Book excerpt: In the medical reports she transcribes for a living, Nancy Anne Nash would be identified as a athin white female in no acute distress.a In reality, she is in moderate distress and leading a troubled life, loving unsuitable men for all the wrong reasons. At work for Seattle-based Professional Dictation, she shines and is a leader in her field, while back home her life is complicated by boyfriend Tim, an alcoholic, twice-divorced father of two whom Nancy becomes determined to afix.a Along the way she enlists the aid of Timas daughter, Angela. Unfortunately, the emotional scars left from a childhood of chaos and instability prove too powerful to fix, and Nancy slowly self-destructs in a vortex of poor choices, good drugs, and very bad people, among them a self-absorbed female boss who destroys the one place where Nancy finds strength. Despite the odds, will she triumph and learns along the way that love isnat love if it hurts?