BALA CYNWYD, Pa., May 14, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- "The snow had begun in the gloaming/ and busily all the night/ had been heaping field and highway/ with a silence deep and white," writes American poet, James Russell Lowell in 1849, the winter of his daughter's death. This verse begins taunting Maggie in 1967, when, in the fourth grade, she suffers a panic attack after being called upon to recite Lowell's poem, "The First Snowfall." The words of the poet haunt the pages of The Reluctant Traveler (now available through 1stBooks Library) by Linda M. Robbins.
From the first fateful recitation, snippets of inexplicable memories dominate her thoughts every time snow begins to fall. The taunting voice ceases, when Maggie moves south to college, but the silence is only temporary. Robbins' book follows Maggie, who lives happily in a fashionable New York suburb with her husband and children until an early November morning in 1996, when an unexpected snowstorm throws her life into turmoil.
At first, she is stunned hearing the all but forgotten verse, but distress suddenly turns to panic when a sinister accusation crescendos through her mind. Maggie, now a leading intuitive psychotherapist, is powerless to deal with the incomprehensible whispers and the cryptic message: "The baby is dead," which haunts her mind. Fear compels her to seek the help of her mentor, Professor Jordan Benjamin, innovator of intuitive therapy. Concerned for Maggie's well being, Jordan recommends Dr. Rose Mayer, a specialist in past-life regression to determine whether Maggie's voices are a bleed-through from a past-life.
A suspenseful piece, The Reluctant Traveler mainstreams elements of metaphysics, exploring past-life regression and reincarnation leaving the reader to determine whether the story is a fictionalized account or case history from a therapist's file.
Robbins lives in Bala Cynwyd, a Philadelphia suburb, where she raised her family. She teaches metaphysics in and around the Philadelphia area and wrote Believe It or Not, You ARE Psychic, published in 1996. The Reluctant Traveler is her first work of fiction. Currently, she is writing Other Times; Other Places, a compelling sequel to The Reluctant Traveler. Robbins has also completed a screenplay Harmonic Convergence, a science-fiction fantasy and a TV Pilot P S I Connection, which recounts case histories from the files of Professor Jordan Benjamin.
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