Matcha Green Tea; Culinary Teas Review #CulinaryTeas

Our Matcha is a thin Matcha called Usucha and ideal for the everyday Matcha drinker.  It is the perfect quality for enjoying the genuine taste of Matcha as a tea or as an ingredient in smoothies. Our Matcha is a light creamy liquid with a very sweet and mild flavor. It is 100% green tea powder; no sugar or other ingredients.  

Matcha is a power-house of antioxidants.  One serving contains 137x the amount of antioxidants in green tea! 

 What are the benefits of Matcha Tea?

Matcha Tea is packed with antioxidants, it can boost metabolism and burn calories, calms the mind, relaxes the body, It can prevent disease and lower cholesterol and blood sugar. I started drinking matcha tea (black) about a year ago. I loved the flavor of it, so recently I received a sample of Matcha Green Tea from Culinary Teas.

I have various health issues, among them diabetes, so I had to do a lifestyle change as my A1C levels were through the roof. With diet and exercise I was able to lose 65 lbs. My A1C went from a 10 to a 5.9, impressive right? Among the things I added to my diet like I said before was to add matcha tea to my daily regime. I like to take about a half of teaspoon and add it into a glass of soy milk or almond milk, put it is a mini blender for a few seconds and that is my breakfast! I often like to drink it hot also with a bit of honey or rock sugar. 

It is easy to incorporate matcha green tea into your diet, you can drink it in place of your morning coffee, it gives you the energy you need without the jitters that coffee can give you. If you don't want to drink it, to get your daily intake you can add it to your cooking/baking. I have used it in banana bread, cookies, and even mixed it into a pasta sauce. There is so many things you can put it into, lattes, smoothies and iced tea. I highly recommend adding matcha green tea into your daily routine. Once you start you will wonder why you haven't used it before! 

How to prepare hot!

STEP ONE: Heat spring or filtered water

STEP TWO: Add a few drops of hot water to matcha powder and mix into paste with a spoon

STEP THREE: Add more hot water to paste mixture and stir. Try 1 teaspoon to 6 ounces of water. Adjust measurement to suit taste.

STEP FOUR: Matcha is ready to drink

This is a sponsored post, I received a sample of Matcha Green Tea from Culinary Teas for my honest review. #CulinaryTeas

Grapefruit Tangerine Tang Natural Soap Review! #Soapdotclub

About the Soap

The Soap.Club offers our customers the ability to purchase our amazing soap online or join our monthly membership service.

Soap is our passion. In fact, it’s our only product. We focus on premium quality soap aged up to 6 weeks and made fresh with pure ingredients that will stimulate your senses. The secret is our old-fashioned cold process soap making. Every product is made by hand, starting from stirring the recipe, cutting the bars and even packaging each individual item. Right away, you will notice the soft gentle lather that feels like lotion instead of rough sharp edges that feel scratchy or rough on your skin.
 
The cold process method of making soap helps enhance the fragrance. Many of the essential oils and fragrances provide the same properties used in aromatherapy and wellness programs. Feel the guilt free, sensual indulgence of our soap.



What I Think

I received a bar of Grapefruit Tangerine Tang Natural Soap for review and was not monetarily compensated. I choose Grapefruit/Tangerine fragrance because I love the citrusy scent of soap. I have used the soap ever since I received it and it lathers great and has a subtle scent that won't overpower you. The bar is a really nice size also.

The soap rinses clean without leaving a film as store bought soaps tend to do. I love handmade soap and have for years, not too crazy about the name brands you find in a store, I think I like that the soaps are handcrafted using pure/organic ingredients, plus these bars tend to last a really long time as opposed to name brand, I really think that they make them that way so you have to replace the bars sooner.

All in all, I would buy a bar from Soap.club anytime. The only complaint I have is that there is no straight Patchouli fragrance soap, one of my faves!! Otherwise, I would definitely recommend this brand if you are looking to try a soap from Soap.club or are just looking to try something different with natural ingredients.

*Note: You need to use some type of wooden type of soapdish,, like the one in the picture above, otherwise the soap will get mushy. Soapdish sold separately.

This is a sponsored ad #Soapdotclub. I received a bar of soap to try and was not monetarily compensated.

Odin's Child by Bruce Macbain Book Spotlight!

Publication Date: May 26, 2015 Blank Slate Press Formats: eBook, Trade Paperback
Pages: 400
Genre: Historical Fiction

     

 Driven from the flaming ruin of his Iceland farmhouse, young Odd Tangle-Hair, the only survivor of a feud in which his family is slaughtered, steals a ship, rounds up a rag-tag crew and embarks on the Viking life. He swears one day to return, rich and powerful enough to take vengeance on his enemies. But how far off that day seems! His father, Black Thorvald, had once been a chieftain in Iceland. But in the year 1000, when the country adopted Christianity, Thorvald denounced the new faith and shut himself up in his hall, shunning the world and shunned by it. Odd fears that the worm of cowardice that unmanned his father has infected him too. He has inherited from Thorvald a shock of black hair, a gift for poetry, and an allegiance to Odin, god of battles and magic. But Odd is heir to darker traits as well?a hint of madness and a temper which will sometimes cost him dearly. Fate carries him and his men to a shamanistic healer in Lapland, to bloody religious strife in Norway, to the lair of a witch in Finland, and finally to the borders of Russia. Here Odd will leave his comrades behind to join the retinue of a Norwegian princeling who is fleeing to the court of Yaroslav, Grand Prince of Rus. New dangers wait for him in that faraway country. Eager, curious, quick-witted?and sometimes wrong-headed?Odd Tangle-Hair recounts his story with candor, insight, and always an ironic sense of humor.

Odin's Child Available at

Amazon Barnes & Noble Books-a-Million IndieBound

Praise for Odin's Child

?Meticulous research and poetic writing make Odin's Child a multilayered masterpiece...It brings medieval Scandinavia vividly alive. Written with passion, peopled with superbly realized characters, I was gripped from the very first page of this historical novel.? -Carol McGrath, author of The Handfasted Wife and The Swan-Daughter ?[Macbain?s] writing is vivid and compelling, and his understanding of Norse and Icelandic culture and history is woven deftly throughout the tale. The cast of characters is well-fleshed out and Odd makes for a wonderful protagonist. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and I eagerly await its sequel. Highly recommended.? -Historical Novels Review, Editor?s Choice

Excerpt from Chapter 1: The Stallion Fight At Thingholt

On that day in May, as we rode to the stallion fight at Thingholt, my fate showed itself to me. A raven flew low across the sky into the rising sun and the moment I saw it I knew that Odin had spoken to me and that he would give me courage for the thing I had secretly made up my mind to do. Only now, half a century later, do I see what a long text was folded into that swift vision. The spring of my sixteenth year had come early to the South Quarter of Iceland, with hot-cold days and thunderclouds sweeping up over the mountains. The stallions, smelling the air, trembled and kicked against their stalls. At this season if you stake out a mare where the stallions can smell her, they will fight like berserkers to get at her, and a great one will die before he breaks and runs. Black Grani was such a one. This was his fourth spring and the time had come to bring him to the South Quarter Thing and fight him. Thorvald, my father, grumbled and held back, but I gave him no peace, until, at last, he flung up an arm, which meant 'yes'. Although my brother Gunnar and I had set out early from the farm, the day was far gone before we came in sight of Thingholt plain and heard the distant shouts of men and the whinnying of horses. We left Grani and our mounts at the horse lines and walked across the sparse heath into the holiday crowd. And as we pushed our way through, there were some who knew us. A few old men came up and in low voices asked to be remembered to our father. But one red-faced woman, seeing us, cried, "Jesu!" and dragged her little daughter from our path.

About the Author

From boyhood, Bruce Macbain spent his days in reading history and historical fiction. The Greeks and Romans have held a special fascination for him and this led to earning a master?s degree in Classical Studies and a doctorate in Ancient History. Along the way, he also taught English as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Borneo. Later, he taught courses in Greek and Roman civilization at Vanderbilt University and Boston University, and published a few dense scholarly monographs, read by very few. Recently, he has turned to writing fiction, a much more congenial pursuit. He has previously published two historical mysteries set in ancient Rome, Roman Games and its sequel, The Bull Slayer. Now, he has turned his attention to his other favorite folk, the Vikings. Odin's Child is the first novel of a trilogy, Odd Tangle-Hair?s Saga, which follows our hero?a wanderer, poet and warrior?from his tiny Iceland farm to the Great Palace in Constantinople. It will be published by Blank Slate Press in May, 2015. Bruce spends his spare time in the kitchen, cooking spicy food. For more information please visit Bruce Macbain's website. You can also follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Goodreads.

Odin's Child Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, June 29
Review at A Book Geek
Interview at Shelf Full of Books
Spotlight & Giveaway at Unshelfish
  Tuesday, June 30
Interview at Brooke Blogs
  Wednesday, July 1
Review at Book Nerd
  Friday, July 3
Spotlight at Layered Pages
Spotlight & Giveaway at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More
  Monday, July 6
Interview at A Literary Vacation
  Tuesday, July 7
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past
  Wednesday, July 8
Spotlight at CelticLady's Reviews
  Thursday, July 9
Review at Bookramblings
  Friday, July 10
Review at Just One More Chapter

The Shakespeare Conspiracy by Jeffrey Hunter McQuain Book Feature!

Title: The Shakespeare Conspiracy
Author: Jeffrey Hunter McQuain
Publisher: Telemachus Press
Genre: Fiction/Thriller
Format: Kindle 

What makes a secret worth dying for? That’s what Christopher Klewe, a brash young professor from Virginia, finds out in Jeffrey Hunter McQuain’s new thriller “The Shakespeare Conspiracy” when he stumbles upon the most shocking cover-up in literary history.

On a rainy Halloween at Washington’s Kennedy Center, a masked killer brutally stabs Klewe’s best friend. Before dying, the victim deliberately drops his raincoat across a puddle and scrawls the letters “SoN” in his own blood.

Investigating the murder scene, Klewe is joined by Zelda Hart, a married reporter for The New York Times. They learn the victim’s ear was severed and find evidence of a 400-year-old secret society. When questioned by police, Klewe reveals the surprising question he’s been researching: was Shakespeare black?

Outside Kennedy Center, they meet a drunken security guard who saw the murder and swears that “Shakespeare did it.” Klewe and Zelda grow less skeptical when a figure wearing a Shakespeare mask and wielding an Elizabethan dagger chases them into the Metro subway system toward Maryland.

After being cornered in a remote Maryland cabin by the killer, the two escape to look for answers at Shakespeare and Company, a famous Paris bookstore, as well as in London’s Globe Theater. As they solve each step of the mystery, though, they face new obstacles to overcome and more clues to unravel in their search for the truth.

Pursued across two continents by murderers, the desperate Klewe and Zelda have only three days to solve the strangest mystery of Renaissance history. The evidence mounts up, drawn from actual anagrams hidden in Shakespeare’s own words as well as historically accurate descriptions of Elizabethan paintings and observations made by the playwright’s contemporaries.

Their dangerous journey takes them ultimately to Stratford and the Bard’s final resting place. There the words of the playwright’s epitaph help thwart the deadly conspiracy.

Once hailed as “a jaw-dropping premise” by the late columnist William Safire, “The Shakespeare Conspiracy” is the first novel by a published Shakespeare expert. It offers readers the twists of a thrill ride reminiscent of “The Da Vinci Code” as well as that novel’s excitement of wondering whether its central secret just might be true. If so, this new thriller has the potential to expose the biggest literary conspiracy of all time, offering a whole new way of looking at the world’s greatest writer, William Shakespeare.

ORDER INFORMATION

The Shakespeare Conspiracy is available for purchase at  Amazon and B&N

Jeffrey Hunter McQuain, who holds a Doctorate in Literary Studies from American University, is co-author of several popular books, including “Coined by Shakespeare” and “The Bard on the Brain.” For more than a dozen years, he served as the researcher for William Safire’s “On Language” column in The New York Times. A poet and dramatist, he has also taught college courses in Shakespeare and occasionally performed in the Bard’s plays. His first novel, “The Shakespeare Conspiracy,” is based on his nonfiction book “Ebony Swan: The Case for Shakespeare’s Race.” Dr. McQuain lives in Maryland and is currently adapting “Ebony Swan” as a stage play.

For More Information

 

Visit Jeffrey’s website.

June 15

Book featured at Undercover Book Reviews

Interviewed at Review From Here

June 16

Book featured at 3 Partners in Shopping

June 17

Guest blogging at What is That Book About

Book featured at The Literary Nook

June 18

Interviewed at Author C.A. Milson

June 19

Guest blogging at Confessions of a Reader

June 22

Book featured at Chosen By You Book Club

June 23

Interviewed at I’m Shelf-ish

Book featured at The Dark Phantom

June 24

Book featured at Celticlady’s Reviews

June 25

Book reviewed at A Room Without Books is Empty

Book featured at Lover of Literature

June 26

Book reviewed at My Life, Loves and Passion

Book featured at Bent Over Bookwords

Turning to Stone by Gabriel Valjan Spotlight!

TURNING TO STONE, the fourth book of the highly praised Roma series (Winter Goose Publishing; June 2015; softcover $15.99; Kindle / Nook, $5.99).

Alabaster Black aka Bianca Nerini returns as an investigation into a public official’s assassination pits Bianca and her friends against a backdrop of financial speculation, female assassins on motorcycles, and the Camorra—the most ruthless of Italian organized crime gangs—in Gabriel Valjan’s

En route to a secret meeting, Aldo Giurlani—the regional commissioner of Lombardy in northern Italy and a specialist on organized crime—is assassinated in the middle of a public square.

More mysterious is the package sent to Giurlani’s hand-picked team of five top investigators within the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), the Italian law enforcement agency that investigates illegal financial transactions, from money laundering to drug trafficking. Within the package are five copies of a book entitled Man of Smoke written by Aldo Palazzeschi.

Then there is Bianca’s tenuous online contact with a mysterious online contact known as Loki, who delivers a cryptic message to her, takes on a new twist with the appearance of a brilliant young obsessive-compulsive man who joins her team.

Complicating matters even further, old enemies and, more problematically, Alabaster’s former employer—Rendition, a murky covert U.S. government agency that does more than just investigate financial crimes—still have grudges to bear against her.

As new mysteries unfold, Bianca’s group quickly discovers that Naples might just be the most dangerous city in Italy.



Learn more about Gabriel  Valjan here: http://www.gabrielvaljan.com/bio/

Go here to read a sample chapter: http://www.gabrielvaljan.com/turning-to-stone/

Goodreads Link: 

Amazon Purchase Link

Barnes and Noble Purchase Link

$25 Paypal Giveaway!

Audiobook Release of Suspicious & The Sheriff of Shelter Valley By Heather Graham & Tara Taylor Quinn Blitz!!

On Tour with Prism Book Tours.

We're blitzing about the audiobook release of

Suspicious & The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

By Heather Graham & Tara Taylor Quinn

This Harlequin Bestseller Author Collection is the re-release of Suspicious by Heather Graham and The Sheriff of Shelter Valley by Tara Taylor Quinn, two best-selling romantic suspense books.
Find out more about this collection and the audiobook release from its tour here.

Exclusive Excerpt from The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

By Tara Taylor Quinn

“MAMA! MAAMAA!” Ryan’s scream tore through her fog of sleep.

Beth Allen was out of bed and across the room before she’d even fully opened her eyes. Heart pounding, she lifted her two-year-old son out of the secondhand crib, pressing his face into her neck as she held him.

“It’s okay, Ry,” she said softly, pushing the sweaty auburn curls away from his forehead. Curls she dyed regularly, along with her own. “Shh, Mama’s right here. It was just a bad dream.”

“Mama,” the toddler said again, his little body shuddering. His tiny fists were clamped tightly against her—her nightshirt and strands of her straight auburn hair held securely within them.

“Mama” was what he’d said when she’d woken up alone with him in that motel room in Snowflake, Arizona, with a nasty bruise on her forehead, another one at the base of her skull. And no memory whatsoever.

She didn’t know how old she was. How old her son was. She could only guess Ry’s age by comparing him to other kids.

She didn’t even know her own name. She’d apparently checked in under the name Beth Allen and, trusting herself to have done so for a reason, had continued using it. It could be who she really was, but she doubted it. She’d obviously been on the run, and it didn’t seem smart to have made herself easy to find.

Suspicious & The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

(Bestselling Author Collection)
Adult Romantic Suspense

Paperback, ebook, & audiobook 544 pages
May 26th 2015 by Harlequin
Audiobook Release July 7th 2015 by Harlequin

Suspicious

by Heather Graham

Cold-blooded predators lurk in the Everglades—and not all of them are gators

When Jesse Crane returned to his roots to serve on the Miccosukee police force, he'd hoped to leave behind the violence of the city and the memories of his murdered wife. But bodies start to pile up in Jesse's corner of the sultry Florida swampland…

As he probes these crimes, Jesse is drawn to the beautiful Lorena Fortier, a new hire at the local gator farm and research facility. Lorena is a little too interested in Jesse's investigation, but before he can uncover her true motives, they're both pulled into a dangerous web of greed, ambition and animal cunning. To survive, they'll have to decide whether they can trust each other…before the hunters become the hunted.

The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

by Tara Taylor Quinn

Six months ago, Beth woke up with no memory of her past, a bruised face and a little boy who called her "Mama." Until her memory returns, the most dangerous thing she can do is to fall for the sheriff—the one man who can uncover the truth and destroy the person she's become.

Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Book Depository - Harlequin

Heather Graham

New York Times and USA Today best selling author, Heather Graham, majored in theater arts at the University of South Florida. After a stint of several years in dinner theater, back-up vocals, and bartending, she stayed home after the birth of her third child and began to write. Her first book was with Dell, and since then, she has written over two hundred novels and novellas including category, suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult and Christmas family fare.

She is pleased to have been published in approximately twenty-five languages. She has written over 200 novels and has 60 million books in print. She has been honored with awards from booksellers and writers’ organizations for excellence in her work, and she is also proud to be a recipient of the Silver Bullet from Thriller Writers. (And award for charitable endeavors.) Heather has had books selected for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, and has been quoted, interviewed, or featured in such publications as The Nation, Redbook, Mystery Book Club, People and USA Today and appeared on many newscasts including Today, Entertainment Tonight and local television.

Heather loves travel and anything that has to do with the water, and is a certified scuba diver. She also loves ballroom dancing. Each year she hosts the Vampire Ball and Dinner theater at the RT convention raising money for the Pediatric Aids Society and in 2006 she hosted the first Writers for New Orleans Workshop to benefit the stricken Gulf Region. She is also the founder of “The Slush Pile Players,” presenting something that’s “almost like entertainment” for various conferences and benefits. Married since high school graduation and the mother of five, her greatest love in life remains her family, but she also believes her career has been an incredible gift, and she is grateful every day to be doing something that she loves so very much for a living.

Website - Writer's for New Orleans Blog - Goodreads - Facebook - Twitter

Tara Taylor Quinn

The author of more than 70 original novels, in twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA Today bestseller with over six million copies sold. She is known for delivering deeply emotional and psychologically astute novels of suspense and romance. Tara is a recipient of the Reader’s Choice Award, a five time finalist for the RWA Rita Award, the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award and appears frequently on bestseller lists, including #1 placement on Amazon lists. Tara is the past-president of Romance Writers of America and served eight years on that board of directors. She has appeared on national and local TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning and is a frequent guest speaker. In her spare time Tara likes to travel, climb Arizona mountains, and inline skate.

Tara is a supporter of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233. 

Website - Goodreads - Facebook - Twitter - Pinterest - Instagram

Click on the banner to take you to Tara's landing page for all her tour events.

As part of Spend the Summer with Tara Taylor Quinn, Tara is holding a contest for those who share on social media about how they love life during the summer! Each day you can share an image, picture, or quote, linking to her events' landing page 

(http://www.tarataylorquinn.com/Summer%20With%20ttq.html) to enter to win ONE BIG SUMMER BASKET!!! We'll be pulling the best submissions and voting for the top one during her Facebook Party on July 16th. Pull out your creative juices and share your joy of summer, be it with friends, family, or the love of your life!

Beach-themed basket will include: shell wind chime, shell choker and matching bracelet, beach/flip flop note cards, picture frame, 4x6 picture album, plus some surprise print copies of Tara's books (including Once Upon a Friendship).

Share must be public to be eligible. Can enter one each day. US only. Giveaway ends July 16th.

ENTER HERE

Tour Giveaways

GRAND PRIZE GIVEAWAY
(All to one winner - US only.)
$10 VISA Gift Card
Copies of all five books on Tara's Summer Tour
Spend the Summer with TTQ T-Shirt
Ends July 16th

BLITZ GIVEAWAY
Audiobook of Suspicious & The Sheriff of Shelter Valley
US Only

Ends July 12th

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The Secrets We Keep by Stephanie Butland Spotlight WIth Excerpt!

The Secrets We Keep

By Stephanie Butland

Sourcebooks Landmark

Women’s Fiction

July 7, 2015

ISBN: 9781492608301

$14.99 Trade Paperback

About the Book

A tragic accident, a broken heart, and a marriage drowning in secrets...

Mike always walks the dog in the evening while Elizabeth relaxes in the bathtub--but one night he doesn’t come back. Mike has drowned while saving a teenage girl named Kate, his dog standing on the bank barking frantically as the police pull his body from the water.

But despite her husband being lauded as a hero, Elizabeth can’t wrap her mind around the fact that Mike is gone--and Kate won’t reveal the details of what really happened that night.

Elizabeth finds herself facing the unfathomable possibility that she may not have known her husband at all. Does she really want to know the truth? Or will the weight of Mike’s secrets pull her under?

Purchase Here:

THE SECRETS WE KEEP

Amazon | B&N | BAM | !ndigo | IndieBound | Kobo

About the Author

Stephanie lives in Northumberland, England, and talks and trains in thinking skills all over Europe, most recently in Kazakhstan. She has written two books on her experience with cancer, and she is an active blogger and fundraiser. The Secrets We Keep is her first novel.

Connect with Allegra Jordan

Website - http://stephaniebutland.com/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/under_blue_sky

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephanie-Butland-Author/282828548412029

Goodreads – http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5276201.Stephanie_Butland

Praise for End of Innocence

“An emotionally wrenching read that delivers an engaging story…” –Library Journal

“An immensely powerful, and ultimately uplifting, debut novel” – Katie Fforde

“I thoroughly enjoyed this.I was completely immersed to the point it no longer seemed like I was reading but discovering the truth and lies of these brilliant characters.” – Louise Douglas, Richard & Judy-selected author of The Secrets Between Us

“[The Secrets We Keep] is a moving exploration of grief and love and the darker depths that lie beneath the surface of a seemingly idyllic marriage” – Tamar Cohen, author of The Mistress's Revenge

“I read [The Secrets We Keep] last night in one big gulp...It's beautiful and sad, the characters so well-drawn, and the writing is gorgeous. I had to take a deep breath and let out a big sigh when I'd finished.” – Julie Cohen

Excerpt from THE SECRETS WE KEEP

Chapter 1
Blake and Andy hadn't talked about what they would do when they left Elizabeth with her mother-in-law, eight hours after the emergency call from another late-night dog walker reported a young woman, soaked and unconscious, on the bank of Butler's Pond and whipped their world into chaos. They'd obeyed Patricia's stoical instructions-"You know there's nothing you can do for us, so just let us be for a bit"-and gone, leaving the two women side by side on the sofa. Elizabeth was no longer sobbing but making a strange, sad hum of a keening, as though her body had already forgotten how to breathe without also making a cry. Patricia stared straight ahead, eyes glassy, something throbbing in the jut of her jaw.
Even though there's been no discussion, it feels as though there is only one option for the two men. At the gate, Blake says, "Shall we go and have a look?" A question that's not really a question, and they walk the short mile to Butler's Pond in silence as Throckton starts to wake around them.
Andy pulls out his phone. Dials, waits, wonders whether the sound of his wife, sleep-soft and stretching, will be something he can bear. "It's me," he says when she answers, then, after a pause, "Not really. Michael died. Michael drowned." His voice is flat and tight: locked down, for now, until it's safe to start thinking about what's happened. It's too soon to glance at the death of his best friend since childhood for more than a second. Blake matches Andy's steps and listens as he answers Lucy's questions: "I'm with Blake... It looks like an accident... No, I'll go to work... I don't really know, to be honest... OK. Will do." He ends the call and says, "She says I have to make sure I have something to eat before I go to work. She says to say she's thinking of you." Blake nods. Andy redials. He is surprised that his hands are steady. "Me again. I meant to say I love you." He is not the only one, as the news makes its way around Throckton this morning, who will tell someone he loves them. Who will think, There, but for the grace of God, go any of us.
It's still dark, so the floodlit place where Michael drowned and Kate Micklethwaite was saved seems more strange than sad. Kate is in the hospital, vomiting water from her lungs and guts, shivering and unable to speak or focus or do anything but submit to needles and lines and wires, something she will have no memory of. Michael, his body identified by Blake earlier, is already in the morgue, where a pathologist will later confirm what Elizabeth has already been told, that he drowned. Alive when he went into the water, dead when he came out. As simple as that.
So Blake and Andy stand and watch as the grass, the mud, the water are photographed and scrutinized. Although Butler's Pond is generally accepted as a beauty spot, a place for Sunday strolls and dog walking and picnics, this corner of it isn't the prettiest. It's one of those places where rubbish blows to and breeds. The duty officer, recognizing the watchers, offers to lift the tape, but Blake waves him away. They are close enough.
"Unbelievable," Andy says after a while.
"You should never underestimate the water," Blake says.
"He was a bloody idiot to go in there," Andy mutters. They both think of the time six months earlier when Michael, one of the first on the scene of a house fire, had walked into the building and emerged with a mother and baby. Everyone had raged at him-firefighters, senior officers, Elizabeth, Patricia-but he had remained steadfast: someone had to save those people and the fire trucks were six minutes away, which Michael knew was long enough for a toddler to die of smoke inhalation. So he'd gone in.
Blake had been working with Michael that day. He remembered how they had both raised their faces to the wind, asked each other if they smelled smoke, just before the call came in. They both knew the drill: get the neighbors out, keep people away, and wait for the fire department. Never, ever go into anywhere full of smoke unless you are absolutely sure you can get out again. But Michael had gone in, and then there was nothing to do but wait, and hope. The hope had run out just a second before the first fire engine had pulled up. Turning toward the firefighters, he had told them what had happened; turning back, he had seen Michael running up the path, blackened and hacking, propelling a young woman who was herself screaming, every line of her body a prayer as she held forward a child who was silent and still in her arms.
And then the controlled chaos began, the hoses and the water and the aching, burning smoke.
It had been months until Michael had admitted to Andy-it was late, and drunken, and deniable-that there was a moment when he thought he was going to die, and he'd been terrified, and life had never been quite the same since, but he couldn't say exactly why. Andy had put him in a taxi home and they'd never spoken about it again. Now, he wishes that he'd asked more questions.
"I don't think he will have felt anything," Blake says, a catch in his voice.
Andy doesn't know whether he's being asked for a medical opinion or a word of comfort, but he agrees with a nod. And then they turn and walk back to the village, avoiding the eyes of the first curious runners and dog walkers as the light starts to make some real headway into the sky. They make a strange pair-or at least they would, were the overall impression that they gave not one of two men walking home after being up all night, united by something outside themselves. Blake is tall and broad, straight and strong. Only close inspection would show that his uniform is not as crisp as it was when he put it on before walking to work sixteen hours ago. His cap hides his receding hairline and so he looks younger than his forty-seven years when he's wearing it. The shadow of the peak hides the shadows under, and in, his eyes. Next to him, Andy seems slight and short, although there's only four inches' height difference, but the doctor is walking with his head down, letting his tiredness show, wearing mismatched clothes, his pale skin made paler by his thick eyebrows and dark brown hair.
He'd gotten dressed in a hurry in the dark, fumbling for quietness and struggling to make the words he'd just heard make sense. "I'm asking you as their friend," Blake had said, "but your medical eye might help. I don't want an on-call doctor if I can have someone she knows here. Just in case. Come and see what you think."
Lucy had sat up in bed and switched on the light as he was searching the bottom of the wardrobe for his shoes. "So the boys sleep, for once, and now you're the one who is waking me up," she'd said, and he'd told her, more simply and quickly than he would have liked to, his own shock speaking, what had happened. Michael, their best man, godfather to their twins, here one minute, dead in the dark water the next. Lucy's eyes, rounding as she listened. Her pushing him away-"go, go to Elizabeth, see what you can do, tell her"-and then she'd hesitated, because, well, tell her what? Andy had kissed the top of her head and gone, sat for a moment longer than he needed to on the top stair, fastening his laces, finding what he needed for what would come next, realizing he was just going to have to do it anyway.
"I have to go back to the station," Blake says when they reach the market square. "You?"
"I don't know." There's time for Andy to go home, take a shower, watch cartoons with the boys, and tell Lucy he's all right: there's time to touch them, all three of them, just the simplest stroke of hair or brush of hand that might help. But he's not sure he trusts himself. "I think I'll go have half an hour at the office before I start." The bed in the consulting room will be too narrow to be properly comfortable; the staff shower will run out of hot water before he has finished washing. Better, safer, for now.
"I'll look in on Elizabeth later," Blake says. "I can take Pepper out when I walk Hope."
"I'll call on my way home," Andy says. And, even though they see each other often, they shake hands as they part.
• • •
"It's terrible that we have to be practical, but we do," Patricia says later. Elizabeth nods but doesn't agree. She's barely moved from the place Blake steered her to when he brought the news. Every now and then Patricia picks up the balled tissues that lie around her daughter-in-law. Every now and then she stops to have a few tears herself, caught unawares by something she comes across: her son's handwriting on the notepad in the kitchen, his muddy sneakers by the back door. Early on the first day, the phone had rung, and neither she nor Elizabeth had gone to answer it. Instead they'd sat, transfixed by the sound of Michael's recorded voice, cheerfully telling the caller that they'd get back to him or her as soon as they could. It was the only time that Patricia had been comforted by Elizabeth: what seemed horrifying to the newly childless mother gladdened the widow who afterward, during the night, would switch the answering machine on again, sit on the bottom step, and call the number from her cell phone over and over, until her husband's voice became like a blanket, the words heard so often that they became meaningless, but the sound warm and soothing.
Less than forty-eight hours from the knock on the door that would always mark the Before and After of Elizabeth's adult life, she's had conversations about identifying Michael (which Blake has done), the inquest (opened and adjourned), the funeral (a week away), visiting the funeral home (which everyone seems to think she should do), her sister coming over from Australia (which everyone seems to think Mel should do), and the girl Michael saved (hospitalized, shocked, and distressed, but not in any physical danger). She has agreed to meet the vicar, the funeral director, and Michael's boss. She has flinched from every mention of death, or body, or even any use of the past tense as far as Michael is concerned. She feels as though she is being asked to do an awful lot of adult things at a time when she has never been less able to do them. When she looks in the desk for the envelope Michael had put there-If Michael dies first written across it in large letters, next to the one marked If Elizabeth dies first and which she runs her hands over, wishing, wishing that it had been her, so she didn't have to bear any of this-she cries again. But these tears are not grief: they are gratitude. Elizabeth remembers the afternoon Michael had sat them down and suggested they do this.
It was not long after they'd married, and she'd laughed at him, but when she'd seen the look on his face, when he'd said, "Elizabeth, you and I of all people know how suddenly people can be lost," she'd felt ashamed of herself and taken the job seriously. They'd both already lost a parent. They'd each put a copy of their will in the envelopes. Then Michael had photocopied the details of their burial plot so they each had a copy of that.
"Seriously?" Elizabeth had asked when he'd bought the plot. "We could have a great weekend away for that money."
"Yes," he'd said, "but a space in a graveyard is forever." They'd written lists of who they wanted to have their possessions. They'd chosen hymns and poems and laughed about how Elizabeth's choice of "All Things Bright and Beautiful" would go down in Throckton. "It will make you smile," she'd said, "and Mel and I used to sing it every Sunday at church. We chose it for our mother's funeral. It's our theme song. Throckton will just have to lump it." When it was done, they'd sealed the envelopes and gone to bed with a bottle of wine.
Elizabeth is so glad of the envelope. Instead of making decisions she can brandish sheets of paper at people. No to medical research, no to an official police funeral, no to cremation. Yes to "Abide with Me" and "The Lord's My Shepherd" and being buried in his uniform. She decides that if it isn't in the envelope, it doesn't matter, and lets Patricia choose caterers and cars and go through her wardrobe and pick out something for her to wear for the funeral. Between conversations, she sits, mostly quiet, and waits. Waits for this not to be true.
• • •
Elizabeth has never been to a funeral home before. She and Patricia enter the building together and then take turns going into the room. Patricia goes first and comes out swollen-faced and silent, nodding and clasping Elizabeth's hands. So, still unsure, she rises and faces the oak-effect door.
It's a smaller room than she thinks it will be. The light is low, and the smell of flowers, from a complex arrangement in which some of the smaller blooms are dying, is a mixture of sweetness and must. There's a cross. And there's a seat, next to the coffin. Because there's a coffin. There's a coffin. Elizabeth closes her eyes and tries to make herself breathe. She looks again. Yes, there's a coffin. Mike's coffin. Her soul winces. The top part is open, the rest closed.
Experimentally, Elizabeth puts her hand on the wood near the bottom, where she would imagine Mike's feet to be, were she able to think about his cold, dead feet in a box. She checks her heart and feels nothing new, nothing worse. She takes a step farther up. Her hand is where his knees would be. The wood is smooth. Her palm runs up thigh, over stomach, rests on chest, in a horrible pantomime of what she's done so often in life. Her mind is saying, Well, if Mike was gone, this is how it would be, yes, but he can't be gone. He can't be.
Elizabeth knows what needs to come next. So she takes another step, and she looks down.
Mike's face is swollen, only slightly, and an odd color, although that might be the light. Blake had driven them the short distance, neither of them ready for the walk, or the people, or the light of an ordinary day. He had told them in the car that Mike would look as though he was sleeping, but this face, solemn and enclosed, bears no resemblance to her sprawling, duvet-hogging, snoring husband, liable at any moment to throw out an arm and pull her in to him, even though he was fast asleep.
Elizabeth realizes she is holding her breath as she fights to recognize what's in front of her. Cautious, she reaches out her left hand, her own skin dull in this dull light. She touches his face. Her thumb strokes the indentation to the left of his right cheekbone. He is cold, and his skin is powdery, and she watches, waiting for him to open his eyes. Tears fall from hers and gather on his face, and she wipes them away gently with the thumb that wears his wedding ring, and just for a moment these are his tears, and they are crying together.
Elizabeth bends down and whispers, "You can pretend all you like, but I know you haven't left me. I know you wouldn't leave me."
She whispers, "I want to hold your hand." Her own hands, free to rake through her hair and twist around each other and catch at tears falling from her chin, tingle at the horrible thought of being contained in the way his are.

She whispers, "Show me that you haven't gone," and she sits, and she waits, her hand on the coffin where she thinks Michael's hand must be. She closes her eyes. "You promised you would never leave me," she says, trying a different tack, thinking a prod might work where a plea has failed. Time stops, and the world stops, and even the tears stop for a while, as Elizabeth strains for a sign, all of her senses ready and oh so willing. But no sign comes.