A Customary Obsession by Jane Creelman Graiko

Without depending on a recapitulation of the events transpired in the first novel, she begins her Book 2 as though no time has passed (her heroine Laura Delorange, a lawyer with a Burlington, Vermont law firm is recovering form gunshot wound she sustained in the initial story) while the love of her life, Steve Scolarzski, an investigator with the Vermont State Police, moves her from her hospitalization not into her own home but rather into his home - promises of marriage are brewing. Writing a series of novels that utilize the same characters (by and large) is always a tricky test: how to make the subsequent novels flow well without having read the first novel of the series? Graiko handles that well. She debuted in the literary field in 2011 with her well received novel CUSTOMARY OBSESSION and raises the level of achievement with this, her second novel, A CUSTOMARY OBSESSION 2: POWER. She was honored in 2010 as the recipient of the Ralph Nading Hill literary prize, and honor co-sponsored by Green Mountain Power Corporation and Vermont Life magazine. She has been a teacher, a newspaper reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard publishing news articles, photographs, and educational materials, a public relations specialist with Stone & Webster and a program administrator at the University of Vermont, culminating in a 24-year career at UVM coordinating the McNair Scholars Program. Rhode Island born, Vermont author Jane Graiko spent her early years as an Air Force brat living in West Germany and Japan, internalizing many places and events that would later surface in her work. I was not disappointed with the book, and the prologue got me hooked but terribly off course, and the plot was not what I earlier expected it to be.'The true essence of love rested in the memories of those who moved beyond physical pleasures into an unbroken spiritual bond' What I particularly find interesting is the depth of the story with characters who are fully developed, albeit with their own flaws, and a plot that is as unpredictable as the seasons. Set in breathtaking Vermont with the story unfolding in three seasons – summer, autumn and winter - but not strictly confined within, Jane Graiko’s eclectic mix of mystery, crime, suspense and romance makes A Customary Obsession a readable and enjoyable book. Apparently playing cat-and-mouse game with someone from whom they are fleeing, leaving the reader in suspended disbelief, it is a magnificent introduction to a wonderful story full of suspense, mystery and its fair share of romance. Riveting and suspenseful, the reader is introduced to the story in an explosive manner in the prologue as a mother and her boy sprinted across the parking lot to the waiting minivan as lightning lit the dark sky. A Customary Obsession by Jane Graiko is one of those novels not easy to describe.

A Customary Obsession by Jane Creelman Graiko