"I couldn't cook but I could sew. It would have been better the other way around." Trapped in Kansas at the turn of the twentieth century, Nell Plat is seventeen, unhappily married, and the mother of two baby girls. No reality could be further from her secret dreams of glamour and excitement, dreams that will tempt her to do the unthinkable and run away to the glittering wonderland of Los Angeles and the burgeoning motion picture industry.

Lucky for Nell, her experience as a seamstress to the ladies of her Kansas town translates beautifully to work as a costumer to Hollywood in the Roaring Twenties. She renames herself Madame Annelle, and builds a new life for herself that looks so much more like the one she had always imagined. But a knock on the door threatens to rip apart the seams of her own carefully constructed costume, and Nell is forced to confront the legacy of her abandonment and deception. Can she rework the delicate fabric of her life?

Erin McGraw's fiction has been hailed as "graceful . . . gratifyingly substantial" (New York Times Book Review) and "brilliant... she's] a writer to watch" (Los Angeles Times). Wry but poignant, her new collection brims with priceless insights and fresh descriptions. The Good Life features characters battling daily demons of envy, fear, and disillusionment while somehow maintaining an abiding optimism. Here are characters trying to weather the confounding people of the world--the chronically successful, the lucky in love, the athletically gifted--characters clinging to their cynicism while admitting that real hope and passion demand a suspension of skepticism. Erin McGraw writes with charm and sweet irony, and her new collection is impossible to put down.

"The Journey of the Terminally Ill" will take you into the lives of those dying of a terminal illness. You will walk with them through their journey for the last days or months of their lives. These are heartfelt, emotional stories as you witness the disease take over the human body and the physical changes that go along with that. The emotional and spiritual struggles of these people are incredible as they try to prepare themselves and those that love them for their impeding death. You will see the strength of the human spirit, and realize what truly matters in life. One by one the stories and those lives will come to an end, and tears will be shed. Come along on this journey as it is told through the experiences of a hospice nurse as she cares for the dying and their loved ones on a daily basis.