Anne L Watson

You hear many reasons why marriages and long-term relationships break up, but there's one that's seldom acknowledged: Many committed couples would get along better if only they weren't roommates. But what can they do? They have to share a home, don't they? What if they chose to defy expectations, their own and everyone else's? What if they decided to live in separate apartments or houses, nearby or even side-by-side? Wouldn't they avoid many tensions...

In the Oakland, California, of 1989, Mirai San Julian is a young woman with a fascinating life and a rich past. She restores historic carousels -- her dream career -- working from her own studio in a former roller skating rink. Though black herself, she spent her first years in a Basque immigrant community in Nevada, the adopted child of a single mother. And after the mother's death, she was raised by her Aunt Joy in a Catholic Worker house. Mirai...

When Henry "wakes up," he finds himself walking along an empty stretch of road on modern-day San Juan Island. He doesn't remember much about himself, besides his name and the fact that he's dead. How did he die? How long ago? What was his life? Did he have a family? Why is he still on the island? And most important, what is a ghost like him supposed to do now? On Henry's journey of discovery, he meets another ghost in the same predicament-a little...

Maybe you'd like to make your own soap, but you're worried that working with lye is too difficult or dangerous. Maybe you're scared off by "beginner" books that go on for hundreds of pages and leave you less confident than before. Or maybe you're already making soap, but you wonder if methods you've learned are slower and more complicated than they need to be. Whether beginner or advanced, you'll find "Smart Soapmaking" practical, helpful, and refreshing....

Soap makers may love to add a variety of materials to soap, but they find that some cause more trouble than others. In the heat of the chemical reaction, an ingredient might discolor, lose its scent, or develop a bad smell. Or it might cause problems during soapmaking, giving off noxious fumes, or making the soap harden so fast that there's no time to pour it in the mold. Help has arrived. Anne L. Watson extends the low-temp techniques from her book...

Nita walked away from her family when she was seventeen years old, determined to never look back. But forty years later, when her mother died and her father descended into Alzheimer's, Nita returned to New Orleans to care for him in his final months. Now her father has passed on, leaving to Nita her childhood home as an inheritance. But she soon finds she isn't the only resident. The house is occupied by ghosts of her past, playing out scenes of the...

When Coco the mouse slips under a young spruce tree on his morning walk through the forest, he discovers a village of gingerbread houses and "Gingers" -- gingerbread men and women brought to life by magic. But all is not well in Gingerbread Village. The Magic that built the village and protects it from outsiders seems to be fading, and the Gingers don't know how to revive it. Can Coco find a way to help the Gingers? And even if he does, can they...

Rai Ireland has built a respectable life for herself as a novice real-estate lawyer on Washington's San Juan Island. But when her hippie mother, Willow, comes to stay with her, Rai finds herself stretched between the Rachel she calls herself now and the Rainbow her mother thinks her to be. Besides, it hardly seems fair that Willow adjusts so easily to island life, while Rai still navigates the narrow straits of dating on a small island. Anne L. Watson,...

Anne L. Watson presents cookies and molds for many holidays and all seasons, as well as for special interests and occasions-weddings, kids, storytelling around the fireplace, and much more. With nearly 150 photos of molds, cookies, and processes, "Cookie Molds Around the Year" features new techniques and new recipes, along with a month-by-month diary of the seasons on San Juan Island.