Asya's Laws: Lessons in Love Lost and Found

By Asya Raines

Asya's Laws takes readers on a Latvian woman's courageous journey from her young adulthood in an impoverished and oppressive homeland to the promise of a new life and lasting love half a world away in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0976386828
• ISBN13: 9780976386827
• Release Date: July 2006
• Publisher: Right Brain Books, LLC
• Length: 161 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Great read!

Totally enjoyable! The short chapters flow but allowed me to read during snippets of my busy week. All too quickly I finished the book during a weekend getaway. I loved getting to know Asya through her personal journey of love and family and friendships.

A Little Masterpiece with Love

Asya Raines' little masterpiece invites us to her spiritual home. Like the concierge of an intimate hotel, she welcomes us. We are for an evening her pampered guests reading in a quiet sitting room and sipping a glass of her vintage Champagne. Asya's words so well-sculpted by the deft hand of Charles Fleetham encourage us to put aside our loveless travels with their many contradictions and conflicts. If we pause to reflect upon Asya's hopeful message in our hearts, we just might allow ourselves to fall in love for the first time or once again and never be the same! -- Christopher J. Webb, July 14, 2006

Love and history

"Asya's Laws" is a fascinating, multi-layered autobiography. It is the story of a Jew in an anti-Semitic society; the story of a Baltic communist experiencing the upheaval of perestroika and the downfall of the Soviet Union; the story of an immigrant struggling to integrate into a new and alien environment; but most of all, it is the story of a woman. Twice-divorced Asya Raines, a Latvian Jew who immigrated to the U.S. in 1997 while in her mid-forties, relates her life-history as viewed through the prism of her relationships with her friends, her family and her lovers. Her mostly tongue-in-cheek "laws" are the lessons that she learns along the way. She shares these lessons with the reader in a way that is both entertaining and instructive, but totally lacking in pomposity, arrogance or false piety. (Example: "a real man does not leave a lady waiting at the theater!") Asya has an inspirational ability to learn from the past instead of becoming embittered by it, to understand and even forgive the bad things that other people do, to recognize and learn from her own mistakes, and to look forward to the future and the adventures that lie ahead. Asya's distinctive voice, relayed admirably by Charles Fleetham, has a slight but charming foreign accent. It demonstrates how she has held onto her roots while simultaneously adapting to her new surroundings. She occasionally addresses the reader directly, enhancing the intimacy of the narrative. At the end I found myself hoping that at last she has found "true love." I would thoroughly recommend this book both to the romantic at heart, as well as to anyone interested in learning what life was really like behind the Iron Curtain.

A story of love with history sprinkled throughout

I loved this book - it was hard to put down and hard to get out of my head. The writing is lovely and flowing. This book is a must read for anyone who loves love and life with all it's predicatable unpredicability. It's a great book for sharing and giving. First book I've felt strongly enough about to write a review!

Latvian History, Worldly Love

First of all, from Asya's Laws, I learned about the history of and life in Latvia, a country I knew nothing about. Secondly, the book gives a first-person brutally yet tenderly honest story of one woman's struggles, triumphs, limitations, pain and glory in loving the men in her life, as well as her friends, and relations. I was able to read this book so quickly, as the language and tone flow so well. The titles and quotes at the beginning of every chapter are poignantly developed. Asya's Laws made me feel frustrated at times with the author's extreme patience with exasperating souls but it also made me laugh and left me with a feeling of satisfaction.