Alison Penton Harper: 3 books

‘I’ve left you a list on my desk,’ Rick said . . . The house fell silent and I wandered into the study to collect my instructions. There was only one scrawled piece of paper on the desk so there was no mistaking the single command. It said: organize Christmas. Helen is finally finding...

The days I had previously filled with the duties of chief cook and bottle-washer now lay strangely empty and stretched out before me like a blank canvas. I kept looking at it, but couldn't think of anything to paint . . . Preparing dinner for her husband’s colleagues, nervous, and listening...

"Heaven save us from ourselves. And if you can’t manage that, I’d settle for saving me from me. Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water, here I am again, drowning for all to see. Not waving, as the troubled swimmer once famously said. I busied myself with any household task I could...