Love and Devotion by Erica James

Harriet Swift, a  32 year old computer programmer, living a happy, settled life in Oxford is jolted out of her comfort zone when her sister dies. A few years ago, Felicity, her sister had got her to promise that should anything happen to Felicity and her husband, Harriet would look after her children.

Harriet, is at a total loss. She has no maternal instincts, and has no clue how to handle two young children. To add to that she has to give her life, as she knew it, to relocate to where her parents live, to be able to look after her niece and nephew. She needs her parents to help with this task, but it isn’t easy on any one of them.

To add to it all, her parents seem to be having trouble in their relationship, and she discovers that her sister Felicity was not all that she seemed to be.

Will Hart, is a middle-aged divorced man, with two teenage daughters. He is also leading a well ordered life, and wants nothing to change it. He find out that his older daughter is pregnant, and he plays peace maker between his former wife and daughter, to ensure that his daughter is allowed to make her own decisions, without her mother forcing her into anything. Tragedy strikes and nothing is same again.

A sweet story, a book that leaves you feeling happy at the end. It makes you feel for the characters, wishing that everything could just turn out right. The way the little children face their loss is handled so beautifully, and it feels very real. Little Carrie’s bravado, and Joel’s insecurity, and Harriet’s handling of it all, is very well portrayed.

It is mainly about how people cope with loss, how some go strong, some find other avenues to run away from the grief.. And how things do fall back into place, eventually.

A nice read, a sweet story. Something to curl up and have a ‘comfort read’, if you know what I mean.

Women, be warned!

It is depressing to read the news these days. So now that women have been told to not be out after 8 pm, in Gurgaon. What next?

Cover every inch of skin between 8 am and 8 pm to be safe? Or better still, how about women just stay indoors – that should be a foolproof way!

The whole attitude of the establishment is astounding, to say the least. They are responsible for the safety of the country’s citizens, and no, asking people to stay indoors is not ensuring safety. Why do we need police if this is the solution that the government comes up with? Oh I forgot, all that our governments are good at, is moral policing, and preventing freedom of speech. After all when so much time and energy is lost in figuring out if women wearing Western clothes are distracting, or in figuring out which politician was insulted in FB or twitter, who has the time to worry about people getting raped. Not the police for sure!

After all, it is the victim’s fault for being at that place, at the wrong time, and who knows, her visible ankle must have been too much for a man(or a bunch of men) to resist! Or worse still, she works late, now that is unpardonable, she needs to learn a lesson. Police? Well, what can they do, it was after 8:00 pm, you see.

And of course, all crime will stop the moment women disappear from the streets. So all us women, should remember not to be around after 8, who knows who might get tempted by our mere presence. We shouldn’t make the police and the establishment’s job harder than it is.