Review: by Neil Scott,
Recovery Coast to Coast Radio

"Wendy Blackburn has made a five-star debut with Beachglass, a story of life, love, romance, and recovery. Through the eyes and heart of Delia, a recovering addict, she takes the reader on a remarkable journey into the depths of addiction soaring to the heights of recovery. From the past to the present, it is a poetic tapestry of words and wonder.

Wendy’s writing is simply delightful, colorful, concise, and captivating. She describes seemingly mundane details in hypersensitive three dimensions.  Every description is a painting in soft hues.

Delia, a recovering addict, wife, and mother, leaves her family to fly to Los Angeles to fulfill a promise made long ago to a friend she met in treatment who is living with AIDS, a promise to be there when the end comes. In the process she reflects on sobriety and serenity, anger and acceptance, grief and love. She experiences the powerful flames of temptation for a former lover that still bubbles and burns. In a few short weeks with her dying friend, who faces death with dignity, she stands tall in the sunlight of her sobriety. During her time with Timothy, Delia relives a 12 year journey through life, death, and recovery, one page at a time.           
           
The unlikely cast of characters who emerge from the depths of addiction into the sunlight of recovery are strikingly real. including Delia, Timothy, Simon, Clara, James, Rafael, Joan, Hap, Matt, and the predictably unpredictable Zodiac. They go their separate ways after treatment, only to be reunited by Timothy’s death, which turns into a celebration of sobriety and a tribute to treatment and recovery.

It’s a novel about recovery, but it’s so much more.  It’s a novel about AIDS, but it’s so much more.It’s about death, but more about life. Beachglass is a story of meeting life on life’s terms. It’s about love long lost, but ever remembered, and truly honored simply for what it was and what it will always be. It is about temptation and truth, as a young recovering addict deals with her demons past and present with compassionate guidance from her ever-accepting sponsor.

Ms. Blackburn gives the reader an intimate look inside the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, behind the walls of treatment, and into recovery, the bright side of addiction, where miracles happen. And Beachglass is filled with miracles.

It’s one of the most poignant portrayals of recovery that I have ever read, and a remarkable vehicle for those who seek to know more about addiction. It’s a sharing of experience, strength and hope, which resounds with acceptance, strength and wisdom overflowing with raw pain and unconditional love, and with rage and compassion, as memories and dreams collide. It’s written with a tapestry of magical colors that blend into the fabric of life and love, of growth and perseverance, of not just surviving, but thriving. It’s all about letting go and gathering in, it’s about breathing and not breathing.

For those who wonder what happens in a treatment center and the months and years thereafter, this book is a true portrait of courage, strength and hope. If you are in recovery, you’ll find your friends here. If you suffer from AIDS you will recognize a care giver’s comfort, compassion and unconditional love. If you are affected by neither you will profoundly understand both better.

Ms. Blackburn takes the reader on a roller coaster of raw emotions that catches fire and spreads with the winds of change. It will tear at your heart, slit it open and then gently heal it with incredible richness and tenderness. The book becomes its own exquisite piece of beachglass, washed up on the shores of time, with incredibly soft edges. Beachglass is not just for those interested in the subject of addiction, it’s for everyone who loves a powerful story, colorful characters, a believably solid plot and absolutely delicious writing.”
-Neil Scott, Producer/Host