The First of Earthly Blessings

The life and loves of Suk, small and dynamic, who raises herself out of poverty to become a trek guide in the wildernesses of the kingdom of Thailand. She lives with her friends at LekNaruk Inc, a tiny eating place in the country town of Klong Graitin. The trilogy follows Suk#xE2;#xAC;"s attempts, from girlhood to womanhood, to create herself and control her own destiny, amidst a miscellany of her mostly genial acquaintances and visitors #xE2;#xAC;#x1C; and despite hubris, both comic and pathetic, brought on by her tendency to overreach herself.THE FIRST OF EARTHLY BLESSINGSIn the first volume of the trilogy, Suk, having liberated herself from domestic service, settles with her friends in the country town of Klong Graitin and becomes established as a tour and trek guide working from a local inn, The House of Vasa. Her occupation and her loves are both threatened by her assertive and independent personality but the comedy of her life evolves into a crisis involving two of her man-friends and three armed renegades when camping near a waterfall, deep in the forests of Thailand.