by Monica Wood (Author)

He came to me first in a dream, as a crippled dog angling down a country lane, puzzled by his sudden age, his bum paw, the dry stick clamped between his teeth. I'd been expecting this dream for a very long time, and I woke up moving. . . .

Rita Rosario has a gift, a way with people. She listens to them and really sees them for who they are-warts and all. And sometimes, she even knows how to guide them toward a new beginning. Women, even men, come to Rita's beauty shop for perms, town gossip, and the makeovers of their very lives.

Front Jacket

He came to me first in a dream, as a crippled dog angling down a country lane, puzzled by his sudden age, his bum paw, the dry stick clamped between his teeth. I'd been expecting this dream for a very long time, and I woke up moving. . . .
Rita Rosario has a gift, a way with people. She listens to them and really sees them for who they are-warts and all. And sometimes, she even knows how to guide them toward a new beginning. Women, even men, come to Rita's beauty shop for perms, town gossip, and the makeovers of their very lives.
John Reed first appears to Rita in one of her dreams. When they meet at a town gathering a few days later, she immediately offers him a haircut, and her heart. As they share their stories, Rita senses she can help John fill a void by reconnecting him to his only family-a young niece he nearly lost in a heartbreaking tragedy. While inspiring John on a journey out of loneliness and into reconciliation, Rita begins to come to terms with events in her past . . . and discovers things about herself she never realized, including her own intimate role in John's unfolding story.
9780345442970|JF|From New York Times" bestselling author James Luceno comes an all-new Star Wars" adventure that reveals the action and intrigue unfolding directly before Episode I: The Phantom Menace."
Mired in greed and corruption, tangled in bureaucracy, the Galactic Republic is crumbling. In the outlying systems, where the Trade Federation maintains a stranglehold on shipping routes, tensions are boiling over?while back in the comfort of Coruscant, the hub of civilized space and seat of the Republic government, few senators seem inclined to investigate the problem. And those who suspect Supreme Chancellor Valorum of having a hand in the machinations are baffled?especially when Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi foil an assassination attempt on the Chancellor.
With the crisis escalating, Valorum calls for an emergency trade summit. As humans and aliens gather, conspiracies sealed with large sums of money run rampant, and no one is entirely above suspicion. But the greatest threat of all remains unknown to everyone except three members of the Trade Federation who have entered into a shadowy alliance with a dark overlord. While the trio will be content with more money and fewer problems, Darth Sidious has grander, far more terrifying plans.
It is a time that tests the mettle of all those who strive to hold the Republic together?none more so than the Jedi Knights, who have long been the galaxy's best hope for preserving peace and justice. Yet despite their most valiant efforts, the meeting will explode into fiery chaos beyond everyone's worst fears . . .

"From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

Monica Wood is the author of an earlier novel, Secret Language, and a guide for fiction writers, Description. Her short stories, some of which have been nominated for the National Magazine Award and read on public radio, have appeared in such publications as Glimmer Train, Redbook, Manoa, Yankee, Best American Mystery Stories 1997, Twenty Timeless Stories, and Sudden Fiction International. She won a 1999 Pushcart Prize. A native of Mexico, Maine, she currently lives in Portland with her husband. She can be reached at her Web site, www.monicawood.com.

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