I am slowly starting to heal from my addiction to relationships. Whenever I feel alone, I have a new resource to turn to for comport and support. Confusing Love with Obsession is a compassionately written book that will bring light into your life. John Moore is right when he says, "Being in love should not mean living in agony".

It will change your life!

Student from G.P.

Moore has done a great job preserving the voice of each participant in her book. There is no fluff here, just the genuine personal stories that make for fascinating reading. Many of these stories I have read more than once, and I anticipate picking up this book again and again over time.

I highly recommend Strong Stuff to thoughtful readers. If you can't stretch and grow a bit by reading these mothers' stories, you must be mighty big already!

SiP turned out to be one of the greatest reading experiences I've ever had. The plot, and characters, are complex but not imcomprehensible, and the art is fabulous. It's not for people like some of my rather illiterate friends, but I recommend the entire collection of Strangers In Paradise to anyone- comic book reader or no, age doesn't matter- who enjoys a good read.

My friends were appalled that I hadn't read "Strangers in Paradise" in 1996. Actually offended, in some cases. I'd heard of it, but never seen a copy until I got the first two graphic novels as Christmas gifts that year.

They were right. It's appalling that this book doesn't get more circulation.

The charactes are complex (to put it mildly) and compelling. Katchoo has a secret past, and Francine has a standard, if slightly interesting, present. Freddy, Francine's annoying boyfriend, pretty much stays annoying and luckilly gets what's coming to him more than a few times. Be warned: keeping track of all the supporting characters is something that not even the author, Terry Moore, claims to feel up to.

Speaking of the author, in the introduction to one of the compilations I have, Moore claims not to understand why there are so many angry women in the world, and why they don't seem to understand how much power they actually *do* wield. In! terestingly enough, Moore does seem to have a grasp of why so many women are angry, but doesn't seem to realize that he's been explaining this while writing "Strangers in Paradise". This is kinda sad, and not unlike the situations his characters find themselves in.

"Strangers in Paradise" is a soap opera that deals with relevant themes, a comic book about serious topics, and a novel that causes me to laugh out loud. I strongly enourage you to invest in "The Complete Strangers In Paradise Volume One" and to start picking up the single issues. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Joan Lewis allows us to revisit this experience with nostalgia and humor. We want to scream at Jane to get out before she gets hurt but know she wouldn't listen anyway - just as we wouldn't listen when we were told. At the same time, Joan's presentation of Billy Joe makes it easy to understand the tantalizing charm of the bad boy.

Readers will enjoy this one!

Jane grew up in Overton, a small southern town in central Georgia, in a very loving and caring family and community with many friends and a very caring but very strict father. Being the oldest child, this created a greater than normal desire for Jane to want to gain her freedom and independence to do it her way. She wanted to start her own life in the bright lights of Atlanta during the post World War II boom years of the mid 1960's. In Jane's case, this even turned into a "Damn it, stop me if you can attitude." Her confidence and drive is almost unbelievable for a young lady of her age in that day. This hurts Jane's father but he finally becomes reconciled, in his own way, to the fact Jane is a grown woman and there is nothing he can do to stop her.

Once in Atlanta, Jane very soon bumps into a slight acquaintance but older man, Billy Joe Billingsley, whom she had a small crush on in junior high school back in her hometown. This was just after Billy Joe returned from prison. Was this for a minor crime, or only a schoolboy prank that Billy Joe was sent up for? Jane doesn't really know or care to know, but she immediately falls blindly in love with this very cool, handsome, polished, very kind and tender man, in Jane's eyes. But, inside isn't he simply a mentally disturbed released convict, now a polished full blown con man, thief and mobster with a very strong need for Jane's affection? Is this need for affection only his desire to be forgiven by someone from his hometown? Does he really want Jane as his lover and some day for his wife? Or is his need only for her to act as a younger sister accepting and trusting him only because she is from his hometown? Jane is very intelligent, but is she so blinded by her love for Billy Joe that she only thinks that he is in love with her? He never shows his affection in this manner. In addition to his affection needs, is he actually using her as a cover for many of his wrong doings and can't admit this even to himself?

Here is where the brilliance of the talented author Joan Moore Lewis grabs her readers by their own conscience immediately with a direct challenge to the very inner core of their own morals by making them have to choose between right and wrong in forming an opinion about this strange friend of Jane's. She then holds their attention throughout the book, making them wonder if their opinion about Billy Joe was the one they really should have made. Some may even change their opinion several times during the read but they won't lose interest. They are hooked until the last word is read. In her clever way, the author lets Jane fulfill her desire for excitement and fine clothes by tagging along and flying to her dear Billy Joe on weekends at his every beck and call all over the southeast, eating in choice restaurants, staying in the best hotels, gambling at the strips in Biloxi and Las Vegas and meeting friends of Billy Joe's from prostitutes, pimps and mobsters to rich politicians and elected state officials. Billy Joe knows his way around. He knows his job and has been groomed and taught good taste and manners on high style living, which he gladly teaches Jane. Jane hangs on his every word. How will this all end?

This is a great read for everyone. The author presents the book in such a vivid manner that one can't help from wonder if this isn't a true story lived by the author instead of a novel. Then again, Joan Lewis's hometown of Fayetteville, Georgia was home for another great storyteller, Dr. Ferrol Sams. Might it be something in the water or was it transmitted through high school English teaches? If you remember, Dr. Sams wrote, "When all the World was Young," "Run with the Horsemen," "Whisper of the River" and others. No, it's not something in the water. Truth or fiction, it is simply the shining talent of this fine author Joan Moore Lewis breaking through the clouds to be seen again many times in the future.

This book is a must read for every parent and grandparent of a daughter or granddaughter and I suggest they get a copy for these young ladies to read before their graduations. It might save heartaches down the road.

This is a wonderful story of two people, Billy Joe Billingsley and Jane Moss, who met by accident. Jane, young and innocent, immediately lost her heart to Billy Joe, an ex-con.

Joan Moore Lewis has weaved a well written story around the life of Billy Joe and Jane with all kinds of unsavory characters coming in and out of their lives. The people around Billy Joe refuse to forget the wrong he did when he was a teenager. Jane was the only exception. Solid as a rock in her belief in him, she proves love is blind when she chooses not to see the bad in Billy Joe.

The suspense builds as you wonder if Billy Joe will stay in the wrong crowd, namely the Dixie Mafia, or will his gentle side win out and take him down a straight path so he and Jane can finally allow themselves to fall in love.

The setting for this book is in and around the Atlanta area. As a former resident of Georgia, I saw many names and places pop out at me that I had long forgotten about. It is obvious that Ms. Lewis knows her way around Atlanta and the State of Georgia. Real names and real landmarks give realism to this story.

This gentle and intriguing romance/suspense story is one that romance lovers will savor. The sensitive romantics will find more than once that they will be shedding a tear over the concern Billy Joe and Jane Moss have for each other. You will find yourself pulling for them on every page.

I am a born romantic, and I loved it!

Reviewed by Bobby Ruble, the award winning author of Have No Mercy.

On page 11 I read "I still believe food has this unique power. With food as a starting point, we can choose to meet people and to encounter events so powerful that they jar us out of our ordinary way of seeing the world, and open us to new, uplifting and empowering possibilities. They call us to travel "hopes edge." Thus this is where the title comes in.

The way the writers share their journey to other lands and others states here in the U S is so interesting. Learning about the different eating styles and even in a broader sense how people often eat to deal with pain when in decades past it was a communal thing. People used to eat to live and now as the countries skyrocketing obesity rates show people not only live to eat but they eat to deal with issues that once were dealt with by talking them out. Someday I hope someone writes a book on food as a tranquilizer and how food has become the PC (politically correct) substitute for alcohol.

In the 70's and 80's when Diet for a Small Planet was so popular (and still is) we were in a period where alternative health and eating choices were the venue of the quirky, hippie, even geek world. Now in 2002 we face genetically engineered foods, disease in cattle and now poultry in Asian countries and the authors are now more of a must read than ever.

This is no longer about simply being nice to the land and the animals that are raised for food. It is about the worlds health, the world limited water, and money sources and how what we eat begins long before the food hits our plate.

And I am glad to see the whole uncomfortable subject of Americans skyrocketing obesity rates being discussed as well as the poison that is what I call fast food and junk food and how corporate dollars are the bottom line and that it is the ignorance of the stock holder who is being endangered by the very foods their stock investments produce.

One of these days I hope the Nobel Prize powers that be will start seeing what humanitarians people like Moore-Lappe, Dean Ornish and Paul McCartney are and that Peace Prize needs to go to people who are seeking to help save the world and not kill it. And for my family and I we have returned to a non meat diet. Thanks in part to these excellent examples.

"I'm a bit ill-suited to be a hero," he muses, "to put it mildly. Middle-aged, though loath to admit it. A copywriter. A family provider. A run-of-the-mill turn-of-the-millennium materialistic American baby-boomer who questions his own materialism. Some hero."

In the end, Rome has no choice but to find out what happened to Murray--a quest that takes him all the way to Arizona and puts his life in deadly peril.

"Strawberry Road" is non-stop action, mystery and intrigue from the first page, and Stanley R. Moore is a writer who knows exactly how to keep a reader turning the pages. Moreover, like all good writers of fiction, he provides food for thought as well as entertainment.

Moore introduces the reader to Jerome Joseph Jordan, Rome for short. At age 49, Rome is terrified of losing his advertising position. He is receiving fewer accounts, and the business just hasn't been the same since the disappearance of his friend Murray. Unusual things begin to happen to Rome: a bomb is found on the floor of his building; a man named Harrow blackmails him into snooping into employee records and passing information; someone sends him a dismembered thumb in the mail; and he and his autistic son find a woman's dead body at a soccer game his daughter is playing in. Murray's wife keeps asking "why can't we live a normal life like everyone else?"

Indeed, Rome's life keeps taking on new and devious paths. He continually thinks of Murray, and how his friend would have handled the situation. And he worries that the increasing number at deaths at his company and the information he is uncovering in his search of employee's files might be connected. He is continually followed by people trying to kill him, the police seem to be constantly on his tail, and he doesn't know which side of the fence Harrow is really on. And then there is Pamela, the new young suit clawing her way to the top of the company:

"Pamela tossed her head back and laughed a long and bawdy laugh. She pushed her plate away and tucked her knees up on the chair. Her expression grew more serious. 'I like you, Rome, I really like you.' Uh-oh. Here it comes. The moment of truth. 'Thank you,' I said. 'I like you too.' I tried to say it as I meant it. With sincerity, not sexuality."

Strawberry Road is the ultimate industrial espionage story, in which moral decisions must be made by a man who is in the grips of his own personal crisis. His work and family are falling apart, a situation brought on by the greed of corporate America. He must make the choice between his helpless son and the killing of millions of people. Moore's experience and maturity produce a novel with heart, conscience, and supreme entertainment value.

Shelly Glodowski, Reviewer

"Pamela tossed her head back and laughed a long and bawdy laugh. She pushed her plate away and tucked her knees up on the chair. Her expression grew more serious. 'I like you, Rome, I really like you.' Uh-oh. Here it comes. The moment of truth. 'Thank you,' I said. 'I like you too.' I tried to say it as I meant it. With sincerity, not sexuality."

Strawberry Road is the ultimate industrial espionage story, in which moral decisions must be made by a man who is in the grips of his own personal crisis. His work and family are falling apart, a situation brought on by the greed of corporate America. He must make the choice between his helpless son and the killing of millions of people. Moore's experience and maturity produce a novel with heart, conscience, and supreme entertainment value.

Shelly Glodowski Reviewer

The illustrations by such artists as Steve Bissette, John Totleben and Rick Veitch are still masterpieces and remain superior to most of the artists who are popular today. Unfortunately, the art in this collection suffers from changes in printing techniques since the stories' original publication, leaving the colours a bit too bright and garish in contrast to the moody story and artwork. However, it is difficult and expensive to get the originals so this is something one can live with.

SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING is a reprint of Moore's first story arc of the series (issues #20 through 27), the groundbreaking series that shook the entire comics industry. This was the first mainstream series to defy the archaic, outdated Comics Code (Marvel had done it earlier with Spider-man's drug issues, but this was the first series to abandon the Code completely); it was the first step towards "serious" mainstream comic books that catered more towards adults (and gave birth to DC's "Vertigo" line); it took an old has-been DC character that no one knew what to do with and breathed new life into him; and it also gave us a pair of wicked stories that are a sheer delight to read. Swamp Thing discovers his "true" origin in the saga of "The Anatomy Lesson," and he meets a horror from beyond death in "The Monkey King," while encountering several "minor" DC characters who had never been cast in the way they appeared in this series. (Moore's virtual re-writing of Etrigan the Demon sparked a new interest in the character, leading him to several spin-off books of his own.) And we mustn't forget the fantastic, haunting, beautiful, terrifying artowork of Steve Bissette and John Totleben, who made the pages fairly glow with life, as they turned the "swamp" world of the Swamp Thing into an eerie, beautiful, mysterious realm where life and death hide in every pool, waiting to spring out at you.

This book comprises the first half of an unforgettale comic book saga, laying the groundwork for a horrific tale that would cliax with a journey into Hell itself. When paired with the second reprint volume of the saga, "Love and Death," SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING shines as an early example of the genius of Alan Moore, the man who nearly single-handledly took the genre of mainstream comic books and turned it into a "serious" literary art form.

DC's Vertigo line, the Sandman series, and very likely, Watchmen all would have likely never happened without the series of comics reprinted here. There is some truly frightening material in here that is unlike most comic fare aimed at younger readers (or at least sanitized for younger minds), but the writing was revolutionary for its time and holds up well today. The artwork maintains the high standards of excellence Moore establishes. The partnership of Alan Moore and Stephen Bissette is one of those magical pairings that occurs so infrequently in comic history (I compare it to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on the Fantastic Four, Chris Claremont and John Byrne on X-Men, and Marv Wolfman and George Perez on Teen Titans). This is truly a treasure to add to your collection.