A Matter of Keeping

Crystal Shores is a sparsley inhabited small island village. Mindy’s heritage there is significant: She is the product of the area’s founding seamen and farmers who settled there during the past two hundred years. As much as Mindy enjoys her quiet life, the pull of the city has become more powerful in recent days. Her uncle, an attorney, has offered to train her until she pursues her longtime dream of becoming a painter. Mindy realizes that she will not be able to pursue her artistic goals should she remain–and she must soon make one of the most important decisions in her young life! Such is the setting for ‘A Matter of Keeping,’ the debut fiction novel by Gabrielle F. Culmer. Through vivid imagery and colorful character portrayals, the author delves into the very personal nature of Mindy’s thought-process, and the many distractions and obstacles that arise while she’s trying to maker her decision. Taking place over a pivotal week’s time, Gabrielle F. Culmer’s novel is by turns engaging, incisive, and moving as it reveals how two families choose to deal with the problems that confront them