With My Books Around The World I Travel

Crystal Justine is a young lady who lives a full life. Her life is filled with painful adjustments. Before any young girl should try to understand the forever loss of loved ones, she loses in death her mother, Sasha Germaine, her father and her grandmother. After the loss of his wife, Sasha’s father never really regains his equilibrium. He lives daily with his grief while in the process Crystal is left to learn about life and deal with her problems without his help. Crystal’s mother, Sasha, dies after Crystal Justine is born. Therefore, throughout her life Crystal’s mother, Sasha, is like a shadow that is before and behind her. Her mother becomes a ghost in her life because of her father’s inability to deal with his emotional pain.

While reading TRACEY MICHAE’L LEWIS’ novel, INTERRUPTION: The Gospel According to CRYSTAL JUSTINE, I thought about Crystal’s emotions about her mother. Dealing with grief can never be denied or pushed down into the subconscious with hope that it will just disappear. Grief seems to have a way of piling up and lifting itself from one person to the next person. It’s like a heavy fog in a home where no one can breathe. Unfortunately, this is the legacy that Crystal Justine must live with everyday.

The ghost of her mother isn’t her only struggle. Other horrible circumstances happen in Crystal’s life. Her father’s best friend is the cause of a major catastrophe in Crystal’s life. Although Crystal goes through so much she clings to God. She never let’s go or gives up. I found it surprising that such a young lady could keep going on each day while finding her own answers. Thankfully, one day she meets an older lady. She thinks of the older lady as an angel sent by God. She arrives just in the nick of time with the right answers needed by Crystal Justine. In the end Sasha addresses evil spirits who have always haunted her. Crystal Justine proves to be as hard as crystal. Crystal is defined in this way.

“To every demon in hell who has pursued me, my mother, my grandmother and all of the women before us, you should have took me out when you had the chance because from this day forward, I am…we are…free.” rawsistaz

• Urban Dictionary: crystal

  1. crystal a rare beauty, who is extremly smart, and has a love for life! A beautiful person who wants to change the world and all that she meets in it!!!
  

  www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=crystal

Kregel books/Litfuse
Just beginning to appreciate this one. I’ve not read much Fantasy. I am caught up in the story because of Nomish and Hadlay. They are two young people with other young people from another clan who are forced to live with the Emperor. Although he is powerful, he lacks the values of the Ramash. The Emperor, his son and the people in the palace are Oreseds.


The book makes me think about the importance of family and the place called home. So many oppressed people are taken faraway from their home and loved ones to learn a new way of life. I’m sure the feeling is most miserable.

“A sudden, aching homesickness overwhelmed her.”

Before the story ended Hadlay and those friends and enemies who choose to do it learn about The Being. He is the one able to make all their narrow paths wide and there crooked paths straight because He only knows how to give true love. His wonderful willingness to save those in trouble makes The Being look beautiful. He shines beautiful colors and his body spreads a nice warmth to those who trust Him. With Him all things are possible. He has the ability to destroy the people who would choose to drink human blood rather than think of blood as a living tool to save spiritually.

“Sirach breathed against her palm, and she felt the warmth of his breath spread through her, even in the dank cold of the dungeon….We are joined now, you and I, and nothing can ever separate us…when that day comes, beloved. I will carry you home myself and there will be great joy, a celebration unlike any ever known to all all the worlds.”

Many times throughout my life I’ve heard friends and/or family members say “a woman must have a little black dress in her closet.” Those words came immediately to mind when I saw the title little black dress by SUSAN McBRIDE. This novel happens in Blue Hills, Missouri and on an island named Mosquito Island. It’s mainly about three women: Evie, Annabelle and Toni. To prove the significance of the women SUSAN McBRIDE named each chapter after one of these women. Each woman deals with the magical powers of the “little black dress.”

“When I finally said good night and went inside, I headed straight for my room and peeled off the dress. I packed it away in an old flowered hatbox and stowed it on my closet shelf, hoping it would stop whatever it was doing and leave well enough alone. But the dress had other plans, of course.”

Evie and Annabelle are sisters. Toni is, well, it’s best if the author explains who Toni is in the novel. The story’s conflict begins when Annabelle runs away from the man she is to marry. It really upsets her parents when she doesn’t marry Davis. Throughout the novel are the repercussions of what happens when family doesn’t forgive other members of the family and live day after day with past regrets.

“While my father had withdrawn from his gregarious self, rarely smiling or laughing, my mother had simply withdrawn. Too tormented by migraines to do much but lie in her darkened bedroom, she wasn’t often up and about. More frequently, she hid herself within her womb of drawn drapes, a perpetual grimace on her face.”

The magic in the novel is fantastic. No matter the size of the woman wearing it, the dress will fit that woman. When the dress is torn, it’s magically restored again. I could go on and on about the powers of this dress. Would I want to have such a dress in my family? I don’t know. Would I like to find a hatbox with a dress, photos and letters or post cards from the far pass in it? Yes. Family heirlooms are precious.

“Toni looked so intently at Anna in the dress that her head pounded. It was the same one, she was sure of it, the exact black dress she’d worn last night…It was Anna’s dress and Evie’s dress, which made no earthly sense. For that to work, the thing would have to be woven from something stretchy and as malleable as Silly Putty, not delicate silk.”

I especially liked Annabelle. Although, she is the wild one. She is the one who leaves Davis, a man who can bring his wealth into the family. Anna is very mixed up. Her confusion leads her away from the family for years. When she returns, she brings back a special gift for Evie.

“I’m leaving you with the most precious thing I have,” she went on, and I sat there numbly, the lump in my throat so large I was unable to swallow.”

The novel is as magical as the little black dress. The women are weak and strong proving the female psyche is complex. I think that men some times just follow in step behind us. Toward the end of the novel secrets pop open like balloons stuck with pins.

“How many other skeletons hid within the closets of the old Victorian? Toni had grown up inside these walls, yet she had never known any of this.”

I was in awe until the very end when something very strange and happy happens. By the way, I’m going to buy a new “little black dress.” Maybe the dress will have the smell of the Lily of the Valley. Perhaps, the dress will tell me my family history.

“If her mother hadn’t stroked out, if Toni hadn’t come back to Blue Hills, if Bridget hadn’t nagged her about cleaning up the clutter, she never would have run across these precious bits of Evie’s history. Her history.”

http://www.susanmcbride.com/