Karen de Balbian Verster, artist, writer and poet, is a breast cancer survivor. After her second cancer diagnosis she began attending art workshops at Gilda's Club and got back into painting, which she says was healing since painting uses a different part of her brain than writing. Currently, her artwork, including monotypes, monotype collages, oils and watercolors, are on display in Stroudsburg. Her writing brings us the book, Boob: A Story of Sex, Cancer and Stupidity, now published and available in bookstores.

Her novel is a fictional tale that begins with the reality of a terminal breast cancer diagnosis for Kyra Copperfield. But then Kyra is abducted by a serial killer who promises to delay killing her if she amuses him by telling stories about herself. The author, de Balbian Verster describes it as a Scheherazade meets Hannibal. Kyra figures it is a slow, painful death either way.

You have to admit, as far as inspirational breast cancer recovery books written by breast cancer survivors go, this one has a different twist. At least it's the first one I have run across involving a serial killer. Of the possible scenarios in what could be worse than being diagnosed with cancer -- and I can think of few things that could be worse -- being abducted by a serial killer certainly ranks right up there. For that, I tip my hat to the originality of the author. To learn more about the author, and to read an excerpt of her book, go here. She is as uniquely interesting as the premise of her novel.