All The Little Graces ~ The Book

artwork by Wendy Spratt

I am eternally thankful to everyone who participated in funding the book’s Kickstarter Campaign, enabling it to go to print, to review, to promotion and to benefit the animals more immediately than paltry eBook royalties allow!  I specifically want to thank the following folks for their generous donations …

Rhiannon Redican, Brant and Wendy Dyer, Mary Eaton Fairfield, Shawn Garvey and Kimberly Durso,  Ann and Paul Schatzkin, Michael Zak, Rev. Barbara Jarrell and Lee Osborne.

The book is available at  Sammie’s Friends, a no kill shelter and rescue in Grass Valley, CA and the Skiathos Dog Shelter, the sanctuary run by living, breathing angels, on the island of Skiathos, Greece and if you purchase your copy at either shelter, ALL of the proceeds of that sale will go to benefit the animals there.  A percentage of any online sales will benefit both shelters.

‘All The Little Graces’ is now available in paperback at Eleanore’s Createspace site, at Amazon and Grass Valley and Nevada City, CA bookstores.  If you would like to see it in your local bookstore, let Eleanore know. It is also an e-book available at Amazon and AmazonUK for Kindle/Fire, iTunes for iPad/iPhone, Barnes & Noble for Nook, Sony for Reader, Kobo for Tablets … If you enjoy what you read, please do me a great favor and go back to review it when you are done!

In gratitude.  And, with thanks to Margarita …  (and my heart of hearts, no longer with us, Djuna Cupcake.)

margarita at sunset

All the Little Graces is my first novel – it is as finished and sculpted and spit polished and sanded down as fine as can be for me to be able to say …. I’m Done … but  it percolated and brewed and stewed for 10 years before it ever even whispered it’s first words to me!
I hope for it to be advocacy for the needy animals of the world, working to bring the plight of the voiceless creatures we humans domesticated so long ago to the fore – perhaps it can encourage readers to do what they can where they live, knowing that Margarita, my little stray, and all of the feral but so willing cats and dogs of the Greek isles are simply archetypes for those creatures in need of compassion the world over. If we humans can’t figure out how to treat the voiceless with dignity and caring, we’ll never come know peace.

All The Little Graces is a story of redemption; a colorful tapestry reflecting the lives of a fisherman, a Greek island and her sea, locals and travelers and a lively young girl … all stitched together by a single thread, a homely little stray dog.

Set on an Aegean isle in the early 1990’s, All the Little Graces is the Elysian odyssey of a street dog and the American family she adopts.  Margarita, the little stray, shatters the peace at the very beginnings of the family’s four month long holiday, drawing the attentions of  12 year old Lily, who hears only a mysterious Siren song in the dog’s incessant barking.  What follows in the wake of their first encounter is a deeply revealing and sometimes painful journey toward recognizing and rectifying the plight of the island’s stray animals. From knowing and caring for Margarita, Lily and her parents, Eleni and Harry, are drawn into island life and subsequently into the hearts of a village … into the hearts of  the colorful but haunted fisherman, Vassili, and Popi the artist – and of the elders who line the bougainvillea draped alleyways in the neighborhoods that become home …

This testament to compassion follows Margarita through the olive orchards and over sea to sun drenched beaches, it follows Vassili through his pain into the light of his peace and it follows the family on an educational journey pieced together by their caring for the little dog.  Through their love of the island, and the lessons in humanity and humility learned from an enigmatic culture, they learn how they can best help bring it’s people and the neglected animals together.  Surrounded by the endless sea, the intense peace and the timeless magic that is Greece, All The Little Graces bears witness to goodness brought to light by all of the stories and all of the hearts drawn together by little Margarita. Eventually, it’s through those stories and her tender little graces that hopeful changes begin to emerge from the shadows as people gain a new and kinder understanding about the unwanted, homeless animals of Greece’s streets.