BORDERS

In the super-competitive, overcrowded world of the romance genre, few authors have been as successful as the award-winning, multimillion-seller Susan Wiggs. Her latest is "Just Breathe" (Mira, $24.95, 400 pages), an emotional roller coaster centered on a cartoonist whose husband betrays her. Undaunted, she leaves him and returns to her California hometown, where new love blossoms.

Face-down on the pavement, his custom-made handcycle reduced to a twisted sculpture of metal, Alejandro Albor felt many questions racing through his mind:
Alejandro Albor's walls are draped with honors and medals he's won as a world-class handcyclist. Now, just a few months after being injured by a minivan, he's hoping to win gold in the 2008 Paralympics. He'll be pedaling a cycle he built himself.
Albor assembles a cassette of gears for his racing handcycle. At 44, this bid for Paralympics gold might be his last. He hopes to one day coach Mexico's handcycling team.
Alejandro Albor starts a training ride on the American River bike trail aboard one of the handcycles he builds. A silver medalist in the 2004 Paralympics, he hopes to cap his career with a gold in Beijing.

The Citrus Heights house is cozy, but it's big enough to hold what Steve C. Luth thinks is the world's second-largest Johnny Mathis collection.
Johnny Mathis

A certified personal trainer, O'Rouke is owner of ProActive Personal Training and president of the Victory Velo Racing team, both in Auburn.

Four weeks ago, Anna delivered a healthy boy. As I entered the exam room, she had tears in her eyes and a look of despair.

Chubby cheeks and dimpled arms may be dismissed as baby fat in a toddler, but a study suggests that pediatricians need to raise concern about weight for tots as young as 2.

In November, Ken Cohen was invited to give two lectures on qigong, the ancient Chinese therapeutic movement discipline, at that hallowed hall of Western medicine – the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

My health plan denied Botox injections for me, which were recommended by my neurologist in order to relieve severe muscle spasticity caused by multiple sclerosis.

Spices give your recipes a flavor boost. Do they give your body a nutrition boost as well? Here's a quiz to find out how much you know about spices. Answer each of the following statements true or false.

I am leaving home for college soon. My parents will pay my tuition.

Sept. 8

When your heart's desire is to live the high life, all you need to do is hit the elevator button and zoom up – to the three floors that constitute the Penthouses at Capitol Park.
Clint Trocchio and his girlfriend, Kris Butterfield, get ready for a concert at Raley Field. They not only can walk to the venue, but they can stop along the way to grab a quick bite.
The Penthouses at Capitol Park, atop the Marriott Hotel, have stunning views of downtown – and beyond to the Sutter Buttes and Mount Diablo.
A Coast Guard C-130 pilot, Trocchio moved to Sacramento from Hawaii in 2005. To give an island flair to his penthouse, which he bought last November, he added, among other things, a hula-girl lamp and several other wooden sculptures.

Hank Toulson bought a couple of wooden French wine boxes at a yard sale because he thought they might come in handy someday. He set them aside until he could figure out what to do with them.
Hank Toulson of Rocklin builds birdhouses for tree swallows using discarded wine crates.
Hank Toulson mounts his birdhouses on 7-foot poles in his yard.
His raw material comes from used wine crates.

Country Gardens magazine discovered a gem of a cottage-style garden in Placerville, and named it the best cottage-style garden for 2008. Garden owner and creator Serena Stearns says she was "very honored and excited." The magazine is on newsstands.
Serena Sterns prunes plants in her Placerville garden, which Country Gardens magazine has named the best cottage-style garden for 2008.

New products are always showing up on the shelves of garden centers and hardware stores. But do they do the things they claim? And are they worth the money? This week, The Bee's Leigh Grogan evaluates a product and lets you know what she thinks.

1. Stack woodpiles at least 30 feet from any structure.

The 2009 Sacramento County Master Gardener calendar is sure make you a better gardener.

Vegetables: Bok choy, Chinese cabbage, mustard, radish, spinach.

Goodbye, summer