Excerpt from The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"But your eyes are fine, dear girl!" she insisted.

"My eyes work perfectly, but I cannot see the way I used to," I replied.

"You mean that you are going blind?"

"Precisely the opposite, Mother Superior. I see too much."

She sighed, and dismissed me. I've since learned that the only way I can stop the shaking is to retreat to the kitchen and make egg rolls. My hands remember how. It keeps the parish soup kitchen well stocked, which perhaps is the story's happy ending. Sometimes I even sing while I work.

Excerpted from The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith. Copyright © 2014 by Violet Kupersmith. Excerpted by permission of Spiegel & Grau. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.