I accidentally walked to Newbury St. today. It looked too pretty, I couldn't help it. And all the little new boutiques that opened up during my absence were just begging me in with their spankingly hip plaques and store displays.
Not my fault at all!

But I love what I got nonetheless: a convertable leather purse/clutch (yes to add to my purse collection), and some killer heeled ankle boots. Both are pretty out of my closet's repertoire in terms of style, so I do not feel too too guilty... I guess



and here is the clutch version

I'm totally in love with this overpriced thing. Can't wait to wear it!

...and here are the boots (they are higher than they look). Look familiar? Even higher version of these things were seen all over runways last season

The White Mary is the explorer/journalist Kira Salak's first work of fiction. However, the novel has almost an autographical feel, with beautiful detailed accounts of the atmosphere and experiences. The protagonist Marika, whom the indigenous people call "White Mary", is like a version of Kira herself.

 

BOOK SYNOPSIS

Marika Vecera, an accomplished war reporter, has dedicated her life to helping the world's oppressed and forgotten. When not on one of her dangerous assignments, she lives in Boston, exploring a new relationship with Seb, a psychologist who offers her glimpses of a better world.

Returning from a harrowing assignment in the Congo where she was kidnapped by rebel soldiers, Marika learns that a man she has always admired from afar, Pulitzer-winning war correspondent Robert Lewis, has committed suicide. Stunned, she abandons her magazine work to write Lewis's biography, settling down with Seb as their intimacy grows. But when Marika finds a curious letter from a missionary claiming to have seen Lewis in the remote jungle of Papua New Guinea, she has to wonder, What if Lewis isn't dead?

Marika soon leaves Seb to embark on her ultimate journey in one of the world's most exotic and unknown lands. Through her eyes we experience the harsh realities of jungle travel, embrace the mythology of native tribes, and receive the special wisdom of Tobo, a witch doctor and sage, as we follow her extraordinary quest to learn the truth about Lewis--and about herself, along the way.

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To me, Salak represents a new kind of female hero. Like her character Marika, Salak herself has traveled into the world's most remote and dangerous places, including war-torn Congo and the interior of Papua New Guinea, and narrowly escaped death. She has been chased or captured multiple times by rebel soldiers in the various places. Two of her non fiction novels talk about these adventures:

THE CRUELEST JOURNEY: SIX HUNDRED MILES TO TIMBUKTU

This book accounts her journey as the first person in the world to kayak alone 600 miles on the Niger River of Mali to Timbuktu, retracing the fatal journey of the great Scottish explorer Mungo Park.