Just got today in the mail from an ebay auction.

This book is on Bookrelay. If you would like to have this book, please go here to place an offer.

If you are new to Bookrelay and need to know more info, feel free to ask me.

Read the book here

With a wife he loves and an exciting London-based career, architect Charles Waterston's life seems in perfect balance. Nothing in his comfortable existence prepares him for the sudden end to his ten-year marriage--or his unwanted transfer to his firm's New York office. With nothing left to lose, Charlie takes a leave of absence from his job to drive through New England, hoping to make peace with himself.

Christmas is approaching when Charlie leaves New York, heading to Vermont to ski. But a sudden, blinding snowstorm strands him in a small Massachusetts town. There, as if by chance, Charlie meets an elderly widow who offers to rent him her most precious possession: a remote, exquisite lakeside chateau. Hidden deep in the woods, it once belonged to a woman who lived and died there two centuries before. Her name was Sarah Ferguson. And from the moment Charlie sets foot inside the chateau's graceful depths, he feels her presence, and longs to know more about the life she led.

It is Christmas Eve when Charlie first glimpses her, a beautiful young woman with jet black hair. He thinks it is a neighbor playing a joke on him, until he finds her diaries hidden away in an old trunk. As he begins to turn the brittle, dusty pages, Sarah Ferguson comes alive. Intrigued and unafraid, Charlie immerses himself in the diaries, eager to learn more about the woman for whom the house was built. Sarah's first entry is dated 1789, the year she arrived in America. Without self-pity or sentiment, she writes of her harrowing journey from her native England, having fled the brutality of her aristocratic husband. Settling in Massachusetts, Sarah finds an unfamiliar land seething with the turbulence of the Indian wars. Determined to start a new life in the vast new world, Sarah finds freedom--and danger--as she builds her home in the wilderness and meets a man who will transform her life. His name is François de Pellerin, a French nobleman adopted by Indians and drawn into the battle for the growing nation. Their fateful union is a testament to a love so powerful it reaches across the centuries. And for Charlie Waterston, caught between Sarah's world and his own, their story is a gift--one that gives him the courage to let go of his past, and the freedom to grasp a future that is right before his eyes.

Release planned for Thursday, November 06, 2003 at Postal release to another bookcrosser in Mooresville, North Carolina USA.

Picked up by tania-in-nc. Sending out to tania-in-nc tomorrow.

The book arrived safely today. Thanks so much!

I rolled my dice to see what's next ... and ta-da .. this one won! Shall journal as I read it ...

I'm going to do something a little different here - make a daily entry. My sig file on my email has a passage from my current read. This changes daily, usually first thing in the morning. I thought it would be nice for you to see these quotes, too.

Why these particular passages? I look at the spot where I stopped when we turned out the light, hubby reads too, and see if anything is worthwhile sharing. Sometimes it's cliche but when it is, I often suspend my preconceptions and look at it as if seeing it for the first
time. Often the imagery is sharp. Anyhow enough babbling. …

My passage from last night:
"Where do ya come from," the driver asked, gnawing a cigar and playing tag with a limousine and two other cabbies. He narrowly missed hitting a truck, and then launched headlong into the Friday afternoon traffic. p34

Perhaps cab drivers also play hide and seek ...

This morning's sig file:
"This woman was like a long thin shard of winter sunlight. He couldn't imagine her warming anything, least of all a man's heart." p124

My sig file for this morning:

It was a lovely feeling being there, walking with the snow beneath her feet, looking up at the stars shining brightly above her. It reminded her of what Singing Wind had said about being part of the universe, every person, being, animal was at one with the universe, he had said, and as she looked back to earth again, she gave a tremendous start. p249

[I am exploring Buddhism and this is a neat quote for me, personally.]

From last night:

"Somebody ought to write something about her, or maybe just publish her journals," Francesca said seriously.
"We'll see. Read them first. And then we're through, I have to give them to Mrs. Palmer. They're technically hers after all." Though he would have loved to have kept them, but he wouldn't. It was enough just to have read them. They had given him more joy than a thousand books he'd read in a lifetime. And now he was sharing them with Francesca. p367

[This is an inspiration to all people who keep a journal. Charlie found these journals from over 200 years ago]

update: Dec 15, 2003 -- Took a little interlude by reading Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. This break isn't to say that I'm not enjoying this one at all - I just wanted a change of pace for a few days. Hope to finish this one tonight.

From last night:

"I don't know. I'm growing up, I guess," she said when he commented on it. "Sometimes I even get a little tired of my war wounds [pain from rough marriage]. Wearing scars around like jewelry gets a little boring," she said, and he was impressed. He wondered if the journals had done it, or simply time. Maybe she was healing. p400

Last night I had a nice time finishing off two books at once, the other one being Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, and starting another Storm Warning by Dinah McCall.

Thanks for sharing this book for me. Shall send it on it's merry way soon.

I have to share a quote from last night before I sign off today..
August droned around her head like a swarm of bees, stinging her constantly with her own terrors. p411

As we're moving back over the ocean to New Zealand I am finally releasing some books. I am sending this to some fellow pre-school teachers.