Laurel-Rain Snow

Laurel-Rain Snow

About

A retired social worker, specializing in child welfare cases, I have now turned to writing—and have published five novels, all available on Amazon.com. 

I have four grown children and seven grandchildren.

An avid reader, I also enjoy collecting, traveling and going to the movies.

Favorite authors include:  Jodi Picoult, Joy Fielding, Sue Miller, Lisa Unger, Joyce Maynard, etc.  There are too many to list.



Outta Time

Outta Time

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Description

<p> </p><p>Sophie is a psychic medium and animal communicator. She runs a small crystal shop called, Outta Time. The shop</p><p>Is located in a small district called Lents in Portland, Oregon.</p><p>Nick is a man who if you can't touch it, feel it or see it then it doesn't exist. He is sure she is a phony psychic who is bilking money out of his mother and he intends to expose her.</p><p>Sophie sees him as a non-believer, someone who could never understand her or her way of life. She is attracted to him but knows there can be no future for them unless he can be made to understand what her world is all about.</p><p>Their Guardian Angels get into the act to guide the two to a better understanding of each other.</p><p>Nick's Guardians help his deceased Father get through to Nick and help him to understand that death is not the end. He soon learns there can be communication between the living and the dead.</p>

Story Behind The Book

Reviews

<font size="1" face="Times-Roman"><font size="1" face="Times-Roman"></font></font> <p align="left">The burden of child abuse follows Meg Graham from her strict fundamentalist upbringing to the Summer of Love.</p> <p align="left">From the time she is ten years old, Meg is determined to escape her father’s controlling grasp, get an education and marry the man of her choice. As a young woman she reaches her goals, but happiness eludes her.</p> <p align="left">Miserable in her marriage, she takes her toddler son and leaves her controlling husband, builds a satisfying career as a social worker, finds emotional support among new women friends and explores the sexual mores of San Francisco in the ’60s. She rejects the conservative values of her childhood through alcohol, pot and (mostly) fleeting relationships with men. She also changes her name to Lainey. The novel’s multiple subplots reflect the messiness of real life but divert focus from Meg/Lainey as the central character. Two subplots in particular—the machinations of sociopathic Gretchen, who orchestrated a rape to blackmail Lainey, and the complex relationship between the artist Rainbow and Natasha, a social worker who years before caused Rainbow to lose custody of her child—could form the core of the story or a separate novel. The question of whether Meg/Lainey was sexually abused as a child hovers over early chapters, but as the story progresses, it is eclipsed by the novel’s other complexities. Only when Lainey begins hypnotherapy do repressed memories of abuse come to the fore, as does her awareness that she is abusing alcohol to bury her feelings about the past. A retired social worker, Snow does an excellent job of capturing the spirit of the ’60s in clothes, interiors, dialogue and attitudes, but the steady onslaught of new characters and subplots diminishes Meg/Lainey as a character. The relationship between Natasha and Rainbow is the strongest part of the book. As they go through the process of betrayal and forgiveness, they emerge as richer characters than Lainey, who, despite her journey of selfrealization, still comes across as a lost soul.</p> <p align="left">A rambling voyage of discovery through the ’60s.</p><strong><font size="3" face="Times-Bold"><font size="3" face="Times-Bold"></font></font></strong> <p align="left">Snow, Laurel-Rain</p><font size="3" face="Times-Roman"><font size="3" face="Times-Roman"></font></font> <p align="left">WEB OF TYRANNY</p> <p align="left">BookSurge (608 pp.)</p> <p align="left">$23.99 paperback</p> <p align="left">September 3, 2008</p> <p align="left">ISBN: 978-1-4196-5686-6</p><font size="2" face="Times-Roman"><font size="2" face="Times-Roman"></font></font> <p align="left">Kirkus Discoveries, Nielsen Business Media, 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003</p> <p align="left">discoveries@kirkusreviews.com</p>