Spring--the time for romance...

Generally I don't read romance--I'm not against it as an element in other kinds of stories. Somehow I heard about Ruchama King's debut novel, Seven Blessings, and I read it in two bites. It's set in Israel, among observant Jews, all immigrants from the U.S. and Canada, and their struggles to make the right match. In this world, the spiritual and the physical yearnings of a person are all tied together--the author takes us inside the heads of many people, including older women, younger women, and several men. Some are single, some are long-married. Who will find love, who will find peace--can one have both?

A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas, tells the story of a different kind of romance. It's a memoir covering the five years since her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury. Not told in a strictly chronological sense, she has almost written a series of essays. Some readers found this structure a little disconcerting, but I thought it suited the subject matter--her husband has lost his short term memory, and lives in the moment; a quite distorted moment, at times. Moving, beautiful, human.