Point of Departure

About the Book

Sometimes on our life's journey, it seems as if we've lost our way. In this contemporary novel, Joanna Quinn's journey mirrors the struggles nearly all of us face at some point in the progress of our own lives. This is how her story begins:

"Things just wouldn't add up. She'd been at it a solid hour. Joanna leaned on her elbows over the yellow legal pad and frowned at the last figure she had circled, nearly lost among the uneven columns of numbers, cross outs, cryptic notations and pointing arrows. If she could just get to next week's paycheck"

Alone on that bleak March night, Joanna Quinn finds her patched-together life coming undone. Deserted by her husband and isolated from her family, she and her young daughter, Gwen, face an uncertain future financially and emotionally.

How could everything have gotten so off track? Where could she turn for answers?

With her unscrupulous landlord hinting at sexual favors in lieu of rent, there is no time left to hope solutions will find them. Accepting temporary refuge with her best friend, Kim, she undertakes the hard work of re-balancing her life.

It is in part a matter of her coming to trust others who wish to help. But it's not until she rediscovers faith in herself that she finds the place to begin again.

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READERS' COMMENTS

"I finished reading your book today...the story fed me, called me back for more, and completed the experience with a satisfying read. I easily identified with the hard trials of life...I've lived it as I think many women have!"
Joy B.

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"Thank you for the gift of your novel...While it is not the type of book I normally read (no explosions, occultism, or space aliens!) I did find it remarkably sensitive and optimistic."
Tom M.

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"What a pleasure to read it...I love the title which held for me a double meaning, one to cover the reasons for departure, the other, the timing, the coming together of the weavings of time and space...Your sensitivity, sensibility, perceptiveness of character, motives and relationships were well done and clearly present."
Elizabeth B.

About the Author

Carol Ohmart Behan, a lifelong resident of Upstate New York and an unapologetic "child of the Sixties", devoted twenty-five years to raising a family and teaching high school English. Along the way she nurtured her writing life through journal writing and mentoring the creative writers among her students.

She credits a synchronistic encounter with the young adult writer, Robert Cormier, at a teachers' conference in 1990 as the catalyst to taking herself seriously as a writer. He signed her program that day with the words, "Start writing that novel for me."

Ten years and two "practice novels" later she left fulltime teaching to pursue her life's passion. Point of Departure is the result. In addition to her writing, she now teaches workshops in creative writing, personal empowerment and labyrinth.

She welcomes your comments and feedback at meadowmuse7@yahoo.com