"Sensitive" best describes this amazing collection of short stories. The writer says that "I see things the way they are." Would that more writers would have such insight and the ability to articulate the physical, mental, and emotional nuances of life!

Although these thirty-four stories and one poem concern life's haunting losses and loves, this reader was mesmerized by each and every one. One may recognize the honesty, magic, majesty, riveting passion, devastating discord and paralyzing sadness when one meets some realities, but how many touch the depths therein? Stay with this writer, for she has much to share with every reader.

Gauge your own reflections with Jim Harvey's in Requiem as he tries to reconcile the death of his heroic father with his mother's hunting lover, literally and figuratively. Feel Jim's poignant devotion, confusion, and suspicion. Wonder at his tentative observations and analyses. Enter the holiday rituals of an elderly man and woman in Between These Two, who respectively connect to his and her lover present in powerful memory but lost in death.

Be enraged and humbled by the narrator's degradation but dignified response to the Liar's Club luncheon in Fulfilling Phillipe Candelbras.

Believe and doubt an oh so familiar yet unique explanation in Honest, as a nameless narrator unknowingly miscommunicates, setting off a chain of accidental.. or is it deliberate?.. rage.

Judge and be judged in reaction to a child waiting for his father's return while his mother shares her bed with friend and foe in Voices On The Stair.

Space isn't adequate here to uncover every gem awaiting your exposure in this dynamic, deeply moving collection of wonderful portraits.

Precise visual, auditory, and tactile scenes grip the reader to each story, while one also must pause to appreciate the magnificent language, as in A Sailor's Delight: "...I have been here before, he told himself...before this moment when he froze and burned and shrieked within himself with delight as a steady storm brewed, lived at all. He was just born."

When all is said and done after re-reading, you, the reader, will be sure to celebrate humanity's rich faculties, because you have shared its essence herein.

May this collection, E. Routen, earn you the literary merit you so deserve!

Linnaeus said the most important part of life is to "Know thyself". Spend time with these stories, reader, and you may too, indeed!