9.16.2013

announcing: House of Miracles, a collection of interrelated tales about love, by Ulrica Hume


House of Miracles is about love--the romantic love of days gone by, first love, unrequited love, and the fragile intimacies of a couple living in the last part of the twentieth century.

In these delightful, at times unsettling stories, we meet two very different women: baby boomer Janet MacDonald, who, despite a blossoming career in San Francisco, feels sure that she is cursed, and her elderly, eccentric neighbor, Mrs. von Meurs. When Janet’s relationship with boyfriend Jack, a struggling photographer, is tested, they drift dangerously apart. It is Mrs. von Meurs, alone and at the end of her life, who tries to keep them together.

At the heart of House of Miracles is the kaleidoscopic way the diverse characters are connected to Janet and Mrs. von Meurs. Secrets are revealed, and each woman must find her way, whether through a troubled past or into an uncertain future. Sometimes it seems that hope is not only “the thing with feathers,” but it is all they have. That, and the real possibility of miracles.

~~~
This is a collection of vignettes that, when combined, give piercing insight into the lives of multiple characters. And it is softly, quietly, mightily beautiful ...

Ulrica Hume's writing has a soaring, airy, yet realistic quality that I truly enjoyed. I found myself underlining sentences, not because of their profundity, but because of the beautifully simplistic way she has of making the everyday seem poetic ...

Don't let all my talk of beauty fool you, though: there is sadness in these stories, too. Heartbreak, loneliness, and uncertainty abound. But through it all, there is love. And isn't that what life is all about?
 

--Kelly Woodward, You Can Read Me Anything
~~~
available as e-book and paperback

HOW TO BUY

bookstores and libraries, please contact pagancircus [at] gmail.com

visit the author at www.ulricahume.com