Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer by Jamie Figueroa

 

A fableistic, "beautifully crafted, poetic" debut novel of enormous power and grace about a sister trying to hold back her brother from the edge of the abyss for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Tommy Orange (The New York Times Book Review).
 

In the tourist town of Ciudad de Tres Hermanas, in the aftermath of their mother's passing, two siblings spend a final weekend together in their childhood home. Seeing her brother, Rafa, careening toward a place of no return, Rufina devises a bet: if they can make enough money performing for privileged tourists in the plaza over the course of the weekend to afford a plane ticket out, Rafa must commit to living. If not, Rufina will make her peace with Rafa's own plan for the future, however terrifying it may be.

As the siblings reckon with generational and ancestral trauma, set against the indignities of present-day prejudice, other strange hauntings begin to stalk these pages: their mother's ghost kicks her heels against the walls; Rufina's vanished child creeps into her arms at night; and above all this, watching over the siblings, a genderless, flea-bitten angel remains hell-bent on saving what can be saved.

 

Adventures in Mother-Sitting Kindle Edition by Doreen Cox (Author)

 

 

For a daughter, at age 61, being called “mommy” by her own mother was a heart-wrenching experience. This happened to the author during the course of a three-year adventure as the full-time caregiver to her mother, much loved yet caught up in a downward spiral of physical, mental, and developmentally regressed disabilities.

Each day is an adventure because when dementia is present, the typical actions involved with daily care habits become unpredictable. The experience is also termed an adventure because of the surprising twists and turns of emotion that arose in the author, compelling her to recognize and face deep-seated fears and unwanted emotional reactions when her performance was not in accord with the spiritual vision that she had of herself. Moments of comic relief would save the author from the depths of despair during pill-taking and messy hygienic episodes, and her mother’s nighttime delusions. The mantra that kept the author going was an echo of her mother’s life-long response to any calamitous event: you can do what you have to do.

ADVENTURES IN MOTHER-SITTING is not just a chronicle about the dementia-induced antics of an independent, spirited mother as she approaches the time of her death. The book is also about a daughter’s journey through an emotional rollercoaster passage of grief that gets intermixed with surprising sweet instances of joyful connections with not only her childlike mother but, also, her innermost self. Throughout the book, the author portrays the ways in which the physical and mental needs of an old-age mother and the emotional, spiritual needs of a caregiver daughter lovingly serve each other and how the dementia serves them both.

The memoir depicts not only the role changes that occur in the relationship between a caregiver daughter and her beloved mother but, also, the more compassionate relationship that the daughter gains with herself as she learns to walk more honestly and gently with her fears, worries, and shortcomings.

 

Ghost Hunter: A Matter of Faith (Volume 2) by Mr Martin J Best

 

 

Single mother Teena Maunder’s orderly life is abruptly turned upside down by a seemingly inexplicable haunting. Desperate for help, she turns to amateur paranormal investigator Malachi Hunter. Mal quickly finds himself battling with an unusually aggressive supernatural being, the situation complicated by his unexpected attraction to Teena. As the consequences of the haunting become increasingly far-reaching, Mal is forced to confront the entity on its own terms, the outcome far from certain.