Lia was constructed for a single purpose: to assist and serve their creator, Jacinta. But when a sudden tragedy leaves them alone for good, everything changes. They cannot function without a purpose. Lia's best hope for a new direction lies in a place far away, a great city by the sea. But the road there is long and difficult, and the desert is a terrifying place to travel. Will Lia be able to brave the journey? This short novella explores what it means to be a purposeful creature without any purpose. Exciting, funny, and heartwarming, Lia, Obsolete is an adventure that all humans can enjoy.
A Nebraska tornado swept away their mother when Leni was nine and her sister Amelia was twelve. Though bound together by tragedy, the sisters grow apart-Leni wrapping herself in silence and solitude while Amelia craves the chaos of a large, close-knit family.Following their different paths, Leni becomes a librarian and Amelia marries into the large family she always wanted. Concerned with her sister's narrow small-town life, Amelia insists that Leni join her husband's family at their New Hampshire lake house for a massive Fourth of July reunion. Over the long weekend, a stifling heat wave settles over the house and simmering resentments-between the sisters, between husbands and wives, between mothers and daughters-boil over, on the beach and in the kitchen and behind closed doors. As a tornado-like storm rolls in over the lake, devastating secrets are revealed, leaving no one unscathed."Elizabeth Barrett has successfully created what many writers find too daunting: an extended-family lakeside holiday. Her intelligent and compassionate insights into the complex feelings about pregnancy among several women ripple among spouses, relatives, and in-laws, finally becoming a full-blown storm. LOST MOTHERS is a page-turner well worth reading." - Martha Barron Barrett, author of SLOW TRAVEL
Ryanne Rivers is ready for a new beginning. Her ex-husband now lives three hundred miles away, her children are adjusting to their new home life, she has resurrected her dormant career-and a man asked her out on a date The long nightmare of her abusive marriage and the painful divorce appears to be over.Then her ex-husband Gary finds out she is dating and reverts to his marital behavior-demeaning her, manipulating her, using their two young children against her. Although she revels in her new love for Sebastian, a man who cherishes and supports her, Ryanne is whipsawed between old habits of submission, the need to protect her children, and her gritty newfound strength. But will standing up to Gary this time be a lethal mistake?"Elizabeth Barrett masterfully weaves humor, heart-tugging, and dramatic tension into Every New Beginning. Her likable characters are lovable. Her dislikable characters made me crazy. I couldn't put this book down " - Brunonia Barry, author of Lace Reader
'A Dart of Green and Blue' explores the impact of loss on the human spirit; we witness the death of a mother and of a child, the loss of a lover and the erosion of self. A variety of birds inhabit the poems, carrying moments of joy and healing as well as grief. In one sequence, a girl is eclipsed by the shadow of a gull's wing; in another she turns pelican, bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. But there are visionary moments and transformations too. In one sequence, Barrett imagines her dying mother transformed into a kingfisher: " - I waited. Watched. It only took one hour before a dart of brilliant green and blue flashed past me (heading somewhere) and was gone." There is resilience and some redemption in this collection. At the end of a sequence of poems charting the loss of a lover, a blackbird is still singing softly. And, in the collection's closing poem, a finch flies into the human 'labyrinth of tissue and bone' where it sings of a 'horizon sparkling with phosphorescence'.
