Books

	Through the Fire A booklet by Crissa Constantine About the Book: This 48-page booklet was published in February 2008. All proceeds from donations will be given for ovarian cancer research. To obtain a copy, please contact the author.
"This is a wonderful pamphlet, one that I would not hesitate to commend to anyone facing the painful reality of ovarian cancer. Crissa has done a marvelous job of drawing upon her personal experience, in order to create a 'healing-template' that other women are likely to find deeply affirming and genuinely helpful. Absolutely superb." - Rev. Foster Freed, Knox United Church, Parksville, B.C.

Broken Doll
(Pittsburgh, SterlingHouse Publisher, 2007)

About the Book

Lisa, new teacher in a tough school, is struggling hard to get by while also dodging troubles at home.
Sunny is just like her name: the most beautiful, kind-hearted, generous, cheerful teacher in the school, if not in the entire country.
To Lisa's delight, she and Sunny soon become close friends. But Sunny isn't the perfect friend after all. Lisa soon discovers that, despite her genuinely friendly nature, Sunny is a train wreck waiting to happen.

While she may be kind to some, she thinks nothing of manipulating anyone in any way she wishes, including sleeping with her husband's best friend and taking huge risks with her own life.

When Lisa tries to rescue her troubled friend from herself and her suspicious past, she discovers that some people - even dear friends - may simply be doomed from the start.

Readers endorse Broken Doll:

"Broken Doll. A good story and attractive to a very wide audience." - Basil Jackson, author of 10 published novels.
Mr. Jackson has been highly praised by The New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, and by Arthur Hailey, author of "Airport".

"This is a story that had to be told." - Rev. Foster Freed, Knox United Church, Parksville

"Broken Doll is full of heart!" - Alli Vail, Reporter, Parksville Qualicum Beach News

"Broken Doll is a page-turner, a testament to friendship, and to the joy of living out loud for as long as we can." - Vivien Sears, C.R.E.S. Re/Max Hall of Fame, Re/Max First Realty

"The story is so engrossing I couldn't put it down! It speaks to the broken doll in every soul." - Gail Smith, B.Ed., M.Ed., Retired university instructor, high school administrator, teacher, counselor and librarian

Broken Doll will be released in September 2007. For pre-release copies, please click here to order from Sterling House Publisher. To read more about Broken Doll, please click here.

Banished from the Homeland (Pittsburgh, CeShore 2000)

Available on www.amazon.com (US) & www.amazon.ca (Can)

This is the fictionalized true story of my mother's life. The novel is written in the first person, as if I were my own mother. The Soviets were expert terrorists. Millions of Eastern Europeans perished in Siberian labor camps, some endured a hellish existence under Stalin's reign of terror, and others were banished from their homelands for decades. My mother's family is a microcosm representing the fate of millions.

My mother was only 17 when Soviet tanks rolled through the streets of Tallinn (the capital of Estonia). She hid in a basement for 10 days to avoid capture and later saw thousands of innocent people being loaded onto cattle trains headed for Siberia. When the Nazis invaded the country and kicked the Soviets out, my mother's brother and fiance were conscripted into the German army. They later heard reports about Soviet soldiers using beautiful young women as sex slaves. My mother ran through the streets of Tallinn when the Soviets bombed the city in 1944; as the Red Army advanced and the Germans retreated, she fled to German-occupied Poland. Angels must have been protecting her, because she barely escaped death many times.

She immigrated to Canada as a penniless refugee and managed to work as a nurse' aide and lab technician for the famous Dr. Hans Selye. She married my Greek father, a medical scientist who helped to start the medical school at UBC. She was not accepted by his family, however, and longed to go back home. This was not possible for an incredible 47 years. Soviet spies were everywhere and would have sent her or her relatives to Siberia if she would have dared to visit before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I traveled with her to Estonia in June of 1991 and joined her in an emotional reunion with long-lost relatives.
Her supernatural courage always inspired me and made my problems seem trivial. I hope that anyone who reads the book will feel the same way.

Some endorsements of Banished from the Homeland:

"A wonderful book." Hillary Rodham Clinton
"A gripping page-turner. Get this book." Athens News
"An amazing story." CBC Radio
"I appreciate the book." Vaclav Havel
"I couldn't put it down." Bonnie Miller, prominent psychologist and wife of the American ambassador to Greece