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Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi’s past and presen

Shortly after the Civil War, the Muddle family travels to Kansas to take advantage of the free land offered through the Homestead Act, but when the father moves on for better land, the three boys must begin their own journey. They must learn to take care of one another and face the dangers of the Wilderness alone.

TOur world and this other world, called Ambrosia, collided a little over a decade ago when a man from Ambrosia was sent to Earth for official business but he met and fell in love with a woman from earth and they had a child together. Eventually, the man thought the woman and his daughter would be better off without him and he went back to his world. The daugher's name is Sadie. Since Sadie has blood from both worlds, she needs the healing water to survive so Rayne is sent to earth from Ambrosia to look after Sadie. Rayne is supposed to not let Sadie know who he is, or how special she is, or that she needs the healing water to survive. However, their feelings for each other grow and Rayne tells Sadie the truth. There are also some bad guys in the book to keep things interesting. Actually, the book is interesting. The characters are well developed and draw you in.

We first meet Jacaranda in Los Angeles. She’s a beach bum, a part-time painter of surfboards, sun-kissed and beautiful. Jacaranda has an on-again, off-again relationship with a married man and glitters among the city’s pretty creatures, blithely drinking Pink Ladies with any number of tycoons, unattached and unworried in the pleasurable mania of California. Yet she lacks a purpose―so at twenty-eight, jobless, she moves to New York to start a new life and career, eager to make it big in the world of New York City.

An aching love story and a decisive remonstration, a story told in a whisper, in a shout, through unsentimental tears and sometimes with a bitter laugh. Each of its characters is indelibly, tenderly rendered. Its heroes are people who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued, patched together by acts of love—and by hope. The tale begins with Anjum—who used to be Aftab—unrolling a threadbare Persian carpet in a city graveyard she calls home. We encounter the odd, unforgettable Tilo and the men who loved her—including Musa, sweetheart and ex-sweetheart, lover and ex-lover; their fates are as entwined as their arms used to be and always will be. We meet Tilo’s landlord, a former suitor, now an intelligence officer posted to Kabul. And then we meet the two Miss Jebeens: the first a child born in Srinagar and buried in its overcrowded Martyrs’ Graveyard; the second found at midnight, abandoned on a concrete sidewalk in the heart of New Delhi.

Each of these books has something different to connect with. (The Almost Boyfriend is my favorite). They are sweet, fun, and authentic. Perfect for a quick read or a cute escape. Christina has a way with words and with tackling real challenges in a way that isn’t heavy.