rise majestically into the sky. They were jostling and laughing, making crude jokes, and Alan had slipped a little farther down the beach as he’d sensed ignition coming, this moment he’d been dreaming of for months now. He wanted to be alone with his wonder, his sense of accomplishment—as much as a guy could be alone in a pack of excited gawkers.

A girl with dark hair had come skipping backward across the sand, holding up her camera, trying to keep her friends in the frame while they posed with Cape Canaveral behind them. Look out, one of them had called, and a second later Carol had collided with Alan.

He’d said, Pardon me, my mistake, even though it had been hers, but she hadn’t left it at that. She forgot all about taking that picture and asked him if he wanted a beer because she had one in her bag, though it was probably warm by now. And then his friends were flocking around, urging him toward the beautiful, slender girl with the camera, and one of them said, He’s an engineer at NASA, you know. He helped build the rocket.

“Well,” Carol had said, giving Alan a more considering look. Then she’d cracked open a beer can herself and pushed it decisively into his hand while his friends hooted and pounded him on his back.

“What do you do over at NASA?” she’d asked.

“Small-equipment engineering.” The beer had gone warm, but Alan gulped it down just so he wouldn’t have to meet her eye. She was watching him with an expectant grin, and he didn’t know what was expected of him.

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“I break things,” Alan had said, chuckling. “I’m supposed to think of all the ways a thing might break, and then make that thing unbreakable.”

“Oh, yeah?” Carol had stepped very close to him before he’d realized what she was doing, before he could slide away. She tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow, and he was afraid to drink any more of the beer in case the movement might dislodge her and deprive him of her touch. “What about hearts?” she’d said. “Can you make hearts unbreakable?”

A moment later there’d been a burst of red light on the cape, twenty tons of fuel per second burning in a cloud of heat, and Saturn V had begun its flight into an endless new frontier.

And now here they were, holding hands as if it were a thing they’d always done, a thing they’d be doing for the rest of their lives, motoring toward the country club, and staring, both of them, out over the perfect blue of the water to the cape and the far horizon beyond. It was easier to keep their eyes on the world out there than on the small, uncertain reality they’d just made between them. 

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About the Author

Olivia Hawker is the Washington Post bestselling author of The Fire and the Ore, The Rise of Light, The Ragged Edge of Night, and One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, which was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the WILLA Literary Award for Historical Fiction. For more information, visit www.hawkerbooks.com.

Spotlight: We Are Bone and Earth by Esi Edugyan

At a fort in Cabo Vermelho in 1779, Sisi, a West African girl with a gift for languages, works as a translator for her English enslavers. She was separated from her younger brother after they were kidnapped from their village by the ahosi, fierce female warriors who serve a neighboring king—and her guilt over her failure to protect him has never left her. When unexpected news reaches the fort, Sisi must find her voice, for her brother’s sake and for her own.

Esi Edugyan’s We Are Bone and Earth is part of A Point in Time, a transporting collection of stories about the pivotal moments, past and present, that change lives. Read or listen to each immersive story in a single sitting.

Excerpt

CABO VERMELHO, 1779

In the early hours, the rooms still cold from the night wind off the water, a new caravan arrives at the fort. And though I hold no hope, though I tell myself it is a foolish labor, I know I will again search among the taken for my brother. Five years have passed since I last looked into Yao’s eyes, five years since I have been made to accept his loss. And yet I cannot reconcile with it. I cannot believe I am never again to see him on these shores, the two of us cutting a path through the black trees back to the interior, going home.

Pawns. That is what the young ones brought here are called—free children given to the cheegwa as collateral. Their fathers leave them here, at the fort, in exchange for debts they cannot pay or for loans to buy slaves in the interior, and terrified, lonely, defenseless, they are given their six weeks of food, shelter, water in this foul stone house. They cross the narrow yard with their vessels and drink from the briny well. They sleep on their straw pallets; in the bleached mornings they huddle in the corners praying to the gods, clutching their meager belongings. Their dolls. Their carved wooden keepsakes. Listening all the while to the groans of the captives in the pens beyond. And the cheegwa with their raw pink skin, they do not molest them, they lay no hand upon them. These children walk among them untouchable and blessed.

Until the last day of that sixth week, when their fathers are given until midnight to claim them. And if the men do not arrive, or if they fail to pay or bring their promised quota of slaves? Then the small ones are dragged crying into the pens, or taken below into the darkness and shackled and beaten with cane rods until their legs burn with blood, and then they too are shipped across the waters, to the terrible unknown islands.

Six weeks they are bone and earth, medofu. And then they are neither.

And how do I account for myself? I who have been here five years now, housebound, spared such a fate because I speak many tongues. Days before my arrival the Welshman translator passed in a howl of dysentery and fever, and days later my gift for languages was discovered, and I was forced to replace him. I am looked at with envy by the pawns who come and who go.

They imagine I am lucky.

But I remember still how it was once, your tiny rough hand in mine, the trees as dark as iron in the resting place. I remember the smell of our mother’s skin, like earth turned in the dry season. The flash of iron in sunlight. And our father walking among the yellow lizards by the river, the shadows of leaves breaking across his face. All that, all of what was once our world.

I shall speak of all that has since happened, medofu, so that you will know, it will be as if no years have parted us.

I shall tell you what we were. 

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About the Author

Esi Edugyan is the author of the novels The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, Half-Blood Blues, and Washington Black and the nonfiction work Out of the Sun. She is the recipient of the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2011 and 2018), the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (2012), and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (2013).

Spotlight: The Second First Chance by Mona Shroff

Publication Date: August 2, 2022

Publisher: HQN Books

For fans of Katherine Center's THINGS YOU SAVE IN A FIRE and Jill Santopolo's THE LIGHT WE LOST, THE SECOND FIRST CHANCE is a deeply emotional romance about two neighboring families, the Voras and the Desais, who experience a devastating fire and the fallout it creates in their lives--particularly for Dhillon Vora and Riya Desai, who struggle to admit their feelings for one another.

On one terrible night, everything changed.

Riya Desai has struggled to move beyond the devastating fire that claimed the life of her brother, Samir, and set her on a path she never anticipated. Determined to keep other families from experiencing the loss that hers did, she's become a firefighter herself, but it hasn't been an easy road. The other firefighters are her fire hall are overwhelmingly white--and entirely male. As a rookie and as the only woman at the station, she has to keep proving herself, over and over, in a way her male colleagues never have to. Oh, and her other problem? Her family thinks she's a paramedic--they have no idea she's a firefighter, and she knows they won't be happy about her running into fires instead of away from them.

Dhillon Vora is a healer. After the fire that killed his father, he becomes a vet, his faithful dog Lucky--who survived the fire at the Voras' and Desais' townhouses--behind his side. On a visit to the fire hall across from his clinic, he is dumbfounded to find the girl next door, Riya Desai. Riya has become a firefighter? Dhillon is livid. And--though he can't really admit it--kind of impressed. Even though he knows, deep down, that he's never stopped loving Riya, he isn't sure he's ready to have her in his life again. Especially if he has to worry constantly about her safety.

THE SECOND FIRST CHANCE is not only a deeply moving tale of two people learning to love each other again, but an uplifting story of two families overcoming tragedy with hope, love, and the unbreakable bonds that keep us shining together even through our darkest hours.

Excerpt

DHILLON

A dark brown Lab-pit mix puppy raised its head to look at Dhillon as he entered the exam room. Dhillon’s joy was instant, which was why he loved his job. His nurse, Shelly, was right behind him with the brief introduction.

“Dr. Vora, this is Scout. She is being brought in by today Firefighter Ian Walsh. Scout was found abandoned at one of their scenes and is currently under the care of the Howard County Fire Department.”

It was at the word firefighter that Dhillon tensed. He made eye contact with the man and extended his hand, anxiety flooding through his system, increasing his heart rate and beading sweat on his upper lip.

Shelly threw him a worried look. He ignored her.

“Good morning. I’m Dr. Vora.” Dhillon found his voice but focused on the leashed puppy as the man’s walkie-talkie emitted an irritating squeal. “Everything okay?” Dhillon nodded at the walkie-talkie. “We can reschedule if you have to go.” 

The Lab-pit puppy twitched her ears and raised her head at the squawk. Shelly made a cooing sound and went over to pet their patient. Any remaining anxiety Dhillon might have had melted away as he took in the befuddled pup. The firefighter didn’t even look at the puppy.

“Nah. It’s all good. I’m supposed to get the pup tended to, so let’s just do it.” The firefighter shook his hand.

Dhillon nodded to Shelly as she moved from the dog’s side to the computer so she could enter the information they had so far. He got down on the ground where the puppy had lain down. fallen asleep. “She looks like my Lucky.”

“You mean that older dog out front? With the scarring?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Dhillon picked up Scout and let her climb into his lap. He played with her a moment. He held a small treat out and watched her track it as he moved it from side to side. She lifted her mouth to grab it, but Dhillon made her wait another second before letting her have the treat and a scratch cuddle under her chin. Best part of being a veterinarian. He glanced at Walsh, who watched him with a scowl. “Lucky was caught in a house fire.” Dhillon tried to keep his voice neutral. It wasn’t this man’s fault that Lucky was burned. He stood, bringing Scout with him.

Her coat looked almost pure black, and her big brown eyes reminded Dhillon of Lucky’s when he’d been a puppy. For a moment, Dhillon was dragged back to the day he brought Lucky home from the SPCA. Best day of his life. Well, maybe second best.

“The vet at the time was the previous owner of this practice. He did excellent work. Shelly here used to work with him. That scarring barely reflects how bad his injuries were.”

Dhillon laid Scout on the rickety old exam table which stood in the middle of the room. Nice shiny coat, alert and playful. “How old is she?” 

“Uh…maybe ten weeks. I’m not entirely sure. We just got her. Our station’s new recruit found her on scene, no collar, nothing. She hasn’t even been chipped yet, as far as we know. We’re keeping her at the firehouse for now until we find her a home.” Ian shook his head and pursed his lips.

“Why not take her to the SPCA? They can help find her a home.”

Ian shook his head. “Our new recruit insists that’s not necessary. She thinks someone’s going to claim the little thing.” He shrugged. “My experience says not likely.”

Dhillon turned to Scout, the sight of the puppy putting a grin on his face again. “I know someone who’d say the same thing.” Or used to know, anyway. Sadness flitted through him for an instant before it was replaced with resignation. He’d given up his chance to keep knowing her long ago.

Dhillon scratched the puppy’s belly. “I can chip her today.” He held out a small treat and softly said, “Sit.” Scout flipped over and sat on the table. He rewarded her with the treat.

He looked in Scout’s ears and checked her teeth and paws, dictating his assessment to Shelly as he went along. The puppy looked cared for, healthy. Maybe three months old. Obviously, the guys at the firehouse had cared for her. “Does she eat well?”

Ian shrugged. “We have her dog food, but a lot of the guys spoil her, slipping her a bit of meatball, steak, hot dog. Not me, though. You can believe that.”

“Can any of you take her home?”

Ian shook his head. “But there’s always someone at the station because we do twenty-four- and forty-eight-hour shifts. She works out with us. The new recruit is teaching her to sit, stay, come. Even to go fetch gear. Like that’s practical.” Ian shrugged, as if taking care of a dog was really not his idea of firefighter work. “You know anyone who would want her?” 

Dhillon had a thought flash through his mind. Nah. She was likely too busy, and honestly, she might even have a dog already for all he knew. Running into her occasionally outside the house didn’t really give him much information about her life. “No. But I can keep an eye out.” He continued with his examination, prepping Scout’s shots as Shelly held her.

“Are you Indian?” Ian asked.

Dhillon sighed, knowing the reason for this question. Ian knew someone who was Indian. “Yes. Well, my parents are from India, but I was born here.” Dhillon barely afforded Ian a glance. He approached Scout and administered the shot. Scout gave a small yelp.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Dhillon cooed softly. “Just one more.”

“Just asking because the new recruit—who’s all about this dog—she’s Indian.”

She? Dhillon snapped his attention back to Ian and could not refrain from raising an eyebrow. Interesting. An Indian woman firefighter? Didn’t see that every day.

“Maybe you know her?”

Dhillon did his best to not roll his eyes as he focused on administering the second shot, but a sigh escaped all the same, as did a small hmph from Shelly. Just because he and this firefighter were both Indian didn’t mean they knew each other. “I doubt it.” He ran a gentle hand over Scout’s head and body as if to soothe away her discomfort.

If someone he knew was a firefighter—male or female—he’d already know.

Scout turned a full circle, sniffing, then promptly peed on the table.

Ian scowled at the puppy and stepped back. Shelly made a move to grab the paper towels, but Dhillon was closer. He shared a look with Shelly as he cleaned up the mess. “Potty training can take some time. Helps if she has a crate, where she feels safe.”

Ian shook his head and put out his hands. “I saw a crate in the bunk area. Desai would know.”

Dhillon’s heart skipped a beat. “Desai?” It couldn’t be. Desai was a common-enough Indian last name. Could be anybody.

Right?

He stared at Ian, who continued, completely unaware of Dhillon’s rising panic, as blood pounded through his body, his heart rate increased. “The new recruit. Who wanted this dog. The Indian girl. Riya Desai.”

Of all the names Ian could have said, that was the absolute last one he wanted to hear.

It couldn’t be her. The Riya he knew would never run into a fire. As far as he knew, she had the same reaction to anything fire-related that he did: panic and anxiety.

But then again, he didn’t really know anything about her, did he? They never really talked anymore, outside of uncomfortable pleasantries when they were forced together. Riya avoided him, and he avoided Riya.

Dhillon’s heart hammered in his chest, and the blood drained from his head. He fought to maintain professional composure as he continued his examination of Scout. “It’s a common name.” Dhillon tried to sound casual, as if he really believed his own words. He needed to believe them.

“Brown skin, dark brown eyes.”

Really? That was his description? Dhillon took a breath so he wouldn’t lay into this guy. He fought fires, after all. Saved people.

Some people.

“She’s a paramedic, too. Which helps because we have to do EMT training.”

Dhillon’s stomach plummeted, and his head spun. It was his Riya. Dhillon clenched his jaw. Well, it was the Riya Desai that he knew.

She’d never been his.

He should have picked up on it when Ian said she was teaching Scout to get gear. It was exactly what she had taught Lucky to do when they were young teenagers. Go get their backpacks or books or whatever they had forgotten. Lucky would do it, too. For her. Even though Lucky was really his dog.

What the fuck was she doing going into fires? She’d never bring back what they’d lost.

Ian was still talking. “Between you and me? She’s hot. She has the sexiest mole just below her ear, and she is stacked.” Ian put his hands in front of his chest to indicate large breasts, and Dhillon saw red.

“You know, I actually do know her.” He stared Ian down. “She grew up next door to me. So you’ll want to shut up now.” He didn’t usually talk to patients this way, but this guy was asking for it, and technically Scout was his patient. And she seemed fine with it.

“Oh, dude, sorry. I didn’t know she’d be like a sister to you.”

“She’s not a sister to me. Just a neighbor.” Dhillon had spent too much time imagining kissing that mole to look at Riya like a sister. “Either way, isn’t she your colleague? Maybe show a little respect?”

Ian waved him off. “Whatever, she won’t last long. Doubt if she can do the job.”

Oh, she could do the job. Riya and Dhillon may not be best friends anymore, but one thing he did know was that Riya Desai was fantastic at whatever she put her mind to. If she was the rookie in the department, that meant she’d made it through the academy. Since she made it through the academy, Dhillon knew she had put her mind to becoming a firefighter a long time ago.

Dhillon finished up with little Scout and—reluctantly—handed her back to Ian. “Scout will need another set of shots in one month.” His mouth moved as if by rote as he doled out instructions, but his mind was spinning.

What the fuck had Riya gotten herself into now?

Excerpted from The Second First Chance by Mona Shroff. Copyright © 2022 by Mona Shroff. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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About the Author

Mona is obsessed with everything romantic, so she writes romantic stories by night, even though she's an optometrist by day. If she's not writing, she's making chocolate truffles, riding her bike, or reading, and is just as likely to be drinking wine or gin & tonic with friends and family. She's blessed with an amazing daughter and loving son who have both gone to college. Mona lives in Maryland with her romance-loving husband.

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Spotlight: Blackmail by Amelia Wilde

Publication date: August 2nd 2022
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Bristol Anderson will do anything to protect her younger siblings. Even if it means embezzling from the company where she’s a temp. No one will find out. And the wealthy owner of the investment firm will never notice.

Except Will LeBlanc doesn’t miss a thing.

He could call the police, but he has more interesting plans for her. In the copy room. On the conference table. Under his desk.

The coldhearted venture capitalist will make her pay back every last cent.

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About the Author

Amelia Wilde is a USA TODAY bestselling author of steamy contemporary romance and loves it a little too much. She lives in Michigan with her husband and daughters. She spends most of her time typing furiously on an iPad and appreciating the natural splendor of her home state from where she likes it best: inside.

Amelia is a USA Today best selling author from northern Michigan. Be her friend!

Connect:
https://awilderomance.com/
https://twitter.com/awilderomance
https://www.facebook.com/awilderomance
https://www.instagram.com/awilderomance/
https://www.amazon.com/Amelia-Wilde/e/B01C38CNJ2
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/amelia-wilde
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14671616.Amelia_Wilde

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Spotlight: A Wild Rose by Fiona Davis

World-renowned pianist Gloria Banderas is at the height of her career when a curious ailment forces her to cancel a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall. The same day, she befriends one of the many free-spirited artists inhabiting the warren of apartments above the theater. With her career and marriage at a standstill, Gloria moves into an empty studio and convalesces among the poets, photographers, and dancers who eke out a living with total dedication to their art. As a return to her old routine beckons, Gloria must decide which parts of her life are worth fighting for.

Fiona Davis’s A Wild Rose is part of A Point in Time, a transporting collection of stories about the pivotal moments, past and present, that change lives. Read or listen to each immersive story in a single sitting.

Excerpt

The first time she’d touched a piano was at the age of five, when a teacher had played “To a Wild Rose”—a spare, romantic piece—on the school’s battered upright piano. Gloria had been drawn to the instrument’s gleaming white keys, like oversize teeth, and repeated the melody perfectly, with an innate understanding of the intervals between the notes. After hearing of the feat from her teacher, Gloria’s parents had rushed out and bought a piano for their house in Westchester. Her father had lifted the lid and shown her the instrument’s insides, how you pressed on a key, which through a Rube Goldberg–type contraption activated a lever that caused a hammer to hit a metal string that sounded out a note.

As an adult, she could bring an audience to tears with quiet restraint, or shock them into silence with her octaves as she sliced up the keyboard. Critics became delirious when they tried to describe her playing: “ravishing,” “bursting with grace and power.” One gushed that she put the men to shame with her muscular approach. She owned her talent fully, like the best of the men, but that meant that many in the industry considered her conceited, unladylike. If her career took a nosedive, she’d find little sympathy. She’d be exposed to the elements, and the change in circumstances would only add more stress to her marriage.

Adrienne and William were still waiting for an answer.

She had told only the doctor and the psychiatrist about the problem, thinking that if she confided in anyone else, it would make it real. “It’s nothing, really.”

“Go on, you can tell us,” said William.

Gloria had already drained her glass of whiskey. Adrienne rose and poured her another, and it seemed right, somehow, to be sitting in this room with a woman in a tutu and a skinny man in a windbreaker. A majority of the creative types she’d encountered were competitive and judgmental—not surprising considering how difficult it was to win a seat in a symphony or land a show at an art gallery—but these two were simply curious. It was like she was Alice in Wonderland, but instead of going down a hole, she’d risen up an elevator and found herself in a strange land.

She held out her right hand. “My fingers won’t behave. They bend in, these two.”

Adrienne and William exchanged a look. “You play tomorrow, right?” William said. He checked his watch. “Today, I mean.” Even though she’d told him only her first name, he knew exactly who she was, what this meant.

Unfortunately, there were no pieces written for an eight-fingered pianist.

“What do the doctors say?” asked Adrienne, taking the seat next to her and patting her on the knee.

“That it’s all in my head.”

At this, William brightened. “Ah, the yips! That’s what you have.”

“You’re not supposed to say that out loud,” said Adrienne sternly. She looked back at Gloria. “Poor Sam Snead. Golfer. Got the yips and was never the same again.”

A barrel of thunder made Gloria jump. A rainstorm had kicked up, the lightning illuminating the buildings outside the windows like a black-and-white movie. “I should go.” It would be a wet, dark walk to her hotel, but it didn’t really matter anymore.

Adrienne and William exchanged another look. “You can stay next door.”

“I have to get back.” But the booze was making her head spin, and she was so exhausted. “Where next door, exactly?” The studio was smaller than Adrienne’s, but with the same high ceiling and loft, and a grand piano placed in the very center of the room. The air smelled of metal and must, a far cry from the rose-scented suite at the Plaza, where Gloria’s luggage sat, unopened. Even the fanciest hotels failed to interest Gloria these days. Why bother getting excited by the view of a city skyline, or luxuriating in a claw-foot bathtub, knowing they were transient pleasures? There was no point in getting attached to places or people, not in her line of work. The lethargy from traversing multiple time zones, compressing days into hours like an accordion, was her only constant. “There’s a bed up the stairs,” said Adrienne. “The bathroom’s outside, down the hall.”

After they left, she tossed her coat on the floor, climbed up to the loft, and fell asleep dreaming of Tchaikovsky holding his head and weeping as he conducted an orchestra of swans. 

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About the Author

Fiona Davis is the New York Times bestselling author of six historical novels, including The Magnolia Palace and The Lions of Fifth Avenue. Her books have been chosen as One Book, One Community reads, and her articles have been published in the Wall Street Journal and O, the Oprah Magazine.

Spotlight: Alison's Conviction by Thomas Keneally

When Alison Strange receives a debt claim she can’t afford to pay from the Australian government’s unemployment office, she’s caught completely off-balance. As she wrestles with a slippery bureaucracy, her history-loving grandfather bolsters her resolve with the story of their ancestor John Strange, an English cobbler who was banished to Australia for his part in a political movement. Drawing inspiration from John’s life, Alison finds her own unique way to demand a future that’s fair for all.

Thomas Keneally’s Alison’s Conviction is part of A Point in Time, a transporting collection of stories about the pivotal moments, past and present, that change lives. Read or listen to each immersive story in a single sitting.

Excerpt

Alison Strange was a clever girl of whom it was known by her mother, her grandfather, and her teachers that she could not face tests of knowledge. Her mother had been told by psychologists that she would never go to university because the business of analyzing what lecturers and tutors meant by their instructions would utterly panic and exhaust her, and basically send her into fits of Tourette’s, into writhings and repeated meaningless sounds like begging. Tourette’s was frequently found in autism cases, a doctor had said. Alison could learn anything if she was interested, but not under any demand that she should know it. She was self-taught, therefore, and her own motivation to know things was the only but powerful machine for her learning. She had, on her own terms, been to the university of Google, just for a start. She had an account that enabled her to read journal articles of all kinds and randomly.

When she was in early high school and the question of convicts arose, she raised her hand and told a teacher, Miss Lambros, that she had a convict ancestor, and she had a date for him too. His ship had arrived in 1821—it was the sort of thing she retained—and his crime was, according to Granrob, stealing shoes. The first Mr. Strange, a convict and shoe thief, settled in Bathurst and opened a shop and a tannery like any settler, and became a constable.

Alison’s chief enemy, Blair Taranto, a beefy child capable of marshaling the laughter of an entire class, had intruded into this conversation, as Alison knew he very likely would.

When Miss Lambros first asked what Alison’s forebear had been transported for, Alison heard Taranto say, breathy with self-amusement, “For being a dead set dropkick.” Taranto is not the main issue of this tale, but when she had given a book report at assembly on Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, he had tried to put her off by contorting his face and jerking in imitation of one of her “attacks,” as people called them.

Because of that boy and his easily set-off admirers, she accepted that the world would choose to be as unkind to her as Taranto was. She had in her keeping, though, and held close by her, the essential elements and people. Particularly her mother, Sally Strange, and her grandfather Granrob, as she had eccentrically named him when she was a babe. “Typical of you as a baby, Aly,” he had once said when drinking wine, when he would often tell stories of her infancy, and how different she was from what he called “plain kids.”

“Only you could have come up with that combination of sounds and made a poor sod like me get a special name. I mean, it’s not two easy sounds for a little kid to put together.”

He seemed very proud of her for having managed that, and his warm opinion of her made her think that the Blair Tarantos of her life, as much as they would always be with her, were always somehow wrong, and in a strange sort of way she was willing to endure them. 

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About the Author

Thomas Keneally is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including The Daughters of Mars, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, and Schindler’s List, which was made into an Academy Award–winning film. Among his many awards are the Booker Prize, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Mondello International Prize, Trebbia Award, and more. He lives in Australia with his family.