Book Review: When Things Go Missing by Deborah J. Brasket

I rarely get to read for ‘just’ pleasure; and for that reason, it’s lovely when I get around to sit with a good fiction novel. Thankfully this season I was able to read another delightful book just before this one called, “The Fox Wife,” by Yangsze Choo. That said, I was able to read these books back to back–which IS a rare luxury! For that reason, I was happy to see how beautifully this novel by independent author, Deborah J. Brasket, “fit in” next to the New York Times Bestselling author’s book, The Fox Wife. There is no comparison, really, for these texts are different in genre and style; and, I am not a seasoned book review writer– but I’m really impressed by being able to sink into When Things Go Missing with the same feeling of compelling interest and turn-the-page excitement! The reason and inspiration for me writing this book review below is because Deborah’s novel was excellent. I’d like to help her bring her novel to a wider audience. I want to assist authors who are inspiring, such as herself. To do this, I will also suspend my regular astrology post to the “second tier” priority. That will be coming out soon, hopefully! For those of you who have enjoyed my astrology posts: thank you. It means a lot to me that you are a reader here. This is what we writers live for: to be read! That’s the reason for the gift and labor of love in writing anything–especially a novel–such a huge undertaking!

Book Review: When Things Go Missing by Deborah J. Brasket

When Things Go Missing is an engaging and quietly suspenseful novel that draws you in through its characters as much as its unfolding mystery. Deborah J. Brasket’s language is deeply descriptive, making the scenes easy to picture, and the emotional nuances easy to feel. The imagery is vivid enough that the world of the book forms around you almost automatically.

One of the strengths of the story is how it allows you to get to know the characters organically through the plot. Their personalities and motivations reveal themselves through the choices they make, the subtle clues that arise, and the creative passions that guide them. The interplay between the mother sending her enigmatic photographs and Cal’s artistic inspiration creates a compelling parallel — one that adds emotional texture and a sense of layered meaning.

The pacing is steady and immersive, carrying a gentle momentum that keeps you invested without rushing. Her novel’s organizational style, with each chapter heading labeled for the character and the symbolic theme, makes it easy to read even if you have a lot of interruptions around you! Brasket’s tone is thoughtful and nuanced, inviting both concern and curiosity for the characters as their lives intersect with mystery, memory, and creativity. It’s the kind of book that quietly pulls you deeper, where the atmosphere, relationships, and artistic elements all work together to create an absorbing reading experience.

Overall, When Things Go Missing is a satisfying blend of subtle mystery, artistic reflection, and emotional resonance. It’s a novel that lingers after you close it, not because of dramatic twists, but because of the vivid imagery, human depth, and quiet beauty Brasket brings to every page.

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Thank you, Deborah, for adding to my experience of my Thanksgiving Holiday! I knew when your book came out at the Autumnal Equinox, and you shared that in your comment, that it would be a great fit for me! Wishing you so much continued success with your novel.

You are here! 🌎🌍🌏 Cancer Full Moon 🌕

The Full Moon in Cancer

Welp, here we are. We are at the start of the New Year with the Lunar New Year just around the corner. It will be a bit of the “Take two” and a chance to rewrite the solar year’s less “organic” start to the year. Whether you are a fan of the Sun or the Moon, it’s a bit like being a dog or a cat lover. Some are both. I would put myself in that camp. While I am allergic to cats (or was, long story not for now), I did have a dog who was golden like the sun, a retriever. We did actually have a kitten named “Brendy” who ran away. The kitten and puppy did play together, actually.

I loved them both. I was so sad when Brendy bolted. Maybe an animal got her. One day she just didn’t respond to her name being called. My heart still aches for the little girl who called to her trying so hard to make her voice like a magical lasso to reel the kitten back into the fold. We love you. I love you. I wanted my love to reach her. I tried so hard, called louder, tried different inflections.

But now, it’s 2025.

I’m a dog and cat lover for different reasons. I think cats and dogs should get along but I understand why most don’t. I’m also a sun and moon lover. Probably because my sun is in Leo (its domicile) and my moon is in Cancer (its domicile). I guess you could say “I’m at home.”

That’s what this cancer full moon is all about but with a twist. The energy is mega intense. We have Mars and Pluto acting very strongly in this Full Moon chart.

Not my most amazing photo but clearly the moon is Vivid and Full

The Sun is nearly next to Pluto and the Moon is paired with Mars. This adds some spiciness to the familiar, the comforts, and tension with Pluto. We are here to grow and stretch ourselves and in the midst of that find and define home.

Right now so many people in Los Angeles are suffering through losses, bad fumes and devastation. Over night people have lost their homes and insurances have bailed. They are without. It wrenches my heart to think that people are suffering like this.

Look for the helpers. This moon is all about the helpers and finding them and fueling them to do what they can do best: understand NEEDS.

The sign of Cancer is very explicit in pointing to and differentiating needs from wants. Mars is here, though. There can be urgency.

Settling the nervous system is always a good idea but maybe it will help to use this Moon’s wisdom to get ever more clearer about those body and emotional needs. Get clear about your physiological needs around peace and calm so you can be more clear about triggers and irritations as they arise and are bodily expressed.

My focus is to point out that Uranus, the Awakener, here is positively interacting with BOTH the Sun and Moon. This is opportunity to enlighten around what changes in consciousness can be made to make home more what it should be, more what suits your comforts and needs to settling, needs for sleep and calm. Also, Uranus is in Taurus helping to awaken the senses to be more in tune with how to distribute the energies. What colors and sounds are soothing for you? There much to explore to become more in alignment with those daily needs that Cancer full moon 🌝 needs to get cozy.

I’d love to hear from you. Share your experiences and desires here. Mars’ presence with the Full Moon is going to be giving you messages around your energy level fluctuations, motivations, and more. There is so much beauty in how we strive for the sake of our families and the love in community we extend from our family into the greater world. How can we expand the cozy bubble? Can we become closer friends with the foes experienced through our environment?

These are some thoughts to work with.

💗

Here’s a cute aside: My daughter’s calendar has the moon on it and we are talking about how the symbols on the calendar represent the Full Moon for today and how approximately a week from now it will be a “half moon” as she called it, and then approx a week after that on the 29th, a new moon. “Blank.” On the calendar it’s pictured as a dark circle. It’s so fun that she’s naturally interested and attentive to the moon as it corresponds on the calendar. She noticed it herself. Just 5 years old and her observation skills are getting ready! She’s getting the tools and soon she can apply and make note of what she discovers!

Full Moon in Cancer

It has been such a magical full to moon to have in the family-oriented sign of Cancer. How can we appreciate our families even more?

Ka Malana Photography
Ka Malana Photography
Ka Malana Photography
Full ‘Cold’ Moon in Cancer 2023 🌕 Ka Malana Photography
  • Think of your home and bless it.
  • Remember your first memory and nurture it by writing it down.
  • Close your eyes and put your hand on your heart and say “This is my home. I am here, now.”

Tracing my daughter’s hand

I gave her fingers lots of space!

She says “draw my hand 🖐”

and this simple action

for me, is High art—

the art of masters, becoming young again.

Our combined intelligence

simplified into the elegance of

a single line drawn,

contour: a line developing into a form

One day she will sit in an art class

and draw what she sees, without

looking at her paper.

Because of me.

her request: “draw my hand”

is helping me illustrate one of the most

creative gifts of her body

As a baby,

she learned her hands quickly.

she studied intently.

Her hands were her first friends

enabling her into positions, and grasping my

finger well after that reflex had gone.

her fingers articulating quickly,

her hand in mine—always wanting my hand. Brave. And still always wanting my hand.

“Mommy, mommy, draw my hand.”

Family love and life

So grateful for another day on planet earth with my loved ones. I’m grateful for all the genuine connections I have in my life with people who are not physically close, too, but are so so close to my heart. My friendships that are enduring are so valued in my life. I’m grateful for my loving family. I’m also grateful for my blogging connections and this month’s challenge helps me to keep centered on what matters most while being able to weave in and out as I need to and am able!

14/30

As people weave in and out of our lives, its so important to remember our inner lives. This new moon I embarked on a new journey with my Medicine Woman studies. It’s an incredible New Moon in Scorpio sextile to the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction. I received an initiation today and conducted a special ceremony; my path has begun on a deeper level, in private. Many of us walk between the two worlds, and as we anchor ourselves in the unseen world, we enrich the world we do for the consciousness of the planet. Today we also celebrate along with this New Moon, in many regions of the world, such as Northern India, Diwali, the festival of lights. It’s the celebration of good over evil. May we realize the goodness in our hearts, and come together on this planet. That is my hope each and every day.

The Past meets the New Universe in the form of an Egg (New Moon in Cancer)

Image

 

Welcoming the New Moon!

I’m reposting some text that I wrote about the New Moon in Cancer from 2011. I know that posting old writing seems ironic for “New Moon” energy; however, in honor of Mercury retrograde, I am “looking back.”

My chart is cast for San Diego, CA @ 1:08am, on June 27th. SUN/MOON @ 5.37 Cancer

The astrological sign of Cancer is given the element of water, describing what type energy it is, and the cardinal modality, describing how it operates. Cancer, like water, flows into any shape of container. It surrounds and absorbs. It is inherently adaptive. Water energy is sensitive to all energy. Cancer acts like a sponge and soaks up its environment, but also surrounds and saturates. It can be protective and shielding, or weak and yielding. Cancer traditionally represents the Mother Archetype and rules the private life of house and home.

Now I’d like to talk about the Cancer/Capricorn polarity. The signs oppose one another on the zodiacal wheel, but the energy really represents to two-sides of same coin and are thus complementary. Cancer is Elemental: that which is raw, unformed, flowing. Cancer is Archetypal: the sign of the mother, the instinctive, the nurturer. Capricorn is elemental: physical and material; it represents body, thought-form (principle), think of the way lava cools and hardens after it freely releases–that is the way of nature. Capricorn is traditionally Archetypal: the sign of the father, authoritarian, disciplinarian, rule-enforcer.

Making our way (the moon’s nodes) from shallow footsteps, to deep grooves, to ruts… habit builds structure, some call it karma.

We can look to psychological astrology and see our childhood experiences, how we relate to them, the deep impressions that imprinted into memories during our childhoods, and our personal past usually has a story, how it was perceived by us at that time. Cancer, in the astrological chart, points to the subconscious, the underground of the mind. It is where our stories flow like a river, without our awareness. When our subconscious emerges because of the build-up of inner pressures, (for various reasons, sometimes never known); and, we get the signal of emotion, we can look for a story.  Get to know it first. Then, decide to drop the old story. This takes practice. Over time our tendencies, habits, stories form into beliefs, and that feeds back into a loop, shaping how we see today’s reality, and ultimately our future.

So, the ‘shaping’ process of life—the way experiences mold us into our character is through the Cancer to Capricorn polarity. Capricorn, the crystallization of the trodden path into an absolute paved road has been laid via repeated actions into habits. Often astrologers talk about the planet Saturn (Capricorn’s ruler) as being the karmic planet. We can see why, its placement is a description of our own personal rulebook, or that which we project outward into the world as our authority. Nevertheless, what was once a rough sketch of possibility before we repeated it over and over again, became “written in stone” and therefore a fact about ourselves. When all along, it was really just our belief forming into reality, caught up in a feedback loop. We all have beliefs, even those to don’t feel comfortable with things like “belief,” who prefer what they call facts. If we operate in that way (we really have no choice about that part) we get back exactly what we put in, and face limitation during difficult Saturn transits. Here rather than be rewarded for our past efforts (whatever past it may be, this life or another).

I know that the whole concept of past and future lives is a bit to stomach all at once but take a small bite and consider how BIG and LONG these cycles really are in the universe. We are the universe, we are nature. That’s a belief to work with!

Karmic Rut

Fresh footprints in the sand (as light markings of a once-over walk) can be blown away by the wind, but after several passes over the same spot, our way can become so deepened and hardened that these walkways become absolute ruts (albeit much easier to stay in) with high walls that we cannot even see over–so deep that it’s starting to look like a maze, and you wish you had a map because you are so stuck in the narrowness of where you were (the past) going over and over it again, that you can’t see anything beyond the wall of that vision. We sometimes like to call these karmic moments, when we simply realize that it’s time to work a little less on the old path, and consider starting a new path where we have more vision.

I think you get my point. If you don’t that’s okay, let these pictures and thoughts sit with you for a little while and let them sink in.

Sabian Symbol – Cancer 6

Sabian Symbol: It is in the flush of spring, and innumerable wild or game birds are seen feathering their nests.”

Aspect formations

Grand Cross – see previous posts:

Grand Trine –Saturn retrograde, Jupiter, Chiron

Sun/Moon trine Retrograde Neptune:  TRANSCEND the PAST, forgiveness, openness, and the Spirit of new beginnings.

Note: After trying to find a picture to add to my post…I realized I would just play around with some colors instead – glad that I did. It was very refreshing. I feel like I am playing “catch up,” but then I read my older post with advice for how to handle Mercury retrograde – and I’m think, WOW… How helpful! Let the balls go, Ka…..