Fire under the Moon
Jane Howard Samuels
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2005 Eagle Cliff Books
ISBN: 0974861715

The bonds between siblings are strengthened as they take on the life & death struggle after one is diagnosed with cancer.

Originally titled Wombmates this is an impassioned, extraordinary recounting of a sister's experience of her brother's diagnosis & struggle with this pernicious disease.

As a grief counselor, Jane Samuels must now face her training & theory head on as her brother succumbs to his fate, high in the Colorado mountains in the log house he built & has fought to keep in the family.

Fire under the Moon is a line from a poem he wrote, & describes ferociously, the surviving mother & sisters' travail as they change their lives to bring comfort & memories, passion & acceptance to this most courageous & soul-defining of family events... the death of a beloved.

As you know, memoirs of our walks through the Valley of Death of a beloved are stories that move me. & as Jane Samuels is a seminary graduate & a licensed psychotherapist working with mentally ill & chemically dependent adults, Fire Under the Moon is filled with her observations & insights. It will ease any reader's journey.

Fire under the Moon has won the 2005 Nautilus Book Award.
(08/14/05)

Rebecca