Stars in Their Infancy follows the journeys of a young woman, her rapist, and the two people—an herbalist with the ability to see, but not change, the future, and a Vietnam vet, still tortured by ghosts in his past—who help them evolve, even as they, too, yearn for forgiveness and redemption. Set against the backdrops of Pennsylvania’s majestic Allegheny Front, and Madagascar’s magical Central Highlands, secrets emerge, paving the way for healing in unexpected ways.
Priscilla Mainardi, RN, MFA, fiction editor at Intima—A Journal of Narrative Medicine—says:
“Stars in Their Infancy tackles hard subjects with empathy and compassion, and introduces us to a world where healing … can be attained by multiple paths. Rendered with deft story-telling and a hint of the mystical, the novel shows us that there are myriad possibilities in this world, both inside ourselves and beyond the reach of our senses, if only we know where to look.”
And Rev. Dr. Patricia McGregor, author of A Guest in God’s World: Memories of Madagascar says:
“By contrasting tribal healing traditions with Western methods, Stars in Their infancy raises deeper issues, such as the roles of community and mutual respect in healing. … Pasch’s courage in addressing difficult social issues—from domestic violence to spiritual and financial poverty—remains with the reader, influencing perspectives on universal themes of self-discovery, forgiveness and redemption.”
At the End of the Storm—A Novel
If Daria Demarest didn’t have ice water in her veins, like her coalminer father taught her, life might look bleak. She’s divorcing successful but unfaithful Ted. She’s lost her glam job as a network morning show host, and she’s discovered that Ted’s secret gambling habit drained their substantial savings. With no alimony, she’s raising two teens in 1990’s image-is-all Connecticut. Though she abandoned spiritual aspirations in the freewheeling sixties, when pregnant by an anti-war activist who chose causes over commitment, Daria creates Awakenings, a show for women seeking healing in everything from aromatherapy to mindfulness meditation.
She’s back on top, until, during a winter storm, her teen daughter Lizzy announces she’s pregnant. Walking through Lizzy’s pregnancy, Daria faces her own mother’s rejection and unyielding judgments that led Daria to surrender her firstborn. If shame and fear hadn’t ruled her as a pregnant teen, she wonders, would she have kept her first child? Could she have allowed T.J. Townsend, her steadfast college admirer, to love her?
When Daria arranges to meet her first daughter, the reunion stirs up more than it resolves. Angela’s an actress, who proves to be as us unforgiving as she is talented. Desperate after Angela’s rejection, Daria struggles to find the same healing she’s offered her TV audience.
Then T.J., now a noted alternative physician, appears on Daria’s show, offering her opportunities she passed up years earlier.Is she ready for the man who loved her when she couldn’t love herself? She’s not sure. The only way to find out is to walk, no matter how haltingly, through whatever storms ensue, relying on her untested faith and newfound relationships with family and friends.
Kirkus says: “An admirable exploration of the psyche of an especially tough protagonist.”
Explore What’s Next in Marleen’s Earth, Sky and Spirit Series
At Home with the Soul—A Novel
Lehanna’s confident her botanical research in Madagascar will lead to treatments and hope for millions of AIDS sufferers, even though recent events seem to have stolen her own hopes and dreams. Her lover, a trailblazer on the international health care scene, has abandoned her to return to his former Parisian wife. And the tribal spiritual advisor Lehanna studied with has divined that, no matter how much she loves the Great Red Island and its people, Madagascar is not yet her home.
Reluctantly returning to Pennsylvania’s MacMillan University, Lehanna settles into her stable research position. But when she meets Olivia, the ailing owner of Metaphors bookstore, the older woman offers Lehanna the opportunity to take over the shop and help uncover the undiscovered truths hidden in Beautiful Dreamer, a volume in the shop’s rare book collection.
When a series of events align, Lehanna accepts Olivia’s offer, and shortly thereafter the Dreamer begins to appear to her in spirit form. As Lehanna begins to unravel how the young woman’s suspicious death continues to influence and hobble the MacMillan community, she sets out to help them heal—until Olivia helps her discover how, during all Lehanna’s years healing others’ bodies and spirits, she’s neglected her own. Before she can settle in anywhere—MacMillan, Madagascar, or anywhere else—Olivia and the Dreamer need to lead her home to her own neglected soul.
Cones of Uncertainty—A Novella
Labor Day’s approaching. So is a potentially catastrophic hurricane. South Florida television forecasters, pointing out cones of uncertainty on interactive weather maps, can’t predict where the storm will hit SoFlo’s Gold Coast. Frankie, like many SoFlo newcomers, regrets moving to this ominous, flat state and its unmanageable threats.
It’s not just the uninspiring terrain and the atmospheric pressure and the frizzy hair that bother Frankie. Her Spanish is feeble. She doesn’t understand whether her Cuban-American lover’s family welcomes or criticizes her. Life would be so much better if she just returned to the northeast and to her friend, Daria.
She sets aside years of training in her recovery program, and in the women’s healing circle she and Daria attended back in Connecticut. Whatever Higher Power she thought she found seems to have fallen down on the job. She needs to take control, she decides, to create certainty where none exists. One little manipulation won’t hurt. Will it?
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Rocks and River
Tran Huong Giang knows what it’s like to feel alone in crowded bars. That’s why she’s developing an app to help millennials connect online if they no longer know how to introduce themselves in person.
But even her app doesn’t help her connect with herself. She still hears voices calling her each day from the falls beneath University Bridge. Uncertain whether they’re false or friendly, rock or river, she tries to quell them. When even her mother’s prayers to Father Francis-Xavier Truong Buu Diep don’t bring peace, Giang tries her white classmates’ solution: pills from MacMillan University’s clinic. The result? Weeks of foggy resignation. But when a new doctor eschews medication and asks Giang to speak in rock and river voices, Giang risks connecting the old-fashioned, person-to-person way, with unexpected results.
Rocks and River first appeared in Intima—A Journal of Narrative Medicine.
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