A Customary Obsession by Jane Creelman Graiko

To achieve the connection they both desire, Laura must summon the courage to overcome a lifetime of fear and Steve must choose to ignore a lifetime of bitter disappointments.' The recovery period from Laura's wounds is hastened by an assignment from her former Vermont State Police lieutenant to solve another mystery - a painful incident from the past (revealed to us by the description of photographs) that she at first places in historical context: `How like life, she thought how like spring to grab hold how amazing to revisit disgusting details and allow my adult self to experience more than pain how wonderful to have a man like Steve to love.' We gradually are informed of the events (quite subtly and with sophisticated writing) that brought them to this place: to reiterate in synopsis format from Book 1, `Two critical related investigations - a reckless endangerment and a murder - challenge their professional standards, affect their work performance and spur them to action.

Without depending on a recapitulation of the events transpired in the first novel, she begins her Book 2 as though no time has passed (her heroine Laura Delorange, a lawyer with a Burlington, Vermont law firm is recovering form gunshot wound she sustained in the initial story) while the love of her life, Steve Scolarzski, an investigator with the Vermont State Police, moves her from her hospitalization not into her own home but rather into his home - promises of marriage are brewing.

Writing a series of novels that utilize the same characters (by and large) is always a tricky test: how to make the subsequent novels flow well without having read the first novel of the series? Graiko handles that well. She debuted in the literary field in 2011 with her well received novel CUSTOMARY OBSESSION and raises the level of achievement with this, her second novel, A CUSTOMARY OBSESSION 2: POWER. She was honored in 2010 as the recipient of the Ralph Nading Hill literary prize, and honor co-sponsored by Green Mountain Power Corporation and Vermont Life magazine. She has been a teacher, a newspaper reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard publishing news articles, photographs, and educational materials, a public relations specialist with Stone & Webster and a program administrator at the University of Vermont, culminating in a 24-year career at UVM coordinating the McNair Scholars Program. Rhode Island born, Vermont author Jane Graiko spent her early years as an Air Force brat living in West Germany and Japan, internalizing many places and events that would later surface in her work.

'The true essence of love rested in the memories of those who moved beyond physical pleasures into an unbroken spiritual bond'

A Customary Obsession by Jane Creelman Graiko