Women in the Grove offers nine surprising, impossible-to-put-down stories by an award-winning writer who has already received national praise for her memoir, Penitent, with Roses. Paula W. Peterson's women-all of them living with HIV infection-stitch together lives filled with loneliness, love, humor, grace, and mortality. They are black, white, immigrants, faculty wives; they are in rehab and in high school.

Lucinda, of "A Miracle," is visited by a red-haired man in a pinstriped suit who turns out to be God-somewhat shy and insecure, but the only savior she's likely to encounter. Émigré Olga, "The Woman in the Long Green Coat," bewitches her doctor, inhabiting his dreams and awakening him to the mysteries of the human soul. Cherry physically battles the ghost of her ex-husband, Duane, who appears in her house every night to torment her. "The As and Is" (the affecteds and the infecteds) are teenagers living with AIDS who find adolescence and romance tragically complicated by their proximity to illness and death. Grace, a heroine who is both brave and deluded, fears that if she divulges her HIV status to her lover, it will prevent the marriage she so desperately needs. In the masterful closing story, Camille struggles to reach an almost impossible goal-one year clean and sober-despite seemingly overwhelming obstacles. Hers is an entirely fresh and unexpected brand of heroism.

In story after story, Peterson presents the humanity of each of her characters even as they are compelled to make impossible choices, sometimes disastrous ones, about how they will spend the rest of their days. Peterson uses living with HIV as a jumping-off point from which to examine complex human situations-finding and losing love, facing mortality, unmasking delusions, discovering hidden strengths, and sometimes accepting the presence of miracles. These stories do not focus on illness and medical horrors but on the psychological and emotional dimensions of living-truly living-in defiance of death. Women in the Grove announces the arrival of an exceptionally gifted storyteller.