She’s your best friend … beautiful, charismatic, compassionate, but she might betray you.

Broken Doll is the tragic story of a charming but troubled woman “living at the foothills of an active volcano” –her own damaged psyche. It is as suspenseful and intriguing as a mystery novel and is loosely based on real people and events in Crissa’s life.

Lisa, a new teacher in a tough school, is struggling hard to get by while dodging troubles at home. Sunny is just like her name: the most beautiful, kind-hearted, generous, cheerful teacher in the school, if not 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 she wishes, sleeping with her husband’s best friend and taking huge risks with her own life.

Lisa can’t help admiring Sunny’s seemingly fearless spirit and ability to live in the moment with a “damn the torpedoes” attitude. Sunny seems to infuse Lisa’s troubled life with sunshine. When Lisa tries to rescue Sunny 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

This is a booklet written to raise awareness about ovarian cancer, a disease that whispers and is all too often a silent killer. I had invasive ovarian cancer in 2005.

The booklet is free and also distributed to raise funds for an early detection test. We still do not have an accurate test, so most women are diagnosed in later stages and have fewer chances of survival. Ovarian cancer is by far the deadliest of all the reproductive organ cancers in both sexes.

The booklet has 8 chapters: No Accurate Test Yet, Not Your Fault! (Women should not feel guilty about having cancer), Angels During Chemo (friends and strangers were incredibly kind to me), Love Yourself 100% (Learn to love every aspect of yourself, mental, spiritual, emotional and physical, and adopt a totally healthy lifestyle), Full of Hope (people even prayed for me and dreamed that I was full of hope for survival), Third Chemo (By that time, I was well on my way to loving and accepting myself), 6 Weeks of Radiation (I looked forward to eradicating any residual cancer cells that might have been in my body and was grateful for the healing process), Through the Fire (The Bible study of Daniel going through the fire and surviving inspired me to write the booklet).

“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.

This is an e-book containing eight of Crissa’s latest piano compositions.  They are all inspired by the beauty of Vancouver Island and are written in a cheerful and energetic style.  Rather than recording another CD, Crissa hopes that other pianists will enjoy playing the pieces.

This book is now available as an e-book on WHSmith, Nook, Kobo, Sony Reader Store, and as a Kindle edition.

My mother was born in Estonia close to Tallinn in 1921 and had a charmed childhood and youth. The country was finally free from foreign occupation and was full of hope for the future. Her father was a retired Czar’s army officer who had a sizable estate complete with forests, a lake and wheat fields, and she bonded fiercely with this land and her wonderful big family.

A wandering gypsy told her that she would leave her beloved homeland and never return. In spite of blossoming into a gorgeous and educated young woman who attracted the wealthiest young man in town, fate threw her life off course. The Soviets invaded in 1939 and soon deported thousands of innocent people to Siberia. The Germans invaded soon afterwards and occupied the country for several years. Her husband disappeared and she heard reports of rapidly advancing Red Army soldiers using young women as sex slaves. Her parents urged her to flee to southern Germany to wait out the duration of the war and she got on a ship and sailed to German-occupied Poland in August of 1944.

Angels must have been looking after her, because she was the last civilian to cross a bridge over the Oder River before it was blown up to stop the advancing Red Army and she survived the firebombing of Dresden and relied on the kindness of strangers for many years. She came alone to Canada as a penniless refugee in 1948 and found good jobs in Quebec City and in Montreal, where she met my father. She moved to Vancouver with him in 1950 and helped him in his lab at the new medical school at UBC.

The Cold War made it impossible for her to communicate with her Estonian family, and it was not until1956 that she finally re-established limited contact. What happened to her and her family was a symbol of what happened to millions of Eastern Europeans: Some were deported to Siberia to perish in Stalin’s Gulag system of labor camps, some lived under a reign of terror in the Soviet Union, and others were forced to flee and live in exile. One of the reasons I wrote the book was to expose a major crime against humanity with the hope that it will never happen again. Another reason was to show how my mother’s supernatural courage can inspire others and help them keep their own problems in perspective. It is a story that portrays the triumph of the human spirit in the face of ferocious adversity. My mother inspired me and always wanted someone to tell her story.

In 1991, when the Soviet Union and the Cold War were beginning to dissolve, my mother and I visited Estonia. She had an emotional reunion with her beloved brother, a Gulag survivor, after 47 years of forced separation. And I had a chance to meet my Estonian family without fear.
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I was diagnosed with invasive ovarian cancer in July of 2005 and had two major operations, three rounds of chemo and six weeks of radiation while living alone and without any family members to support me. The counseling I received during my chemo treatments helped me to shed all of my negative, self-critical thoughts and paved the way toward total self-love and self-acceptance.

In 2011, I suddenly had the urge to transform the Through the Fire booklet into a full length book and reach a wider audience because I know many people around the world need as much help as I did to learn to love and accept themselves 100 percent. A recent BBC worldwide study showed that huge numbers of people are on tranquilizers and anti-depressants and suffer from a lack of self-esteem, which leads to many mental health problems.

The book starts with a graphic description of my cancer diagnosis and the feelings of terror that came with it. In the chapter entitled “I Love You?” I discuss how my amazing counselor used Buddhism, empathy, intuition, and common sense to help me drop my negative emotional and mental baggage and begin the process of healing through self-love and self-acceptance. The mind-body connection is very strong and one’s chances of healing are much greater if one sends loving thoughts to every part of one’s body. Most people have some harmful, self -critical thoughts that make their lives harder and more precarious than they have to be.

After my first round of chemo, I analyzed my past to find the origin of my harsh inner critic. In the chapter, “Ode to Joy,” I reminisce about childhood bullying, parental neglect, and my longing for a kinder and less judgmental world. Through the process of analyzing my past, however, I also found the roots of my budding self-love and acceptance.

Several chapters are written as short stories in which I analyze my past and the self-critical behavior of many of the people I knew. In “Full of Hope,” I summarize what I learned from analyzing my past and discuss my spiritual growth as I underwent a second chemo treatment. “Third Chemo” shows how I reached my goal of total self-love and self-acceptance with the help of good counseling and loyal friends.

Keeping a gratitude journal has greatly enhanced the quality of my life. By focussing on the positive aspects of every day and writing them down, one can improve one’s attitude toward life. I have included a few journal entries as inspirational examples in “An Attitude of Gratitude.

“The importance of love is the theme for the last three short stories and the essay “Love Has the Last Word.” In this essay, I attempt to show how pure logic, social research, medical research and all the major religions point to the same conclusion: You have a right and a duty to love and accept yourself. I was inspired to make sweet lemonade out of my cancer lemons, but you, dear reader, shouldn’t have to face a deadly disease to wake up. I hope this lemonade will improve your life.

“I have learned from experience that there is survival behavior. Crissa Constantine demonstrates this in her book and her ability to abandon her wounds and learn to love herself. When you learn to love yourself and your life amazing things happen to your body.”

-Bernie Siegel, MD, author of Faith, Hope and Healing and A Book of Miracles

“Illness, while never a welcome ‘addition’ to our world, often provides the impetus to search ourselves and, indeed, to search life itself more deeply and more passionately. In this beautifully written memoir, Crissa Constantine shares a remarkable journey of introspection, a journey that was in many ways launched as a result of an encounter with ovarian cancer. That this journey taught her that ‘love has the last word’ is reason indeed to celebrate, and to savor this account of her life and times.”

– Rev. Foster Freed, Knox United Church, Parksville, B.C.

“Crissa’s stories remind us that life is full of transformative moments when we are willing to learn from the teachers we encounter along the way. Since reading her book, I have been more aware of what I say to others and to myself. This book issues the ultimate challenge – that we learn to be kind to ourselves.”

-Lisa Leger, Women’s Health Educator

“Beautifully written, with all sorts of interesting life stories, insights, and inspiration.”

-Brad Nelson, Ph.D., Director, Trev and Joyce Deeley Cancer Research Center, Victoria

“Brilliant and very emotional.”

-Laura Hesse, screenwriter and author of The Holiday Series and The Gumboot & Gumshoe Series

“As more and more research shown connections between mental and physical health, Crissa demonstrates to the reader a framework of reexamining impressionable experiences of life. She shares her own challenges by taking the reader through vignettes and weaves her learnings of how she came to find her inner power of self-love. This book is a tool, for not only cancer patients but everyone, to discover the gift of self-love and acceptance.”

-Zoe Campbell, professional fundraiser

“Crissa Constantine’s book is a powerful message of hope and healing. Everyone who is struggling with a debilitating illness or an unhappy life will greatly benefit from reading her story of transformation. She beautifully and convincingly describes what true healing is all about and how you, too, can transform your life.”

-Gudrun Eichorst, Emotional Health Coach, The Oaktree Energy Medicine Center