I Need You More Than I Love You And I Love You To Bits

When Morris meets Betty, love is unavoidable. In short prose
passages, we follow the course of their passionate first love. A
confident debut written in a surprising form, which gives the story intelligence and depth.

Morris feels like Betty can see everything he’s thinking. Betty
believes Morris understands her like no one ever before. She tells him everything, even about the dried-up worm that she saw on the sidewalk on the way to school. But sometimes the darkness closes in on Morris. His father is manic-depressive and his mother is always talking about dreams and poetry and her new boyfriend. Morris begins to wonder if crazy people are drawn to each other. Betty points out that he is like his father. As their love grows, it almost consumes them. Soon it’s as if they are always trying to escape
themselves until they ask, “How do you know when it’s over?”

When The Bough Breaks

Millie’s is a small family — just a mother, a father, a small brother, Hamish, and her. Both her parents had been orphaned (and were introduced in Watts’ novel Flower), but the family they created was tight-knit and loving. When Millie’s mother announces that she is pregnant, it seems life is perfect. They have each other, and, although the Great Depression has brought hard times to their small town, Millie’s father’s services as a blacksmith are still in demand. But when her mother dies, suddenly everything changes. Her father retreats into depression and Millie, only thirteen, finds herself responsible for a newborn baby. When a stranger appears and threatens the remnants of the family even further, Millie musters courage she never dreamed she had to rebuild the home that means so much to her.Irene N. Watts’ memorable story is as complex and as comforting as family life itself.

Almost Eden

Growing up in Mennonite community on the Canadian prairie in the late 1960s, Elsie, 12, blames herself when Mom is once again hospitalized for depression. Elsie has conversations with God, struggles to overcome guilt, and shares her honest desire to prove herself. Almost Eden is a beautiful portrait of a town, a family, and a young woman willing to challenge the things that don’t make sense to her, and to fix the things that don’t seem right.