JUST BREATHE
Chicago cartoonist Sarah Moon tackles life's real issues with a healthy dose of sharp wit in her syndicated comic strip Just Breathe. As Sarah's cartoon alter ego, Shirl, undergoes artificial insemination, her situation begins to mirror Sarah's own difficult attempts to conceive. However, Sarah's dreams of the future did not include her husband's infidelity: snag number two in Sarah's so-called perfect life.
With Chicago - and her marriage - in the rearview mirror, she flees to the small Northern California coastal town where she grew up, a place she couldn't wait to leave. Now she finds herself revisiting the past - an emotionally distant father and the unanswered questions left by her mother's death. As she comes to terms with her lost marriage, Sarah encounters a man she never expected to meet again: Will Bonner, the high school heartthrob she'd skewered mercilessly in her old comics. Now a local firefighter, he's been through some changes himself. But just as her heart is about to reawaken, Sarah discovers she is pregnant. With her ex's twins.
It's hardly the most traditional of new beginnings, but who says life and love are predictable...or perfect? The winds of change have led Sarah here. Now all she can do is just close her eyes...and breathe.
THE GOODBYE QUILT
Linda Davis's local fabric shop is a place where women gather to share their creations: quilts commemorating important events in their lives. Wedding quilts, baby quilts, memorial quilts--each is bound tight with dreams, hopes, and yearnings.
Now, as her only child readies for college, Linda is torn between excitement for Molly and heartache for herself. Who will she be when she is no longer needed in her role as mom? What will become of her days? Of her marriage?
Mother and daughter decide to share one last adventure together--a cross-country road trip to move Molly into her dorm. As they wend their way through the heart of the country, Linda stitches together the scraps that make up Molly's young life. And in the quilting of each bit of fabric--the hem of a christening gown, a snippet from a Halloween costume--Linda discovers that the memories of a shared journey can come together in a way that will keep them both warm in the years to come....
