A Piece of Heaven: A Novel, page 1
PRAISE FOR BARBARA O’NEAL
A PIECE OF HEAVEN
“In this beautifully written ode to family bonds, the author presents an in-depth view of what truly matters in life-lasting relationships . . . Readers should have their handkerchiefs ready and prepare to be enchanted.”
—Booklist
“Beautifully drawn but deeply wounded characters populate the pages of this exceptional romance. Seamlessly combining the dark issues of abandonment, betrayal, infidelity, and alcoholism with a compelling love story, Samuel has written an intense, multi-faceted tale of relationships, family, and healing love.”
—Library Journal
THIS PLACE OF WONDER
“This Place of Wonder is a wonderfully moving tale about four women whose journeys are all connected by one shared love: some are romantic, some are familial, but all are deeply complicated. Dealing with loss, love, hidden secrets, and second chances, this stirring tale is utterly engaging and ultimately hopeful. Set along the rugged California coastline, This Place of Wonder will sweep you away with the intoxicating scents, bold flavors, and sweeping views of the region and transport you to a world you won’t be in any hurry to leave.”
—Colleen Hoover, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Kristin Hannah readers will thoroughly enjoy the family dynamic, especially the mother-daughter relationships.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Barbara O’Neal’s latest novel is simply delicious. Engrossing, empathetic, and profoundly moving, I savored every sentence of this story of several very different women who find solace and second chances in each other after tragedy (though not before facing some hard truths and, yes, a few rock bottoms). This Place of Wonder is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.”
—Camille Pagán, bestselling author of Everything Must Go
“I have never much moved in the elevated circles of California farm-to-table cuisine, but O’Neal makes me feel like I’m there. Rather than simply skewering the pretensions, This Place of Wonder pinpoints the passions. Some of these characters have been elevated to celebrity, some are newcomers to the scene, but all are drawn together by the sensuality, the excitement, and ultimately the care that food brings them. Elegiac but also forward-looking, this is a book about eating, but more than that, it’s a book about hurt and healing and women finding their way together. I loved every moment of it.”
—Julie Powell, author of Julie & Julia and Cleaving
WRITE MY NAME ACROSS THE SKY
“Barbara O’Neal weaves an irresistible tale of creativity, forgery, family, and the FBI in Write My Name Across the Sky. Willow and Sam are fascinating, and their aunt Gloria is my dream of an incorrigible, glamorous older woman.”
—Nancy Thayer, bestselling author of Family Reunion
“Write My Name Across the Sky is an exquisitely crafted novel of three remarkable women from two generations grappling with decisions of the past and the consequences of where those young, impetuous choices have led. A heartfelt story of passion, devotion, and family told as only Barbara O’Neal can.”
—Suzanne Redfearn, #1 Amazon bestselling author of In an Instant
“With its themes of creativity and art, Write My Name Across the Sky is itself like a masterfully executed painting. Using refined brushstrokes, O’Neal builds her vivid, complex characters: three independent women in one family who can’t quite come to terms with their fierce feelings of love for one another. O’Neal deftly switches between three points of view, adding layers of family history into this intimate and satisfying study of how women make tough choices between love and creativity and family and freedom.”
—Glendy Vanderah, Washington Post bestselling author of Where the Forest Meets the Stars
THE LOST GIRLS OF DEVON
One of Travel + Leisure’s most anticipated books of summer 2020
“A woman’s strange disappearance brings together four strong women who struggle with their relationships, despite their need for one another. Fans of Sarah Addison Allen will appreciate the emphasis on nature and these women’s unique gifts in this latest by the author of When We Believed in Mermaids.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“The Lost Girls of Devon draws us into the lives of four generations of women as they come to terms with their relationships and a mysterious tragedy that brings them together. Written in exquisite prose with the added bonus of the small Devon village as a setting, Barbara O’Neal’s book will ensnare the reader from the first page, taking us on an emotional journey of love, loss, and betrayal.”
—Rhys Bowen, New York Times and #1 Kindle bestselling author of The Tuscan Child, In Farleigh Field, and the Royal Spyness series
“The Lost Girls of Devon is one of those novels that grabs you at the beginning with its imagery and rich language and won’t let you go. Four generations of women deal with the pain and betrayal of the past, and Barbara O’Neal skillfully leads us to understand all of their deepest needs and fears. To read a Barbara O’Neal novel is to fall into a different world—a world of beauty and suspense, of tragedy and redemption. This one, like her others, is spellbinding.”
—Maddie Dawson, bestselling author of A Happy Catastrophe
WHEN WE BELIEVED IN MERMAIDS
“An emotional story about the relationship between two sisters and the difficulty of facing the truth head-on.”
—Today
“There’s a reason Barbara O’Neal is one of the most decorated authors in fiction. With her trademark lyrical style, she’s written a page-turner of the first order. From the very first page, I was drawn into the drama and irresistibly teased along as layers of a family’s complicated past were artfully peeled away. Don’t miss this masterfully told story of sisters and secrets, damage and redemption, hope and healing.”
—Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“More than a mystery, Barbara O’Neal’s When We Believed in Mermaids is a story of childhood—and innocence—lost, and the long-hidden secrets, lies, and betrayals two sisters must face in order to make themselves whole as adults. Plunge in and enjoy the intriguing depths of this passionate, lustrous novel, and you just might find yourself believing in mermaids.”
—Juliet Blackwell, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Carousel of Provence, Letters from Paris, and The Paris Key
“In When We Believed in Mermaids, Barbara O’Neal draws us into the story with her crisp prose, well-drawn settings, and compelling characters, in whom we invest our hearts as we experience the full range of human emotion and, ultimately, celebrate their triumph over the past.”
—Grace Greene, author of The Memory of Butterflies and the Wildflower House series
“When We Believed in Mermaids is a deftly woven tale of two sisters, separated by tragedy and reunited by fate, discovering that the past isn’t always what it seems. By turns shattering and life affirming, as luminous and mesmerizing as the sea by which it unfolds, this is a book club essential—definitely one for the shelf!”
—Kerry Anne King, bestselling author of Whisper Me This
THE ART OF INHERITING SECRETS
“Great writing, terrific characters, food elements, romance, a touch of intrigue, and more than a few surprises to keep readers guessing.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Settle in with tea and biscuits for a charming adventure about inheriting an English manor and the means to restore it. Vivid descriptions and characters that read like best friends will stay with you long after this delightful story has ended.”
—Cynthia Ellingsen, bestselling author of The Lighthouse Keeper
“The Art of Inheriting Secrets is the story of one woman’s journey to uncovering her family’s hidden past. Set against the backdrop of a sprawling English manor, this book is ripe with mystery. It will have you guessing until the end!”
—Nicole Meier, author of The House of Bradbury and The Girl Made of Clay
“O’Neal’s clever title begins an intriguing journey for readers that unfolds layer by surprising layer. Her respected masterful storytelling blends mystery, art, romance, and mayhem in a quaint English village and breathtaking countryside. Brilliant!”
—Patricia Sands, bestselling author of the Love in Provence series
ALSO BY BARBARA O’NEAL
The Starfish Sisters
This Place of Wonder
Write My Name Across the Sky
The Lost Girls of Devon
When We Believed in Mermaids
The Art of Inheriting Secrets
The Lost Recipe for Happiness
The Secret of Everything
How to Bake a Perfect Life
The Garden of Happy Endings
The All You Can Dream Buffet
The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue
Lady Luck’s Map of Vegas
The Scent of Hours
No Place Like Home
In the Midnight Rain
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2003, 2014, 2024 by Barbara Samuel
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, with
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781662521300 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 9781662521317 (digital)
Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant
Cover image: © Shanna Baker/robertharding / Getty; © SpicyTruffel / Shutterstock
This one is for Meg Ruley,
warrior, champion, wise woman,
and all-around wonderful human being.
CONTENTS
START READING
PROLOGUE
Filler from the Taos News:
ONE
Saints’ Lives—Santa Rosa de Lima
TWO
Coffee Facts
THREE
From Astrology Magazine:
FOUR
Taos Events Calendar
FIVE
AA Supplemental Materials—Just For Today
SIX
From The Internet:
SEVEN
Sign in The Turquoise Goddess Boutique: Tarot Readings
EIGHT
EL SANTUARIO DE CHIMAYÓ, THE “LOURDES OF AMERICA”
NINE
Filler from the Taos News:
TEN
Since music is . . .
ELEVEN
From Placida Ramirez, Who Was Taught by Her Mother:
TWELVE
La Llorona
THIRTEEN
Virgen de Guadalupe
FOURTEEN
AA Materials—The Twelve Steps
FIFTEEN
From Glam Gal Magazine, August 2001:
SIXTEEN
Tupac’s Tattoos
SEVENTEEN
“EL PRESO NÚMERO NUEVE,” TRADITIONAL FOLK SONG
EIGHTEEN
AA Materials—The Twelve Steps
NINETEEN
Tarot Interpretations: The Lovers
TWENTY
The Memorare
TWENTY-ONE
Five Stages of Grief
TWENTY-TWO
From the Taos Three Penny Press:
TWENTY-THREE
Rose History
TWENTY-FOUR
Sins cannot be . . .
TWENTY-FIVE
FROM TRAVELLADY MAGAZINE:
TWENTY-SIX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sins become more subtle as you grow older: you commit sins of despair rather than lust.
—Piers Paul Read
PROLOGUE
Abuela
Placida Ramirez knew she did not have much time. There was old in her bones, not like it had been when she was sixty and her knees got stiff after a rain, or when she was seventy-six and sometimes fell asleep in her chair, half-shucked corn still in her hands when she woke up.
No, this was an old that went deep, deep. She was the oldest woman in an old, old town, and even the littlest ones called her vieja.
And it would not be so bad to go on now. She’d outlived four of her children and two of her great-grandchildren, not counting the ones that never really came. Her husband had died so long ago she had lived longer without him than she had with him.
There was only one thing keeping her, and Placida had to fix it before she could go. So it was that she gathered herbs and incense and candlesticks that she had not used for a long time. And she waited till the moon was right—full and bursting with the light of women—and she cast her petition to the Madonna, the Virgin, the Mother.
Prayers did not always work. But this time, Placida felt a rush of warm wind over her old bones and through her heart. For a moment, she scowled at the candle flickering over the carved wooden robe of the statue of Guadalupe, thinking maybe this was just going to bring her more energy to see to things herself. “No,” she said, and poked a finger toward the candle. It fell over.
With a small cry, she grabbed it up, but it was too late. The flame on the old altar cloth sped right for the thin muslin curtains over the window. They went up in a shiver of smoke. With her gnarled fingers, she could not unfasten the knots of her apron as fast as she wished, and in despair, she turned and took up the kitchen towel, trying to beat out the leaping flames. With sharp, disappointed movements, she slapped at the fire.
That was the trouble with saints and prayers and spells. A person had in mind a perfectly reasonable plan, but the tricksters always seemed to take it as a challenge.
Filler from the Taos News:
Full Moon Facts
The full moon is the phase of the Moon in which it is fully illuminated as seen from Earth, at the point when the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides of the Earth. The full moon reaches its highest elevation at midnight. High tides. Names for the August and September full moon: Full Red Moon, Full Green Corn Moon, Full Sturgeon Moon.
ONE
It was a good thing for Placida Ramirez that the moon was full when she set her house on fire at three o’clock in the morning that August night. Because it was the moon, shining like a searchlight through her bedroom windows, that had awakened Luna McGraw. Technically, it was a dream about her long-gone father that yanked her out of sleep. It was worries about her daughter’s arrival tomorrow that kept her awake.
But the moon, so coldly white in the summer sky, took the blame.
Dragging on a pair of shorts beneath her nightshirt, she got up to make some coffee. It would make her mother crazy to know Luna was making coffee in the middle of the night. Why not a cup of tea? Something soothing and relaxing?
Not her style. Once upon a time, she would have poured a hefty measure of gold tequila into a water glass and sipped that. A part of her still wished she could.
At least coffee had some bite. Measuring out Costa Rican Irazú into her new Krupps grinder, she counted out the seconds to twenty-one. Perfect grind for a latte. Perfect grind for her, anyway. The world was entirely too full of coffee snobs these days—coffee was about individual taste, and no one should let anyone else tell them what to like. She liked hers strong enough to stand and walk by itself, with steamed milk and a pound of sugar. As drugs went, it wasn’t bad. Also, a good latte took some detail work. The measuring. The grinding. Now she pressed the grounds, the color of good earth, into a tiny metal basket, and clicked on the machine. While it was heating up, she poured 1 percent milk into a giant ceramic mug and waited, yawning, for the steam to be hot enough to make a froth.
The actions and the smell of coffee eased some of her restlessness, and she found she could stand there with one bare foot over the other without twitching too much in nicotine withdrawal. Or wondering why it had suddenly seemed like such a brilliant plan to quit smoking right now, when her daughter was coming to live with her for the first time in eight years. Maybe, she thought with resentment, it would be better to try again in a few weeks, when there wasn’t so much at stake.
But of course, Joy was the reason she had decided to try. The reason she could stick with it for a few more days. Joy hated cigarettes and Luna hated feeling like such a failure in front of her daughter. Not smoking seemed like a gesture of earnestness.
And really, she needed to quit anyway—everybody had to quit, right?—it stunk and made you wrinkle faster and it was bad for your health, and it was nearly impossible to go out and have a long, lazy dinner with anyone these days unless you wanted to keep a patch handy, which was almost as sick in its way.
Primary reasons, she said to herself, an old habit. A note taped to her cabinet said it: SMOKING STINKS. Never mind dread diseases or wrinkles. She hated the smell of cigarettes on her body and in her hair, in the air, and on her hands. Yuck. The way things smelled mattered to her—perfumes and incense and flowers, herbs, and morning on the desert. Coffee brewing in the middle of the night.
The machine started to gurgle, and she stuck the steamer into the milk, bringing a fine foam to the top, then poured the finished espresso into the mug, added three packets of turbinado sugar, and stirred it all together.
Now what? There was a button that needed sewing on her best blouse. A novel, lying facedown on the kitchen table, could be read. In the workroom off the kitchen an assortment of crafts, including a half-painted table, waited. Luna went and stared at it—the wildest one yet, a blooming pink rose with a bleeding heart at the middle of it. Her mother hated it, said it was scary, and while Luna didn’t agree with her, she wasn’t in the right mood to work on it, either.
