"The Look" Blog Challenge

I've been tagged, not once but twice this week to participate in two different blog hops.  The first challenge is from my friend, Lana Voynich, author of Alaskan Healing and upcoming hockey romance story, Faceoff of the Heart.  For the challenge and to see Lana's posting, you can find it here
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Here are the rules:  "The Look" is a writing prompt, a game, another tagging event. This is how U Got “The Look” works: you take your current manuscript, search for the word “look”, and post the surrounding paragraphs. Lastly, you tag 5 blogging authors who you think will be a good choice for the game.


So here is the beginning of Imogene:  Innocense Lost with the understanding that even though this story is really rough I'm about to revamp it next month when I participate in NaNo (gave up on BIW as previously challenged for myself).  I hope to release this story next summer or fall. 

Jacob watched his mother move her mashed potatoes around on the plate. He knew that this was a big trip for her. He couldn't help but wonder if he would ever measure up to Imogene. Even at his young age of almost eight years, he knew that Imogene was the love of his parents' lives. They always told him that he was special too and that they loved him just as much, but he had seen his mother holding the photograph, talking to the doll and crying herself to sleep so many nights. The photo. It wasn't anything spectacular, just the last time they were a family, and that was even before Jacob had been born. The photo was that of a smiling, young, dark-haired girl. So full of life and bubbling at the brims. Her long, straight hair and slightly slanted eyes gave her the appearance of having been of a different nationality, almost giving her an Asian look. His parents had been happy then too, but in pictures of Jacob and his parents it was very noticeable that the smiles had faded. People always said if Jacob had been older that he and Imogene could have been twins, and they could have; they had very similar features and shared more than just their parents as Jacob shared the same birth date with Imogene


The conversation lacked words but the emotions spoke loud and clear. Sarah Beth had decided that she would make one last trip to find her daughter. Daniel didn't want her to go; Sarah Beth fought and screamed and cried until there were no words left. She felt this trip was going to be different than previous trips where they had tried to make it a family vacation, all the while searching for their lost daughter. This year, something was different. She couldn't quite put her finger on what was bothering her but she had to try. It was find Imogene or die trying and with that thought, Sarah Beth decided this had to be done on her own as she really didn't want to lose the rest of her family.

UPDATE:  10/28/2012 - I was supposed to post this a couple of weeks ago and I don't have anyone to tag so I apologize to Lana for being so late in posting this - See you all in the postings