love walked in

vacation is also a great time for giving myself time to read.  not the sneak-in-a-chapter-barely-before-my-eyes-close type reading of the work week, but the sip-slowly-the-entire-french-press-and-read-first-thing-in-the-morning-because-it-doesn't-matter-what-time-it-is kind.  "love walked in" by marisa de los santos is a good read.  the author is smart (an award-winning poet with a PhD in literature and creative writing) and peppers the novel with literary allusions.  even though there are a lot of inter-relational dynamics at play, de los santos avoids sappiness, oversentimentality or needless drama and brings the characters together in realistic yet tender ways.  also because it is vacation, i allowed myself to buy a NEW book:  "the snow child" by eowyn ivey.  it looks to be somewhere in the fiction novel fantastical genre.  "set in alaska, 1920 a childless couple builds a child out of snow.  the snow child disappears but a little girl is seen running through the woods 'who could have stepped out of the pages of a fairy tale.' "