Unexpected Grace

It is 2010, Alyssa and Richard Bradshaw are living in West Severance, Vermont, in a house they built beside a rocky brook on land they bought from the Martel family. The Martels live next door on a farm that has been Martel land for generations. The two families get along, even though the Bradshaws are transplants from Connecticut, and the Martels have been Vermonters forever. There are many generations that are a part of this mix, Monika, Alyssa s eighty-four-year-old mother, Danny, Sam Martel s grandson, and lots of others. This is the story of what life throws at people and how they deal with it, not exciting, but real, a window into the lives of ordinary Americans. This is a book about the issues we all face in our lives and particularly at the end of our lives. This book balances life and death, dark and light. It puts a grim subject in context in modern Vermont.

Ruth Porter was born in New York City and grew up in Alliance, Ohio, where her father was a doctor. She graduated from Laurel School in Cleveland, and from St. John s College in Annapolis, Maryland. She did a year of secretarial school in Boston and then got married to Bill Porter. In 1964, they went to Vermont, to Clarendon Springs, near Rutland. After eight years they moved to a hill farm in Adamant, near Montpelier, where they have lived ever since. Ruth raised four children and took care of the farm. (One of the children said that she and Bill learned everything they knew about farming from books, and most of those books were novels.) They had varying numbers of sheep, cows, pigs and chickens, and a big garden. Altogether, they raised most of their food. Ruth spent her whole life reading and writing, but she began working on serious fiction during those hectic years. She has published three novels, as well as a book about her grandfather, Maxwell Perkins, one of America s most widely respected editors. Bill and Ruth started the publishing company, Bar Nothing Books, in 2005. For more information about Ruth Porter go to her website