Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Book Review: Changing Spaces

Changing Spaces
Title: Changing Spaces
Author: Nancy King
Genre: Women's Fiction
Price: Paperback $15.95

New Mexico author Nancy King will be in Las Vegas on Saturday, Feb. 15 at 3 p.m. at Tome on the Range to sign and talk about her new book “Changing Spaces,” a novel set in Santa Fe.

“Changing Spaces” follows Laura Feldman, a woman whose placid life goes from predictable to upheaval when her nice safe marriage to handsome and successful Zack, falls apart before her eyes. The most outrageous aspect of this book, and perhaps one of the telling characteristics of Zack, is his mistaken belief that she should be willing to reasonably discuss their separation, after all he is going to make sure she is provided for. The man just doesn’t get it that Laura has for years played his game, and buried her personality under his expectations.

Laura, after 40 years of trying to be that wife Zack has shaped her to be, finds herself making decisions and choices without consideration of his wants, wishes and desires. It is freeing and frightening for Laura.

On a trip to Albuquerque to attend a symposium, she discovers she is indeed still attractive to men, but also realizes the last thing she wants is to have a one-night stand. She doesn’t exactly run away to Santa Fe so much as drifts into a new life because she’s pretty much shed of the old one. Along the way she trades her sedate and conservative nature and clothing for a new and more flamboyant persona. Encouraged by Santa Fe women she encounters who are independent free thinkers, she begins to rediscover her true nature, hidden for years under the guise of pleasant propriety.

“Changing Spaces” tells a story of the ways subtle abuse occurs in what may on the surface appear to be a perfect marriage. To Zack’s way of thinking he is a loving husband. He doesn’t recognize his manipulative and controlling actions, which have over time eroded Laura’s confidence. When she does disappear he begins to question everything about his own life.

In the women who come to Laura's aide, King has created refreshing and diverse characters who feel familiar, because they are. You can see them as business owners, healers, poets, artists and creative spirits on any day in Santa Fe.

King has written  several other novels and nonfiction books. She is a prolific writer who also weaves and finds inspiration hiking in the mountains. She is also a contributing writer at Your Life is a Trip. King makes her home in Santa Fe.








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