During Our Alaska Vacation

While we were away visiting Anchorage, Vadez, Fairbanks, and Denali, three of my reviews ran on AAR with another one running today.  Here's a recap:

 Kade Boehme's Don't Trust the Cut is one of those strange stories that seems as if the author is stretching the opposites attract theme, but in the end works well thanks to a good writer.  Who would think that a former Marine (hence one of the cuts of the title in the service haircut) and an insecure young man (who resorts to self-mutilation, the other cut of the title, when his stress levels go over the top) could actually get together?  Boehme made me believe it's possible.

Carter Quinn's Out of the Blackness gives a step-by-step look at how a group of close friends can bolster and guide a young man from merely existing into a full life and happiness.  Although Quinn says he's not a psychologist and the book is fiction, his argument that love and gentle handling can make a difference in a person's life is compelling and totally believable.

SJD Peterson proves what an excellent writer she is in her latest, Beyond Duty, about a gay Marine couple about to retire at age 42 on the eve of the repeal of don't-ask-don't-tell.  Not only do they not know what they are going to do in their retirement since the military has been their lives up to this point, but they can't decide whether to come out to their families and friends.  Peterson gives a compelling look at a loving couple who must rebuild their lives.

Another loving couple, but on the other end of the sexual spectrum is the one at the core of Marta Perry's Lydia's Hope.  Happily married with two sons, Amish Lydia accidentally discovers she has two living sisters, one Amish and one not.  In the traffic accident that killed their parents, the girls were split up, but not told about one another.  Now Lydia is making it her life goal to be reunited with her siblings.





And that's what was happening with me while I was on vacation looking for moose and bears.