Excerpt from Ursula, Under by Ingrid Hill, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As Annie's mind drops as far as it can conceive, down the dark hole of her own lack of knowledge about her own and Justin's families' past, an unfocused image of someone Chinese—male or female she cannot see, an older person, to judge from the posture and shuffling step; likely a male now, to judge from the shoulders and slight baldness, wearing a green gown—flits past her consciousness like a resurfacing memory of something she never knew to begin with. .

She cannot flesh it out into focus so instead she begins trying to name the trees that surround her, to keep her mind off that hole and its darkness, and she cannot remember the names of the trees either. Her eyes fill with tears and, just for a brief second, overflow. The birdsong is deafening.

Justin heads north on the winding road, taking the curves too fast, hearing himself saying out loud to the empty cab, "Christ," again and again, and then "Crap," and then "Christ," and then silence.

From Ursula, Under by Ingrid Hill. Copyright Ingrid Hill 2004. All rights reserved. No part of this book maybe reproduced without written permission from the publisher.