Super Review for "Stairs of Sand"

I had to write after I finished your new book. It's a tremendous work full of heart wrenching emotions and spiced with just enough humor to get the reader over the painful revelations and the failed parts of relationships.

"I've never read a book so fast. I was gripped right away with Zoozle's and Jolene's problem trying to reattach their relationship.

I think you have touched many familial situations in our culture. There's always one child who feels slighted and one child who's looked upon as the "good one." It seems that so many of us had to grow up with family baggage. There are kids who need more love and parents who are unaware of that need.

I like the writing style in first person and switching from one main character to the other in the chapter headings. It keeps the reader on his toes. Of course, I can tell that the author must have been a teacher, as she has no great sympathy for the administrators. I think you should grab a lot of readers with that point.

The issues with drugs, attempted suicide, abuse, and parents being too busy to listen will also capture your readers. I think you have skillfully captured a significant part of present day America. We're too busy chasing some concoction of the American dream to notice all the needs of the people so close to us.

I also like your helpers like Phillip, Jacques, and Chloris. They are gentle listeners and move people together by "nudges" as opposed to "shoves." They feel the pain of being detached, unloved, lost, and violated because of their own experiences and "know" those feelings in the Biblical way of knowing."