title: Qualities of Light
author:  Mary Carroll Moore 
description: How many writers have caught that lightning-in-a-bottle that is young love? And made it glow with all the sweetness, sweat, and anguished joy that characterize it? Very few, I venture to guess, but here's one to add to the list and love. In prose both elegant and spare, but never without compassion, Mary Carroll Moore limns a romance between two eager, bright, and thoughtful teenaged girls. One is beautiful, confident, and athletic; the other is artistically gifted, a skilled observer of family and friends. But both are tangled in family problems beyond their powers to solve. Zoe, the athlete, lives with her sot of a father, having been unwillingly relinquished by her lesbian mother when another lover drew her away. Molly, the artist, takes on heavy guilt for an accident that almost killed her beloved little brother and struggles with the sad prospect of her parents' possible divorce. <br><br>Moore never sentimentalizes these problems, but neither does she let the girls lose hope. On the contrary, as their love unfolds, it becomes their fortress. The story, set in lush summer in the Adirondacks, suffuses the young lovers with those qualities of light that illuminate the water, the woods, and the human heart. Indeed, she provides a bounty for all the senses, as we catch the scent of pines and warm muffins, we hear the splash of waves under water skis, we feel the slip of trembling hands over oiled bodies. We are transported back to that perilous passage, so well remembered, through adolescence and first love. This is a tender and lively coming-of-age tale told with delicate insight. Mary Carroll Moore has given us a romance etched in moonlight--the one we all wish we had had in our seventeenth summer. --Ann Bannon
zlib_text: a c o g ni zant o ri g i nal  v5  rel ease o c to b er 0 8  2 0 1 0
  Tab l e o f  Co ntents
  Title Page
  Copyright Page
  Dedication
  Acknowledgements
  E pigraph
   
  CHAPTER ONE
  CHAPTER TWO
  CHAPTER THREE
  CHAPTER FOUR
  CHAPTER FIVE
  CHAPTER SIX
  CHAPTER SEVEN
  CHAPTER EIGHT
  CHAPTER NINE
  CHAPTER TEN
  CHAPTER ELEVEN
  CHAPTER TWELVE
  CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  CHAPTER SIX TEEN
  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  CHAPTER NINETEEN
  CHAPTER TWENTY
  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  
   
  
  Prai se f o r the No vel s o f  Patti  Cal l ahan Henry
  When Light Breaks
  “Not just a beautiful story, but an important one as well. It’s about all
  the things that make us worthy as human beings—integrity, honesty,
  and living the life you are meant to live. And perhaps most
  importantly, it shows us what brings genuine happiness. When Light
  B reaks is a triumph! ”
  —Dorothea Benton Frank, N ew York Times bestselling author of
  Pawleys Island
   
  “A passionate, unforgettable novel of self