Through eleven partially linked fictional stories we follow Danielle as she splits from a long-term marriage to find her way as a single woman living alone in a foreign country. Her search for both physical and emotional contentment and independence leads her to take risks in life and love from jumping off waterfalls, to discovering a gorgeous young caveman, and learning the art of marijuana growing and harvesting. Follow her journey as she intertwines intimate personal insights with wild adventures. The first story Of Time and the Mountain reveals that beginning a new life and building a house in an isolated part of a foreign country, Costa Rica, is rampant with challenges: physical, emotional and personal. The frayed threads of a long term marriage begin to unravel one by one. Learning a new language, meeting new people, living in a strange culture, subsisting in a primitive environment without basic necessities and learning to build a house in the jungle, bring a need for a little respite wherever it can be found. And find it Danielle does, whether it's going to local festivals in the mountain villages in San Anselmo, or looking for archeological artifacts in Fault Lines. Danielle travels back and forth between the U.S. and Costa Rica finding adventure wherever she is. New relationships blossom, grow strong, wilt, revive or die, but all are worthwhile experiences. With Danielle's newborn independence, taking risks in both love and life becomes necessity. A U.S. doctor is shocked by her little friend in My Friend George. Is there a real monster plying the Florida waters in Alligator Dreams? The apparition of a cave dweller appears to her through waterfall curtains in God's Caveman. She is horrified by the 'dog-eat-dog' world in Puppy Love. At turns she is terrified and exhilarated by challenging the waterfall in Fear of Falling. Getting to know Adrian in Costa Rica brings new life and love into her life in Getting to Know You - Costa Rica. She experiences his illegal lifestyle and his paranoia when the Feds appear in the California fields in Getting To Know You - Humboldt County. Join Danielle as she deals with both the highs and lows of her adventurous life; how she deals with conflict, has fun, learns patience and gains contentment as her life blooms into full flower. In the vein of Andrea Barrett's Servants of the Map: Stories, Green stitches her stories together with the lightest thread into a jagged line of passion for love, learning, insight, and adventure. Take a sample of Alison Wright's Learning to Breathe One Women's Journey and a swatch of Anais Nin's journals and you've got an idea of Free to Bloom. Author Biography Though born in California, and living in France as a child, Jill Green's formative years were spent on Florida's Gulf Coast. After college at the University of Florida, marriage, two children - one deaf, she started teaching, helped run two businesses and after 30 years, got divorced. What a turn life took Now living in two countries, Sarasota, Florida and Costa Rica, she forgot her French, but learned Spanish. Living alone took many adjustments, eventually she has become a self-sufficient, adventuresome individual, traveling the world, volunteering with many organizations, climbing mountains, surfing the seas and teaching ESL in Costa Rica and Florida. After many years working and bringing up a family she has finally become a published writer with her book of connected short stories Free to Bloom about life in Costa Rica and the United States, hopefully the first of many. Although she has written stories and essays for small magazines, her next big project is a memoir. The trials, tribulations, joys and sorrows of living in an extensive marriage, learning independence, following a world trekking daughter and educating a deaf son among other things. Visit Jill's personal blog at http: //www.costajill.com and her Free to Bloom blog at http: //freetobloombook.com