tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77947569898399222022024-03-06T00:32:45.828-05:00Seaside Book NookBook reviews, author guest posts and interviews. Features general fiction, chick lit, young adult, and children (3 - 8th grade) genre.Jilleenhayshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13696220821212959052noreply@blogger.comBlogger1049125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794756989839922202.post-47544074150473933742024-02-06T03:00:00.001-05:002024-02-06T03:00:00.159-05:00The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: x-small; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><div><span style="caret-color: rgb(35, 31, 32); color: #231f20; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;">Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div><div><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN2wwc6Xu219yMAJrJGpi4gdSyZV17FpSttL-PV0UQR5bi9UvcAmzWjHWOIfPM3mkNSaKqRzQUB4WEm9vc0l4P51NgsjhVxE6mzOBdfYhQGDYJqEegyqA_CHfzNUJGLuO5cPNNg7wsttKq24XMhuKX7eGt4kpeAqwZpVTrez8YTyZ5gblMxzjwvz0X5zyH/s522/briliant%20life.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="347" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN2wwc6Xu219yMAJrJGpi4gdSyZV17FpSttL-PV0UQR5bi9UvcAmzWjHWOIfPM3mkNSaKqRzQUB4WEm9vc0l4P51NgsjhVxE6mzOBdfYhQGDYJqEegyqA_CHfzNUJGLuO5cPNNg7wsttKq24XMhuKX7eGt4kpeAqwZpVTrez8YTyZ5gblMxzjwvz0X5zyH/s320/briliant%20life.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #231f20;"><br /></span></span></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8m8xvg3juh5dCW2d_c3KBjzorPKAu160J80yXErl89WPMhVy6C5fEH76xjxVWWeIT7cyckbGM79wnfGZSq2Zw3jpKMN7c5mU1maG2FriwcxXxFVBZIAXujJ4BsfdX03mPoEWWn2ozJmC38CdntzXIEsRAa2UGJpFg1Hn2Hp-GxULCOAGJBCa7CkNa8ZxA/s450/5Starfish.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8m8xvg3juh5dCW2d_c3KBjzorPKAu160J80yXErl89WPMhVy6C5fEH76xjxVWWeIT7cyckbGM79wnfGZSq2Zw3jpKMN7c5mU1maG2FriwcxXxFVBZIAXujJ4BsfdX03mPoEWWn2ozJmC38CdntzXIEsRAa2UGJpFg1Hn2Hp-GxULCOAGJBCa7CkNa8ZxA/s320/5Starfish.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Synopsis (from Amazon):</u></b> </span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic;">It's never too late to start living.</span></span><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Eudora Honeysett is done with this noisy, moronic world - all of it. She has witnessed the indignities and suffering of old age and has lived a full life. At 85, she isn’t going to leave things to chance. Her end will be on her terms. With one call to a clinic in Switzerland, a plan is set in motion. </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Then she meets 10-year-old Rose Trewidney, a whirling, pint-sized rainbow of sparkling cheer. All Eudora wants is to be left alone to set her affairs in order. Instead, she finds herself embarking on a series of adventures with the irrepressible Rose and their affable neighbor, the recently widowed Stanley - afternoon tea, shopping sprees, trips to the beach, birthday celebrations, pizza parties. </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">While the trio of unlikely BFFs grow closer and anxiously await the arrival of Rose’s new baby sister, Eudora is reminded of her own childhood - of losing her father during World War II and the devastating impact it had on her entire family. In reflecting on her past, Eudora realizes she must come to terms with what lies ahead. </span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But now that her joy for life has been rekindled, how can she possibly say goodbye? </span></span></p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700 !important;">"One adorably British odd couple ... Charming." (</span><span class="a-text-bold a-text-italic" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic !important; font-weight: 700 !important;">People</span><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700 !important;">)</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700 !important;">“An exquisitely poignant tale of life, friendship and facing death ... heart-breaking yet ultimately uplifting .. Everyone should read this book.” (Ruth Hogan, author of </span><span class="a-text-bold a-text-italic" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic !important; font-weight: 700 !important;">Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel</span><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700 !important;">)</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700 !important;">Infused with the emotional power of </span><span class="a-text-bold a-text-italic" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic !important; font-weight: 700 !important;">Me Before You</span><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700 !important;"> and the irresistible charm of </span><span class="a-text-bold a-text-italic" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic !important; font-weight: 700 !important;">Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine </span><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700 !important;">and </span><span class="a-text-bold a-text-italic" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic !important; font-weight: 700 !important;">Be Frank with Me</span><span class="a-text-bold" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700 !important;">, a moving and joyous novel about an elderly woman ready to embrace death and the little girl who reminds her what it means to live.</span></p></span></span><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" /></span></a></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u>One (or more) Sentence Summary:</u><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT! I fell in love with Rose and the impact she had on Eudora's life. A beautiful story of innocent children and those that have lost hope. The book reminded me of Fredrick Baackman's <i>Britt-Marie Was Here</i>, which I loved (this is meant to be a huge compliment to Annie Lyons).</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I couldn't put it down and want a sequel of Rose as young adult! I can't wait to read Annie Lyons' other novels. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Caution: reading <b><i>The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett</i></b> at the beach and wiping tears away can cause you to get sand and sunscreen in your eyes!<br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Annie Lyons has written several books since her first book was published in July 2013. <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Not Quite Perfect</em><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> reached number one in the Kindle bestsellers. Her latest book is The Air Raid Book Club, which is on my TBR list. Okay, all other books are now on my TBR list and I can't wait to read them.</span></span></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">Instagram: @annielyonsauthor</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">Twitter: @1AnnieLyons</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">Facebook: www.facebook.com/annielyonswriter</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">Website: www.annielyons.com</p></span><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-Life-Eudora-Honeysett-Novel/dp/0063026066/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1707072694&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Amazon </a></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794756989839922202.post-35174392910303438202024-02-04T13:22:00.000-05:002024-02-04T13:22:23.230-05:00Not Another Roman Holiday<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: x-small; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgblNR9WOcXVwQzW37fkBI2ijrjHBqDgiP4FU81n-JhJkC-pUXSkNe23dB3MGmXLwuH5-17XHaJ69-rYKVGssPhwuXTY0tUR11lgWM04M_o3L6eSQ3uCfyTkIDKO6y98qLFwAVmOjkmB8tJw6cZ5NJBI8y0ohczLMYlnOR_ufiSPi-5m905mJqqtbL1TanR/s274/Not%20Another%20Roman%20Holiday.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="184" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgblNR9WOcXVwQzW37fkBI2ijrjHBqDgiP4FU81n-JhJkC-pUXSkNe23dB3MGmXLwuH5-17XHaJ69-rYKVGssPhwuXTY0tUR11lgWM04M_o3L6eSQ3uCfyTkIDKO6y98qLFwAVmOjkmB8tJw6cZ5NJBI8y0ohczLMYlnOR_ufiSPi-5m905mJqqtbL1TanR/s1600/Not%20Another%20Roman%20Holiday.jpeg" width="184" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLHo_dFtma0_ZRSm9KYkCVVp-3D0i-KHpTPctQ2LRyZ0ovRh2lshSPnAG6P355ivvvZ5WyzQDsvksIlMyuV1D3u6TThL1aFf8uDWUUqiGqD2nyIg9GKHUOZZ2SliSZFUSbYq2IR-WBchmGvzTJuYNmY-zYrvB-I9CE7i_7nVvjmMqCw92cMjkunHXAHpg7/s450/5Starfish.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLHo_dFtma0_ZRSm9KYkCVVp-3D0i-KHpTPctQ2LRyZ0ovRh2lshSPnAG6P355ivvvZ5WyzQDsvksIlMyuV1D3u6TThL1aFf8uDWUUqiGqD2nyIg9GKHUOZZ2SliSZFUSbYq2IR-WBchmGvzTJuYNmY-zYrvB-I9CE7i_7nVvjmMqCw92cMjkunHXAHpg7/s320/5Starfish.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Synopsis (from Amazon):</u></b> </span></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">In the novella NOT ANOTHER ROMAN HOLIDAY, an American blogger meets a European Prince in Italy. She needs a story. He needs an escape from the paparazzi. Neither thought love would hit them in the eye like a grande pizza pie – but that's Rome for ya. (And, okay, it might also be </span><span class="a-text-italic" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic !important;">amore</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">.)</span><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />______<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />A modern, role-reversing twist on the classic film </span><span class="a-text-italic" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic !important;">Roman Holiday </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">by </span><span class="a-text-italic" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic !important;">New York Times & USA Today </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">bestselling author Marilyn Brant!</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">American entertainment blogger and aspiring poet, Jenna Bradley, is spending the summer in Rome, visiting her grandparents and working remotely for the online magazine/ezine WORLD VIBE. She's assigned to write a feature on the latest Goodwill Tour of an Eastern European royal – handsome and wealthy, perhaps, but aloof and surely dull. Definitely not her type.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The night before the big meet and greet, however, she comes face to face with an incredibly attractive man who surprises her and quickly wins her over with his wittiness, depth, and charm. He couldn't be more different from the royal stiff she's supposed to interview...or could he?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">On the eve of his 26th birthday, Prince Andrei of Saragovia has had a long day of official duties followed by a little too much Grappa and some unexpected paparazzi stalking him at his hotel. While making his escape, the Prince inadvertently crosses paths with a cute American named Jenna and her friends, and he finds himself caught up in an action-packed 36-hour spree through the Italian capital.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Adventurous, fun, and romantic, Andrei is given a birthday celebration he never would have imagined, and Jenna gets the scoop of a lifetime. But the clock is ticking... What if they could spend more than just a day and two nights together in Rome?</span></p><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" /></a></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><u style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One (or more) Sentence Summary:</u><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> I have always been a big fan of Marilyn Brant's books and Not Another Roman Holiday didn't let me down. I loved it! Great story, fast read, fun characters, rom-com, laugh out loud while reading, and royals! All of my favorite things. Not Another Roman Holiday is a MUST READ!</span><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;">Marilyn Brant is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of contemporary fiction. Her debut novel won RWA's prestigious Golden Heart Award® in 2007 and she was named the 2013 Author of the Year by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English. She wrote ACCORDING TO JANE, the story of a modern woman who receives dating advice from the spirit of Jane Austen, FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE, and A SUMMER IN EUROPE, all women's fiction releases from Kensington Books.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;">She's also a #1 Kindle & #1 Nook Bestseller and has written a series of fun and flirty contemporary romantic comedies, such as ON ANY GIVEN SUNDAE and PRIDE, PREJUDICE AND THE PERFECT MATCH, along with a bestselling coming-of-age romantic mystery (THE ROAD TO YOU), a sweet holiday romance (THE KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS), and the 7-book "Mirabelle Harbor" contemporary romance series. Look for her latest release, THE SECRET LIFE OF MAGGIE BLAKE, a light romantic suspense/fantasy/action & adventure tale, in May 2022!</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 14px; padding: 0px;">Marilyn lives in the northern Chicago suburbs with her family, analyzing novels for the storytelling website Save the Cat! and working on her own writing projects. When she isn't rereading Austen's books or enjoying the latest releases by her author friends, she's daydreaming plot ideas for her next novel, eating chocolate indiscriminately and hiding from the laundry.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: -4px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">Visit her website: www.marilynbrant.com</p></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Another-Roman-Holiday-Marilyn-Brant-ebook/dp/B0CMNP8T2V/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1807VIRWLFWVI&keywords=not+another+roman+holiday&qid=1707069768&sprefix=not+another+roman+holid%2Caps%2C394&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Amazon</a> </span></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794756989839922202.post-3598356695357465282023-09-24T04:00:00.001-04:002023-09-24T04:00:00.143-04:00Santa's Slip Up<p><br /></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: x-small; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><div><span style="caret-color: rgb(35, 31, 32); color: #231f20; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;">Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2b6n3lIlsMLhwCY0-vfBVw1V5qJAyjOuoK6FUCqfoXiXxrm45pyA4IqeK5Gf8IKOW3XaLGFELIcUEGZF9epphTDMn__lJhELRNMYXsgxNLgCehjojdTmAZ5p_3Y0-kV3TOYSdzoB2W-Ep76td0HD92MtwjuW_2N__yGQNS2WD3tPTntS4ghYYMpS2mnP7/s1080/Santa's%20Slip%20up%20Cover.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2b6n3lIlsMLhwCY0-vfBVw1V5qJAyjOuoK6FUCqfoXiXxrm45pyA4IqeK5Gf8IKOW3XaLGFELIcUEGZF9epphTDMn__lJhELRNMYXsgxNLgCehjojdTmAZ5p_3Y0-kV3TOYSdzoB2W-Ep76td0HD92MtwjuW_2N__yGQNS2WD3tPTntS4ghYYMpS2mnP7/s320/Santa's%20Slip%20up%20Cover.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMSR7yhwpQLsuJjJw_mvaVOHP9pF2kj8d4WzpJTdnkh1c8UCe34FRgud9nwIgxT7ofdubnY5MNZSAMus-THasJoBnFk9Nf-xzLkFCxmGSSUfWxLbHAa8JkQeRPSLYjvOpOCdF5jFgoRdxRUrsdVX_y7ZKTQK_xtBiCUQ3-7owlzf96tIB9ynUlonxOOYcw/s450/3Starfish.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMSR7yhwpQLsuJjJw_mvaVOHP9pF2kj8d4WzpJTdnkh1c8UCe34FRgud9nwIgxT7ofdubnY5MNZSAMus-THasJoBnFk9Nf-xzLkFCxmGSSUfWxLbHAa8JkQeRPSLYjvOpOCdF5jFgoRdxRUrsdVX_y7ZKTQK_xtBiCUQ3-7owlzf96tIB9ynUlonxOOYcw/s320/3Starfish.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22);"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c5d1139c-7fff-cc26-ceb4-9471096fba6d"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the night of Halloween. Spooks, spiders, and skeletons abound, the full moon glows – so who is cheering, “Ho, ho, ho!”? Apparently, Santa Claus has come to town, though it’s the wrong time of year! But what could be a bad situation, is wittingly handled with humor, and there’s a new winner at this year’s Halloween parade</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For fans of </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Room on the Broom</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publisher: Pen It Publishing</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISBN-10: 1639844635</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISBN-12: 978-1639844630</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Print Length: 38 pages</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj26UUlZQ-ws2rhr5yVVjZgXnfPqqfcba7xDoaQn2OYZUDkvD6EA4wlQVc9hsw8aX259ax86Qsx7xQva1HB_oCj3zT5jSEX1bkAWqgCQfGYJS2EWmJMXnWE7RmuEYgIAvAE7_-HJMvCdf0Sg3mJeU1BWWWGSSQRs6kIQ7RtpvWGp0AXjCKVgEekh0vOrhhO/s800/Santa's-Slip-Up-blog-tour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj26UUlZQ-ws2rhr5yVVjZgXnfPqqfcba7xDoaQn2OYZUDkvD6EA4wlQVc9hsw8aX259ax86Qsx7xQva1HB_oCj3zT5jSEX1bkAWqgCQfGYJS2EWmJMXnWE7RmuEYgIAvAE7_-HJMvCdf0Sg3mJeU1BWWWGSSQRs6kIQ7RtpvWGp0AXjCKVgEekh0vOrhhO/w538-h396/Santa's-Slip-Up-blog-tour.jpg" width="538" /></a></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-9911a44a-7fff-765e-cfa7-cf5b52cd7722"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Purchase a copy of </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Santa’s Slip Up</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Santas-Slip-Up-Raven-Howell/dp/1639844635/?tag=wowwomenonwri-20" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amazon</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/santa-s-slip-up-raven-howell/20253953?ean=9781639844630" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bookshop.org</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or </span><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/santas-slip-up-raven-howell/1143745046" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barnes and Noble</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You can also add this to your </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/188313400-santa-s-slip-up?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=RkBDPVbrZn&rank=1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">GoodReads reading list</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></span><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" /></span></a></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u>One (or more) Sentence Summary:</u><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> Really cute book that combines Halloween and Christmas. Since all the Christmas decorations are out in the stores starting in October, this is a perfect book combining the two in a silly kids' books. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I think kids will love it and is a perfect gift for their plastic pumpkin! It would make a great gift to a preschool - kindergarten teacher too!</span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlP1vbMM3AZNfo9HZeSSJglyno4_3-EfD0aWm29MZDF3MKbI36zHeXZZUQRLTwnwOw4cZhhZwaZR46AMQ4EuMnw8TndU7GH-829FBFoR2o5A8A4GvhY29yZ1_BXfVWD-9Sy75WWfP4qetFQrMqVOwpJv4TaDpS2TnBnDdUljXgKD8gE9b1JZXNICjCmmp/s2100/Raven%20Howell.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2100" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlP1vbMM3AZNfo9HZeSSJglyno4_3-EfD0aWm29MZDF3MKbI36zHeXZZUQRLTwnwOw4cZhhZwaZR46AMQ4EuMnw8TndU7GH-829FBFoR2o5A8A4GvhY29yZ1_BXfVWD-9Sy75WWfP4qetFQrMqVOwpJv4TaDpS2TnBnDdUljXgKD8gE9b1JZXNICjCmmp/s320/Raven%20Howell.JPG" width="229" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-f5893107-7fff-7269-4318-d26cb317a79a"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Raven Howell writes stories and poetry for children. Having published several award-winning picture books, she enjoys sharing her love of literature by visiting classrooms and libraries. Raven is Creative & Publishing Advisor for </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Clover Reader</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Poetry Director for </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Monster Magnificent</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and writes The Book Bug column for </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Story Monsters Ink</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> magazine. Her poems are found in children’s magazines such as </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ladybug</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spider</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Highlights for Children</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Humpty Dumpty</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Hello Magazine</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She’s a Collaborating Author for </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reading is Fundamental SoCal</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and writes storybooks for </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reading Gate</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can find her online at:</span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.ravenhowell.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.ravenhowell.com</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/atpearthkeeper" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://twitter.com/atpearthkeeper</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/atpearthkeeper/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.instagram.com/atpearthkeeper/</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; 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margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pickward/_saved/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.pinterest.com/pickward/_saved/</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/raven-howell-5a813015b/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.linkedin.com/in/raven-howell-5a813015b/</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; 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Prayer can be raw, honest, and messy, and it doesn’t require fancy words or insider language to be meaningful and restorative on a deep soul level.”</b></span></span><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The twenty-one devotions are divided into three sections—Life Is Beautiful, Life Is Hard, and God’s Got This—that each focus on different aspects of the spiritual journey with the accompanying appropriate Psalms. In addition to the guided prompts, each devotion also ends with a “Getting Real” section that invites readers to jot down what is beautiful about the day, what is hard, and where they need to see God most. <o:p></o:p></span></p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">This beautiful journal lays out simple, inviting prompts for readers who are longing to deepen their relationship with God through prayer but who might be struggling to find the words to accurately express how they’re feeling. Using the prayer language of the psalms as a starting point, <i>The Everyday Psalmist</i> provides an interactive, creative space for Christians to explore writing their own psalms and prayers as part of their daily spiritual practice while learning more about the biblical psalms—what they are, the different types, the origin, and how they are arranged. With quotes and reflections, this journal acts as writer’s guide that encourages reflection and, in the words of Eugene Peterson, helps get “everything out in the open before God.” <o:p></o:p></p></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"></div><div><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">With undated pages, an approachable layout, and calming images of nature, <i>The Everyday Psalmist</i> awakens gratitude and honesty, and most importantly, will enrichen spiritual lives in a personal, transformative way. <o:p></o:p></p><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_T9jZpNndJsv1oXM8EltYHiv6wHI3DQWbikyg3svVLbxBaTrVE49UFd8ikaEWIQlJOlrKqP0h9u3DOTWYVzvb82tt1dpAozTCQt3nFgR1o51HLD18Ft08RExuCa160q0cBnD0h72dVmSFG1zhjSpVWvYxjWwUP53QsmVMUs_pvKD7rkW2MEyxp1pELL_/s715/Pictures.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="715" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_T9jZpNndJsv1oXM8EltYHiv6wHI3DQWbikyg3svVLbxBaTrVE49UFd8ikaEWIQlJOlrKqP0h9u3DOTWYVzvb82tt1dpAozTCQt3nFgR1o51HLD18Ft08RExuCa160q0cBnD0h72dVmSFG1zhjSpVWvYxjWwUP53QsmVMUs_pvKD7rkW2MEyxp1pELL_/w384-h259/Pictures.jpg" width="384" /></a></div></span></div><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" /></a></span></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u>One (or more) Sentence Summary:</u><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> <b><i>The Everyday Psalmist</i></b> is a beautiful book that encourages you to connect with God through thoughtful prayer. I really liked the thought-provoking prompts. I read the section and questions and would think them over for a few days before journaling. I found I needed more time to really think about the prompts and what they meant to me. I found writing a psalm very difficult, but I believe it is because I have never done so and felt it had to be one certain way. The guide will walk you through how to write one. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The photos and saying thoughts in the journal are so beautiful. There are several I would like to frame, however, that would mean tearing my journal apart....which I could never do. My favorite part of the journal (and easiest for me) was the "Getting Real" sections. Three questions are asked:</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"> What's beautiful today?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"> What's hard right now?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"> Where do you need God most?</span></li></ul></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;">Even after completing <b><i>The Everyday Psalmist</i></b>, I can still answer those 3 questions in a daily journal.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><b><i>The Everyday Psalmist </i></b>would make a wonderful gift, but make sure you pick up a copy for yourself!</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 25px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT7Dv8po2bZJIoEaKxTgaVmst3qy_imntnecdGLjQ4izi23cgwEhlmCn_1PGsbSyfMT_dsnVrT0uJmPO1qp0sWgm4tYpNdu6HjpfQvVminEGv5rlbHWMpIiesla41SaJA0St9jbxKkQLvNxnq6uiwXcJLge9QYcuHwsFKjbailfVajc2jWYIT_EqUokRym/s715/Picture1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="715" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT7Dv8po2bZJIoEaKxTgaVmst3qy_imntnecdGLjQ4izi23cgwEhlmCn_1PGsbSyfMT_dsnVrT0uJmPO1qp0sWgm4tYpNdu6HjpfQvVminEGv5rlbHWMpIiesla41SaJA0St9jbxKkQLvNxnq6uiwXcJLge9QYcuHwsFKjbailfVajc2jWYIT_EqUokRym/w478-h323/Picture1.jpg" width="478" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #0f1111;">Ink & Willow</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #0f1111;"> products infuse contemplation and inspiration into the regular spiritual practice of creative-minded Christians, wherever they are in their faith journey. Each thoughtfully curated gift product is based in biblical truth and sparks a reminder of how God reveals beauty in the midst of our ordinary.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Psalmist-Guided-Journal-Getting/dp/059323362X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=BPK2XO8YPKPD&keywords=The+Everyday+Psalmist&qid=1693713183&sprefix=the+everyday+psalmist%2Caps%2C165&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Amazon </a></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div><div><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><br /></span></span></div></span></span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0VzqoNNkRwn9mYU76J3VGxaSV2stZigRjTn-FZt3T4QOH4dWUH_zDe8Il5ZvHPwqUbk8CjbjgoS_a3qk37T9ml40sCBZu8fV7yg0BLsH6txXCZthODvcpytjoVDCh1TjIOuNZTpij6Lnd2MORFjrsXMELWK2g1qnVJRvydF-gOHViSeoYgkPE8f5GPUhw/s2400/Kissing%20Kosher%20Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1594" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0VzqoNNkRwn9mYU76J3VGxaSV2stZigRjTn-FZt3T4QOH4dWUH_zDe8Il5ZvHPwqUbk8CjbjgoS_a3qk37T9ml40sCBZu8fV7yg0BLsH6txXCZthODvcpytjoVDCh1TjIOuNZTpij6Lnd2MORFjrsXMELWK2g1qnVJRvydF-gOHViSeoYgkPE8f5GPUhw/s320/Kissing%20Kosher%20Cover.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-7809a489-7fff-e305-19de-6ee9aa286d52" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Book Summary:</span></p><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"An unflinchingly honest romance." --</span><span style="color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus</span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, STARRED review</span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From the author of THE MATZAH BALL and MR. PERFECT ON PAPER comes this hilarious and emotional rivals-to-lovers romance.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Step 1: Get the secret recipe. Step 2: Don't fall in love...</span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital Cohen isn't wearing underpants--woefully, for unsexy reasons. Chronic pelvic pain has forced her to sideline her photography dreams and her love life. It's all she can do to manage her family's kosher bakery, Best Babka in Brooklyn, without collapsing.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She needs hired help.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And distractingly handsome Ethan Lippmann seems the perfect fit.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Except Ethan isn't there to work--he's undercover, at the behest of his ironfisted grandfather. Though Lippmann's is a household name when it comes to mass-produced kosher baked goods, they don't have the charm of Avital's bakery. Or her grandfather's world-famous pumpkin spice babka recipe.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As they bake side by side, Ethan soon finds himself more interested in Avital than in stealing family secrets, especially as he helps her find the chronic pain relief--and pleasure--she's been missing.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But perfecting the recipe for romance calls for leaving out the lies...even if coming clean means risking everything.</span></span><br /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-6c9fdc9c-7fff-770b-44e3-2e0cc7a8f27a"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">KISSING KOSHER</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author: Jean Meltzer</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISBN: 9780778334408</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: August 29, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publisher: MIRA Books</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">432 Pages</span></p><div><span><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAnK65NkPPRaTS9YtpMBwiLsYbYYPGa3PoAL9PPffGJtf25q9uKFvoq_p_TdOAMfkfQZIbW-onN0G2C9Xp_aQTGJ_VvP1icwx6k4vLdze1zCyi7mN4WGoYwfKj-geCvB7u4jOcKmQYgcoam5vOYNjTQ4HWT_Z_-BkbokROXL897GvzbfhyZNoEQd0YnIeX/s1600/Copy%20of%20684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1600" height="101" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAnK65NkPPRaTS9YtpMBwiLsYbYYPGa3PoAL9PPffGJtf25q9uKFvoq_p_TdOAMfkfQZIbW-onN0G2C9Xp_aQTGJ_VvP1icwx6k4vLdze1zCyi7mN4WGoYwfKj-geCvB7u4jOcKmQYgcoam5vOYNjTQ4HWT_Z_-BkbokROXL897GvzbfhyZNoEQd0YnIeX/w542-h101/Copy%20of%20684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" width="542" /></a></div><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buy Links: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/kissing-kosher-jean-meltzer/18816655?ean=9780778334408" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BookShop.org</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9780778386162_mr-perfect-on-paper.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harlequin </span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kissing-kosher-jean-meltzer/1142101636?ean=9780778334408" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barnes & Noble</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Kosher-Novel-Jean-Meltzer/dp/0778334406/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amazon</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Kissing-Kosher/Jean-Meltzer/9780778334408?id=8292090795540" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Books-A-Million</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://books.apple.com/au/audiobook/kissing-kosher/id1643573497" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: blue; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple</span></a></p></span></span><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI9D-1KIAWWkvTGA1MEoe1vAQIJbgDspa0uvwJhhqEHwyUXEj5SgZyHrkF--2YHic4yv3atVJKmR-mmQIMl-GYfUUX5DexmPIOGx7oMUVUz_iG_4KWyqlvpE3Dm7KrbqZjqmM3SOaKuTV5fGpC8gNRblCBSTHISXyCNRCNKui5Bmoj3YZJxQ1xYE1-st8k/s3072/JeanMeltzer%20-%20photo%20credit%20Lisa%20Damico.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="2048" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI9D-1KIAWWkvTGA1MEoe1vAQIJbgDspa0uvwJhhqEHwyUXEj5SgZyHrkF--2YHic4yv3atVJKmR-mmQIMl-GYfUUX5DexmPIOGx7oMUVUz_iG_4KWyqlvpE3Dm7KrbqZjqmM3SOaKuTV5fGpC8gNRblCBSTHISXyCNRCNKui5Bmoj3YZJxQ1xYE1-st8k/s320/JeanMeltzer%20-%20photo%20credit%20Lisa%20Damico.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-85f7b2c0-7fff-bce6-a001-7996102102a8" style="text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #21282d; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jean Meltzer</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #21282d; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> studied dramatic writing at NYU Tisch and has earned numerous awards for her work in television, including a daytime Emmy. She spent five years in rabbinical school before her chronic illness forced her to withdraw, and her father told her she should write a book—just not a Jewish one because no one reads those. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #21282d; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kissing Kosher </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #21282d; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is her third novel.</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="text-align: start;" /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-772a5cbf-7fff-0492-a158-ca9c0327b770" style="text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Links:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://jeanmeltzer.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jeanmeltzerauthor" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">@JeanMeltzerAuthor</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram: </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/jeanmeltzer/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">@JeanMeltzer</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20590894.Jean_Meltzer" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goodreads</span></a></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="text-align: start;" /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;">Excerpt:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c751ab4b-7fff-f646-bac3-df06a1cdf70b" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital Cohen wasn’t wearing underwear.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Standing behind the front counter of Best Babka in Brooklyn, holding their signature pink box in one hand and a pair of tongs in the other, she tried to ignore the pain radiating through her lower abdomen. Despite the fact there was a line spreading around the block, and Shabbat was less than four hours away, the middle-aged woman with streaks of purple in her hair was taking her sweet time.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’ve got three black-and-white biscotti,” Mrs. Purpleman said, speaking into her cell phone. “Four confetti rugelach, one challah… I know, I know, but Elissa is on one of her health kicks, again.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her name wasn’t Mrs. Purpleman. It was just one of many nicknames that Avital had created in order to remember customers. Mrs. Purpleman was, in fact, Mrs. Perlman, and Avital had come up with the name because she wore her hair styled into a bob and dyed a deep maroon. The effect of which always managed to look purple.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mrs. Purpleman had been a longtime customer of Best Babka in Brooklyn, arriving like clockwork every Friday morning to stock up on Shabbat goodies for her family.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“But if I buy two challahs,” Mrs. Purpleman sighed heavily into her cell, “she’ll say I’m not validating her feelings…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital glanced down the long line and wondered when Mrs. Purpleman—a professional go-getter when it came to lengthy and irrational amounts of indecision at the counter—would finally notice the eye rolls behind her and make a choice.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, how do you think she’ll feel about some apple cake macaroons?” Mrs. Purpleman asked into her phone.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital interrupted. “Those are really good.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She looked up. “Really?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital began loading three cookies into the box. “They’re always a huge seller on Fridays,” she said, putting a fourth into the box that was angling in the direction of Mrs. Purpleman. “Can I help you with anything else today?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Oh.” Mrs. Purpleman placed one finger on her chin. “Well, I guess not…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All at once, she felt bad for losing her patience.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Normally, Avital was good with the clientele. She could typically deal with indecisive customers and long lines and the total lack of smiles or gratitude that came with the Shabbat rush hour…but today, she was once again dealing with a flare up of her chronic-pain condition.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since being diagnosed with interstitial cystitis two years ago at the age of twenty-two, her life could be boiled down to one phrase. She came, she saw…she realized she needed to pee and quickly stopped whatever she was doing in order to find a bathroom.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Tell you what,” Avital said, grabbing two pink boxes tied up in white twine from a shelf behind her. “Why don’t I throw in two pumpkin-spiced babkas for free?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“For free?” Mrs. Purpleman asked, confused.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I know I’m rushing you here,” Avital said, bouncing up and down in her spot. “It’s just…it’s an emergency, Mrs. Perlman.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mrs. Purpleman finally twisted in her spot and noticed the line. “Oh, Avital—” she said, touching her heart, embarrassed “—I’m so sorry, I didn’t even realize!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s okay.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No, no…” She shook her head, apologizing profusely. “My husband always says, ‘Goldie—you take too much time with everything. Just make a decision!’ I don’t know why it’s always so hard for me. I just get nervous, you know, and Elissa is going through this whole phase, where everything I do is wrong…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I know, Mrs. Perlman,” Avital said, gently, before angling to move her along. “You have a good Shabbat, okay? I’ll see you next week.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Handing the box to Tootles at the front counter, Avital began calling out the order. “One pound marzipan,” she shouted over the hum of the crowds, “Three black-and-white biscotti, four confetti rugelachs, one challah, four apple cake macaroons.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What about the babkas?” Tootles called back.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“On the house!” Avital said, and swiftly began taking off her apron. Her break came just in time. Her twin brother, Josh, had just returned from his lunch break. “Baruch Hashem,” she said, taking off her apron and handing it to him.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“That good today, huh?” Josh asked, sympathetically.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You have no idea.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital escaped through the back door, sprinting down the hall toward her office, where she could enjoy the privileges of an attached private bathroom.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As she closed the door behind her, the vent fan and light turned on, buzzing into a familiar hum. Considering how much time she spent there, her mother had tried to spruce up the place—make it feel more homey and comfortable—with the addition of fancy pink soap and a small dish full of potpourri. Instead, all the floral scents really managed to do was seep into her frizzy hair and make her smell like cherry cough syrup.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sitting down on the toilet, Avital shut her eyes and tried to breathe though her pain. The burning, aching pressure increased. Her stomach cramped. Really what she needed to do was to take the day off. Lie in bed, with ice between her legs and a heating pad on top of her belly, drowning in rescues, the colloquial term for the over-the-counter medications and nontraditional remedies used when the pain was at its worse.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unfortunately, going home was not an option. Even though she had specifically returned to work at Best Babka in Brooklyn for the familial benefit of taking off as needed—a luxury not afforded to most anyone living with chronic pain and chronic illness—they were desperate. With its lines out the door and rapidly expanding social-media presence, the bakery needed support staff as much as it needed flour.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A small whine of pain escaped her lips as she finished her business. She waited for relief, for the feeling of better to return to her body…but her pain was relentless. That was the hardest part of it, really. The fact that it never stopped. The fact that it just went on, and on, sometimes shifting form but never being eradicated completely.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Returning to the front counter, she found both Tootles and Josh sweating bullets, working hard to fill orders. As general manager, Avital didn’t often work the front counter, but Sara, one of their bakers, had a custody hearing in Manhattan to attend that day.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital threw on an apron and scanned the line. Though it seemed impossible, the crowd cramming the front entrance had doubled in size during the three minutes she was stuck in the bathroom. Avital grabbed a pink box.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Next!” she called out.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A young woman, with a baby angled on the edge of her hip, stepped forward.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What can I get you?” Avital asked.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Two challahs,” Mother Russia said, the thick accent that had earned her the nickname from Avital, evident in her voice. “Six honey cookies, one black-and-white cheesecake, and a mandel brownie.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Upside: Mother Russia was always decisive. She came in, ordered quickly, and left. She also never smiled or said thank you, which, weirdly enough, actually felt like a gift. Avital didn’t have to fake wellness. She didn’t have to smile through her pain. She could be just like Mother Russia, totally unconcerned about American social norms.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Anything else?” Avital said.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No,” Mother Russia said, catching the teething giraffe just before it fell to the floor.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Great.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital handed off the box to Josh. She was just about to call out the order, when the sight of a young man—pushing his way through the crowd—caught her attention.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Holy pumpkin-spiced babka.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital faltered. The tongs dangled unused in her hands. Her lower lip parted from the top, jaw dropping. The long line dissipated into silence. There were twenty-five people waiting at the counter, but her eyes were transfixed on the stranger.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was exactly her type. Square shoulders. Tangled dark curls that lifted like swirls of icing off a perfectly molded face. The most gloriously prominent nose. He was a recipe of charm, all plated together by a navy-blue peacoat and gray fitted trousers. He made his way through the crowd, tapping old ladies on the shoulders to offer apologies as he squeezed past.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She couldn’t help but be curious. Avital knew most everyone who came into the shop on Friday. They were locals and diehards. People who—like her own family—never skipped a Shabbat.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then, Prince Charming cut the line.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her ire began to rise. There was nothing she hated more, on a busy Shabbat afternoon, than a person who cheated the system. Prince Charming suddenly morphed into Sir Cheat-a-Lot.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Excuse me,” Avital said, pointing her tongs at his head, “there’s a line.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sir Cheat-a-Lot smiled nervously. “Uh, no, I… I don’t think…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yeah,” Avital said, rolling her eyes. “I know. Your Shabbat dinner is very important. Far more important than the other three hundred people waiting before you.” She turned to Mrs. Grossman, waiting patiently with her pocketbook, directly behind him. “Can I help you today, Mrs. Grossman?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Oh yes,” the old woman said, leaning over the counter. “I’ll take four black-and-white cookies…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital grabbed a pink box. Sir Cheat-a-Lot decided to tempt fate, and her patience, on a high-pain day.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m sorry,” he said, his perfectly adorable cheeks turning red in the process. “I think you’re misunderstanding my intention here.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital didn’t have time for this. She glanced over to Rafi, a plump middle-aged Israeli they had hired for security, and waved him forward.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Rafi!” Avital shouted. “Can you please show our guest where the line begins?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Not a problem, Avi!” Rafi said and moved to escort the young trespasser outside.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital returned her attention to dear, sweet Mrs. Grossman. Rafi grabbed the young man by his arm. But Sir Cheat-a-Lot shrugged out of his grasp and reached into the backpack he was wearing, pulling out a piece of paper.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m here for the job interview!” he said, speaking quickly, waving it in her direction.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital stopped serving Mrs. Grossman. “What?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My name is Ethan Rosenberg,” he explained, nervously glancing towards Rafi. “I have an interview scheduled with the general manager here at two thirty. I believe her name is—” he glanced down at his sheet to double-check “—Avital Cohen. We confirmed via email on Monday.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to die of embarrassment.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She had completely forgotten.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then again, she had been up all night—every hour, on the hour—using the bathroom, only to return to bed, exhausted and miserable, with pelvic spasms that didn’t let her sleep. Was it any wonder she was forgetting job interviews with desperately needed help? Or that the hours were painfully and purposefully slipping by focused on other things?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital waved Rafi off. Then, handing Mrs. Grossman off to Josh, she directed her attention back to the handsome interloper. “Come with me,” she said, raising the entrance to the front counter.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She had to press her body all the way back to allow him to pass. The wool of the merino sweater he was wearing beneath his coat—his broad and apparently extremely fit chest—swiped against her own.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sorry,” she said, straightening her back. “It’s…tight.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No problem.” He grinned.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She blanked. She knew there were words in her vocabulary, and that she was supposed to be using them, but all she could focus on was his scent. He smelled incredible. Like the leaves of a freshly cut eucalyptus plant, woodsy and delectable.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was not like her to get so flustered around a man. She considered herself far too practical to be the type of woman who gave in to romantic whims. But he had this bold sort of confidence in the way he walked, and his sense of fashion was impeccable…and all that masculine energy, brushing up against her, reminded her that she hadn’t had sex in years.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It made her feel vulnerable. Exposed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital thought back to his résumé. “I’m sure you’re used to working in much bigger places.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Bigger isn’t necessarily better,” he said, as if anticipating her own misgivings. His voice was deep and dreamy. “There’s a lot that can be learned from working in more challenging spaces.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was saying all the right things.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was stoking her imagination, too.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avital needed to get a grip. Especially since her twin brother was side-eyeing them curiously from the counter.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She waved Ethan to follow, leading him down the hallway and back to her main office in order to begin his interview. Even though she knew—as sure as the burning pain radiating through her lower abdomen—that there was no way in olam haba she would ever hire him.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excerpted from </span><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/kissing-kosher-jean-meltzer/18816655?ean=9780778334408" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kissing Kosher</span></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Jean Meltzer © 2023 by Jean Meltzer, used with permission from MIRA Books/HarperCollins.</span></p></span></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;" /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1XKnKW6VgjPSXBHY6shWSNmiqxbolPD0wZ6xtAzVvSODqHVE6oO5nqCr_1yggreRIn2AiAtdD1ZNUuXu-XS-TKaHBgxmLwTjNQJQdE6zPRFwgiLIdLKELdNAfViFRwxmpVKJnWIS34cl4JcbTuEBhehOE6sgocKjlZxDSPJ22Rs0ZJtD7jTqAkl5kXrVj/s2400/Big%20Little%20Spells%20Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1594" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1XKnKW6VgjPSXBHY6shWSNmiqxbolPD0wZ6xtAzVvSODqHVE6oO5nqCr_1yggreRIn2AiAtdD1ZNUuXu-XS-TKaHBgxmLwTjNQJQdE6zPRFwgiLIdLKELdNAfViFRwxmpVKJnWIS34cl4JcbTuEBhehOE6sgocKjlZxDSPJ22Rs0ZJtD7jTqAkl5kXrVj/s320/Big%20Little%20Spells%20Cover.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><span>Book Summary</span>:</u></b> </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-b4c944da-7fff-0c34-d32b-cacf5b004bde"><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 9pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A smart, modern Rom-Com about a witch banished from her coven who seeks help from the only person who can prove she’s not a threat to witchkind—her annoyingly immortal childhood crush.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rebekah Wilde was eighteen when she left St. Cyprian, officially stripped of her magic and banished from her home. Ten years later she’s forced to return to face the Joywood Coven, who preside over not just her hometown, but the whole magical world.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Joywood are determined to prove Rebekah is a danger to witchkind, and she faces a death sentence if she can’t prove otherwise. Rebekah must seek help from the only one who knows how to stop the Joywood—the ruthless immortal Nicholas Frost. Years ago, he was her secret tutor in magic, and her secret, impossible crush. But the icy and frustratingly handsome immortal is as remote and arrogant as ever, and if he feels anything for Rebekah—or witchkind—it’s impossible to tell.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, she’s no longer a child…and this time what sparks between Nicholas and Rebekah is more than just </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">magic</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-612b4f0f-7fff-3c38-e5e7-1128d0bbde3c" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BIG LITTLE SPELLS</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author: </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hazel Beck</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISBN: </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9781525804724</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: August 29, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publisher: Graydon House</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">18.99 US | 23.99 CAN</span></p><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvJ6jQQVJ6IqxWVYJKj0RUkH0DoqOVMV9o5coi0XUGVIC5Jo2FUETLGW_Y4pkMqWzMGfSACZ_54Nn-lYZBNMmt8M9UnYMfo4B8kviUmU62592aVdr8i4i3o7jLG55DwM8eobLq73tQ3_nlJbKioJCELqdGSwx7ZPa2_rOrff9ThcaJQjK7c9EHapiE42HK/s1600/Copy%20of%20684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1600" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvJ6jQQVJ6IqxWVYJKj0RUkH0DoqOVMV9o5coi0XUGVIC5Jo2FUETLGW_Y4pkMqWzMGfSACZ_54Nn-lYZBNMmt8M9UnYMfo4B8kviUmU62592aVdr8i4i3o7jLG55DwM8eobLq73tQ3_nlJbKioJCELqdGSwx7ZPa2_rOrff9ThcaJQjK7c9EHapiE42HK/w605-h151/Copy%20of%20684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" width="605" /></a></div><br /></span></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buy Links: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/big-little-spells-hazel-beck/18772761?ean=9781525804724" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BookShop.org</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/big-little-spells-hazel-beck?variant=40990977523746" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harlequin</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/big-little-spells-hazel-beck/1142049188?ean=9781525804724" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barnes & Noble</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Big-Little-Spells/Hazel-Beck/9781525804724?id=8292090795540" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Books A Million</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Little-Spells-Witchlore-2/dp/1525804723/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=big+little+spells+hazel+beck&qid=1689689501&s=books&sprefix=big+little+spells%2Cstripbooks%2C166&sr=1-1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amazon</span></a></p><br /></span></span></span></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt9grcC5zax-aknvy159cHnyHNbCJZlm5CDAQxJ9zkOqjH4LX69Ag1SsZxAcZyEXhUTHbqOWcrzVa2dne_xT7Lu-8BxqoC8loRUT4V9RKS4CjKNSi3mrH8wrGStrgJkW7JCjehfJ3qOI9lzcD_WbQdkKx4P02DNWZkjdXpf8RSqJ803j5OlM2eCcmiLQZo/s1672/Hazel%20Beck%20Author%20Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1672" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt9grcC5zax-aknvy159cHnyHNbCJZlm5CDAQxJ9zkOqjH4LX69Ag1SsZxAcZyEXhUTHbqOWcrzVa2dne_xT7Lu-8BxqoC8loRUT4V9RKS4CjKNSi3mrH8wrGStrgJkW7JCjehfJ3qOI9lzcD_WbQdkKx4P02DNWZkjdXpf8RSqJ803j5OlM2eCcmiLQZo/s320/Hazel%20Beck%20Author%20Photo.jpg" width="306" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-59a3a592-7fff-8e57-6197-efb1b28d87d0" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">HAZEL BECK</span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the magical partnership of a river witch and an earth witch. Together, they have collected two husbands, three familiars, two children, five degrees, and written around 200 books. As one, their books will delight with breathtaking magic, emotional romance, and stories of witches you won’t soon forget. Find them at </span><a href="http://www.hazel-beck.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">www.Hazel-Beck.com</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-0a998e1d-7fff-b679-053e-0b2394f9e4a1" style="text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Links:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://hazel-beck.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://hazel-beck.com/</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/AuthorHazelBeck" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hazel Beck</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram: </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/hazelbeckauthor/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">@hazelbeckauthor</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goodreads: </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15846572.Hazel_Beck?from_search=true&from_srp=true" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hazel Beck</span></a></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="text-align: start;" /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;">Excerpt:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chapter One</span></span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-a86c2359-7fff-d5f9-de1e-5190d2fc9b43"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You don’t have to be an exiled witch under threat of the death penalty should you cast the faintest little spell to feel the magic in Sedona, Arizona.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it doesn’t hurt.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The full moon is shining, high and bright, making the red rocks glow outside my little bungalow. The air is soft and dry instead of swollen with Missouri’s trademark humidity, which I’m not sorry to leave behind.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If it was up to me, I would never have gone back to Missouri at all.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because one thing exile has taught me is that magic is as much a habit as anything else. Unnecessary at best. Dangerous at worst. An addiction, in other words.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These days I am all about recovery.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Except for tonight. Tonight, admittedly, has been a bit of a relapse.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I breathe out and try to blow away the past while I do.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m standing out in my little yard, my head tipped toward the Arizona sky and my shoes kicked off so I can feel the earth and as many vortexes as possible. Because I’m a hippie, I tell myself. Just a run-of-the-mill Sedona hippie. Hair down, feet bare, crystals hanging all around like every other New Ager around here.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not magic, just vibes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But before I manage to fully ground myself here, I feel something grab me, like a huge, magical hook around the center of me—but inside out. It’s dark. Hard. Kind of slimy, really—and it makes my stomach heave.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">particular </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">magical tug is a summons, yanking me out of the life I fought so hard to build, all on my own. Not for the first time.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not even for the first time </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tonight.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though this summons is harsher than the one before. Meaner.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know instantly it’s not </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">him.</span></p><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">yanked me back to St. Cyprian too, but it didn’t hurt when he did it. It’s not supposed to hurt at all, and he made it feel almost </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">good</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—</span></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zcxvMKdap3jfjJZkKksuuTmyZkCt2esOR8ksu-M0mqho2vsSDx2HDVvSCtCf770nRr96x3RQk5mScclS7OrwhtGeIoTwtFacsqyB3KXgQqXU9IYgxHQTLRI4ejGYwtTuUkDlWNDAPIz79Wc1KLUOWSJI4SG-PTN8_qQqYg9c6OrcGb2jYqrJWxb1Ua8G/s2400/9780778334071_REVISED_FC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1594" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zcxvMKdap3jfjJZkKksuuTmyZkCt2esOR8ksu-M0mqho2vsSDx2HDVvSCtCf770nRr96x3RQk5mScclS7OrwhtGeIoTwtFacsqyB3KXgQqXU9IYgxHQTLRI4ejGYwtTuUkDlWNDAPIz79Wc1KLUOWSJI4SG-PTN8_qQqYg9c6OrcGb2jYqrJWxb1Ua8G/s320/9780778334071_REVISED_FC.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-450b9d35-7fff-9548-568d-c551cd048d04"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For fans of </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A League of Their Own</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a debut historical novel that gives voice to the pioneering Black women of the of the Six Triple Eight Battalion who made history by sorting over one million pieces of mail overseas for the US Army.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> “What a beautifully imagined and important narrative. Sanders’ clear-eyed and powerful writing made this a hard one to stop reading!”</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">—Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-Winning Author</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"This is a novel to cherish and share. And this is a history to sing about and affirm -- to proclaim.”</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">— Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, New York Times Bestselling author of </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, an Oprah Book Club Novel</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Inspired by true events, Women of the Post brings to life the heroines who proudly served in the all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps in WWII, finding purpose in their mission and lifelong friendship.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of having to work at the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women’s houses for next to nothing. She dreams of a bigger life, but with her husband fighting overseas, it’s up to her and her mother to earn enough for food and rent. When she’s recruited to join the Women’s Army Corps—offering a steady paycheck and the chance to see the world—Judy jumps at the opportunity.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">During training, Judy becomes fast friends with the other women in her unit—Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce—who all come from different cities and circumstances. Under Second Officer Charity Adams's leadership, they receive orders to sort over one million pieces of mail in England, becoming the only unit of Black women to serve overseas during WWII.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The women work diligently, knowing that they're reuniting soldiers with their loved ones through their letters. However, their work becomes personal when Mary Alyce discovers a backlogged letter addressed to Judy. Told through the alternating perspectives of Judy, Charity and Mary Alyce, Women of the Post is an unforgettable story of perseverance, female friendship and self-discovery.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Women of the Post : A Novel </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Joshunda Sanders</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">On Sale Date: July 18, 2023</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">9780778334071</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Trade Paperback</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">$18.99 USD</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">368 pages</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; 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text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-0a5c31f8-7fff-a35d-055a-4528a83083d4" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joshunda Sanders </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is an award-winning author, journalist and speechwriter. A former Obama Administration political appointee, her fiction, essays and poetry have appeared in dozens of anthologies. She has been awarded residencies and fellowships at Hedgebrook, Lambda Literary, The Key West Literary Seminars and the Martha's Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Women of the Post </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is her first novel.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SOCIAL LINKS:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://joshundasanders.com/ " target="_blank">Author website</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://twitter.com/JoshundaSanders" target="_blank">Twitter</a></span></p><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Excerpt:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; text-align: center;">One</span></span></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Judy</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">From Judy to <i>The Crisis</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Thursday, 14 April 1944</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Dear Ms. Ella Baker and Marvel Cooke,</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>My name is Judy Washington, and I am one of the women you write about in your work on the Bronx Slave Market over on Simpson Street. My husband, Herbert, is serving in the war, so busy it has been months since I heard word from him. It is the fight of his life—of our lives—to defend our country and maybe it will show white people that we can also belong to and defend this place. We built it too, after all. It is as much our country to defend as anyone else’s.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">All I thought was really missing from your articles was a fix for us, us meaning Negro women. We are still in the shadow of the Great Depression now, but the war has made it so that some girls have been picked up by unions, in factories and such. Maybe you could ask the mayor or somebody to set us up with different work. Something that pays and helps our boys/men overseas, but doesn’t keep us sweating over pails of steaming laundry for thirty cents an hour or less. Seems like everyone but the Negro woman has found a way to contribute to the war and also put food on the table. It’s hard not to feel left behind or overlooked.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">Thank you for telling the truth about the lives we have to live now, even if it is hard to see. Eventually, I pray, we will have a different story to tell. My mother always says she brought us up here to lay our burdens down, not to pick up new ones. But somehow, even if we don’t go to war, we still have battles to fight just to live with a little dignity.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">I’ve gone on too long now. Thank you for your service.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">Respectfully,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">Judy Washington<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Since the men went to war, there was never enough of anything for Judy and her mother, Margaret, which is how they came to be free Negro women relegated to one of the dozens of so-called slave markets for domestic workers in New York City. For about two years now, her husband, Herbert, had been overseas. He was one half of a twin, her best friend from high school, and her first and only love, if you could call it that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Judy had moved with her parents from the overcrowded Harlem tenements to the South Bronx midway through her sophomore year of high school. She was an only child. Her father, James, doted on her in part because he and Margaret had tried and tried when they were back home in the South for a baby, but Judy was the only one who made it, stayed alive. He treasured her, called her a miracle. Margaret would cut her eyes at him, complain that he was making her soft.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The warmth Judy felt at home was in stark contrast to the way she felt at school, where she often sat alone during lunch. When they were called upon in classes to work in groups of two or three, she excused herself and asked for the wooden bathroom pass, so that she often worked alone instead of facing the humiliation of not being chosen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">She had not grown up with friends nor had Margaret, so it almost felt normal to live mostly inside herself this way. There were girls from the block who looked at her with what she read as pity. “Nice skirt,” one would say, almost reluctantly.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Thanks,” she’d say, a little shy to be noticed. “Mother made it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Small talk was more painful than silence. How had the other Negro girls managed to move with such ease here, after living almost exclusively with other Negroes down in Harlem? Someone up here was as likely to have a brogue accent as a Spanish one. She didn’t mind the mingling of the races, it was just new: a shock to the system, both in the streets she walked to go to school and to the market but also in the halls of Morris High School.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Judy had been eating an apple, her back pressed against the cafeteria wall when she saw Herbert. He was long faced with a square jaw and round, black W.E.B. Du Bois glasses.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“That’s all you’re having for lunch, it’s no wonder you’re so slim,” he said, like he was continuing a conversation they had been having for a while. Rich coming from him, with his lanky gait, his knobby knees pressing against his slacks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">A pile of assorted foods rose from his blue tray, tantalizing her. A sandwich thick with meat and cheese and lettuce, potato chips off to the side, a sweating bottle of Coke beside that. For years, they had all lived so lean that it had become a shock to suddenly see some people making up for lost time with their food. Judy finished chewing her apple and gathered her skirt closer to her. “You offering to share your lunch with me?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Herbert gave her a slight smile. “Surely you didn’t think all this was for me?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">They were fast friends after that. It was easy for her to make room for a man who looked at her without pity. There had always been room in her life for someone like him: one who saw, who comforted, who provided. Her father, James, grumbled disapproval when Herbert asked to court, but Herbert came with sunflowers and his father’s moonshine.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“What kind of man do you take me for?” James asked, eyeing Herbert’s neat, slim tie and sniffing sharply to inhale the obnoxious musk of too much aftershave.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“A man who wants his daughter to be loved completely,” Herbert said. “The way that I love her.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Their courting began. Judy had no other offers and didn’t want any. That they had James’s blessing before he died from a heart attack and just as they were getting ready to graduate from high school only softened the blow of his loss a little. As demure and to herself as she usually was, burying her father turned Judy more inward than Herbert expected. In his death, she seemed to retreat into herself the way that she had been when he approached her that lunch hour. To draw her out, to bring her back, he proposed marriage.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">She balked. “Can I belong to someone else?” Judy asked Margaret, telling her that Herbert asked for her hand. “I hardly feel like I belong to myself.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“This is what women do,” Margaret said immediately.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The ceremony was small, with a reception that hummed with nosy neighbors stopping over to bring slim envelopes of money to gift to the bride and her mother. The older Negro women in the neighborhood, who wore the same faded floral housedresses as Margaret except for today, when she put one of her two special dresses—a radiant sky blue that made her amber eyes look surrounded in gold light—visited her without much to say, just dollar bills folded in their pockets, slipped into her grateful hands. They were not exactly her friends; she worked too much to allow herself leisure. But some of them were widows, too. Like her, they had survived much to stand proudly on special days like this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">They settled into the plans they made for their life together. He joined the reserves and, in the meantime, became a Pullman porter. Judy began work as a seamstress at the local dry cleaner. Whatever money they didn’t have, they could make up with rent parties until the babies came.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Now all of that was on hold, her life suspended by the announcement at the movies that the US was now at war. The news was hard enough to process, but Herbert’s status in the reserves meant that this was his time to exit. She braced herself when he stood up to leave the theater and report for duty, kissing her goodbye with a rushed press of his mouth to her forehead.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Judy and Margaret had been left to fend for themselves. There had been some money from Herbert in the first year, but then his letters—and the money—slowed to a halt. Judy and Margaret received some relief from the city, but Judy thought it an ironic word to use, since a few dollars to stretch and apply to food and rent was not anything like a relief. It meant she was always on edge, doing what needed doing to keep them from freezing to death or joining the tent cities down along the river.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Her hours at the dry cleaner were cut, so she and Margaret reluctantly joined what an article in <i>The Crisis </i>described as the “paper bag brigade” at the Bronx Slave Market. The market was made up of Negro women, faces heavy for want of sleep. They made their way to the corners and storefronts before dawn, rain or shine, carrying thick brown paper bags filled with gloves, assorted used work clothes to change into, rolled over themselves and softened with age in their hands. A few of them were lucky enough to have a roll with butter, in the unlikely event of a lunch break.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Judy and Margaret stood for hours if the boxes or milk crates were occupied, while they waited for cars to approach. White women drivers looked them over and called out to their demands: wash my windows and linens and curtains. Clean my kitchen. A dollar for the day, maybe two, plus carfare.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The lists were always longer than the day. The rate was always offensively low. Margaret had been on the market for longer than Judy; she knew how to negotiate. Judy did not want to barter her time. She resented being an object for sale.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“You can’t start too low, even when you’re new,” Margaret warned Judy when her daughter joined her at Simpson Avenue and 170th Street. “Aim higher first. They’ll get you to some low amount anyhow. But it’s always going to be more than what you’re offered.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Everything about the Bronx Slave Market, this congregation of Negro women looking for low-paying cleaning work, was a futile negotiation. An open-air free-for-all, where white women in gleaming Buicks and Fords felt just fine offering pennies on the hour for several hours of hard labor. Sometimes the work was so much, the women ended up spending the night, only to wake up in the morning and be asked to do more work—this time for free.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Judy and Margaret could not afford to work for free. Six days a week, in biting winter cold that made their knees numb or sweltering heat rising from the pavement baking the arches of their feet, they wandered to the same spot. After these painful experiences, day after day all week, Judy and Margaret gathered at the kitchen table on Sundays after church to count up the change that could cover some of the gas and a little of the rent. It was due in two days, and they were two dollars short. Unless they could make a dollar each, they would not make rent.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Rent was sometimes hard to come up with, even when James was alive, but when he died, their income became even more unreliable. They didn’t even have money enough for a decent funeral. He was buried in a pine box in the Hart Island potter’s field. James was the only love of Margaret’s life, and still, when he was gone, all she said to Judy was, “There’s still so much to do.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Judy’s deepest wish for Margaret was for her to rest and enjoy a few small pleasures. What she overheard between her parents as a child were snippets and pieces of painful memories. Negroes lynched over rumors. Girls taken by men to do whatever they wanted. “We don’t need a lot,” she heard Margaret say once, “just enough to leave this place and start over.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Margaret’s family, like James’s, had only known the South. Some had survived the end of slavery by some miracle, but the Reconstruction era was a different kind of terror. Margaret was the eldest of five children, James was the middle child of eight. A younger sibling left for Harlem first, and sent letters glowing about how free she felt in the north. So, even once Margaret convinced James they needed to take Judy someplace like that, it felt to Judy that she always had her family in the South and the way they had to work to survive on her mind.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Judy fantasized about rest for herself and for her mother. How nice it would be to plan a day centered around tea, folding their own napkins, ironing a treasured store-bought dress for a night out. A day when she could stand up straight, like a flower basking in the sun, instead of hunched over work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Other people noticed that they worked harder and more than they should as women, as human beings. Judy thought Margaret maybe didn’t realize another way to be was possible. So she tried to talk about the Bronx Slave Market article in <i>The Crisis </i>with her mother. Margaret refused to read a word or even hear about it. “No need reading about my life in no papers,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Refusing to know how they were being exploited didn’t keep it from being a problem. But once Judy knew, she couldn’t keep herself from wanting more. Maybe that was why Margaret didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to want more than what was in front of her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Herbert’s companionship had fed her this kind of ambition and hope. His warm laughter, the way she could depend on him to talk her into hooky once in a while, to crash a rowdy rent party and dance until the sun came up, even if it got her grounded and lectured, was—especially when James died—the only escape hatch she could find from the box her mother was determined to fit her future inside. So, when Herbert surprised her at a little traveling show in Saint Mary’s Park, down on one knee with his grandmother’s plain wedding band, she only hesitated inside when she said yes. It wasn’t the time to try and explain that there was something in her yawning open, looking for something else, but maybe she could find that something with Herbert. Her mother told her to stop wasting her time dreaming and to settle down.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">At least marrying her high school buddy meant she could move on from under Margaret’s constant, disapproving gaze. They had been saving up for new digs when Herbert was drafted—but now that was all put on hold.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The dream had been delicious while it felt like it was coming true. Judy and Herbert were both outsiders, insiders within their universe of two. Herbert was the only rule follower in a bustling house full of lawbreaking men and boys; Judy, the only child of a shocked widow who found her purpose in bone-tiring work. Poverty pressed in on them from every corner of the Bronx, and neither Judy nor Herbert felt they belonged there. But they did belong to each other, and that wasn’t nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Excerpted from <i>Women of the Post</i> by Joshunda Sanders, Copyright © 2023 by Joshunda Sanders. Published by Park Row Books. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHMCIG7-OGrwYsJPApdKE0ex-aV_PxTXTi44ZjAerDyPWqzapNUTLmrNOpKjSdawZ4OpmFKSzbIAOuGd7J3hWqtLY_aqyvieBqwWIQadBS4xQiuze0QcjPAod0C2IPprjTT5JOkPBDMLQOpS68vYYS9T28xEK0TmaZaEPL0Uqb3ovqJmfudmQEKkFDMhg/s1600/image001-3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1059" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHMCIG7-OGrwYsJPApdKE0ex-aV_PxTXTi44ZjAerDyPWqzapNUTLmrNOpKjSdawZ4OpmFKSzbIAOuGd7J3hWqtLY_aqyvieBqwWIQadBS4xQiuze0QcjPAod0C2IPprjTT5JOkPBDMLQOpS68vYYS9T28xEK0TmaZaEPL0Uqb3ovqJmfudmQEKkFDMhg/s320/image001-3.png" width="212" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Real Housewives” meets “Billions” by way of Jackie Collins in this glamorous and dark women’s fiction about a woman who returns to her affluent hometown to unravel the secrets of her mother’s death and finds her own life in danger the closer she gets to the horrifying truth.</span></span></div><p class="yiv3314795151MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; outline: currentcolor !important; text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor !important; text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor !important; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b><u>THE STORY</u>: Kira's back in her affluent hometown for the first time in years and determined to unravel the secrets of her mother's death--hidden in the unpublished memoir she left behind--even if it kills her....</b></span></span></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor !important; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor !important; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #0f1111; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">After her troublemaker mother’s mysterious death, Kira fled her wealthy Texas town and never looked back. Now, decades later, Kira is invited to an old frenemy’s vow renewal celebration Though she is reluctant to go, there are things pulling her home. . . like chilled wine and days spent by the pool . . . like her sexy teenage crush, Jack. But more important are the urgent texts from her grandmother, who says she has something to give Kira. Something related to her mother’s death, something that make it look an awful lot like murder.</span></span></p><p class="yiv3314795151MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor !important; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br style="outline: currentcolor !important;" /><span style="background: white; color: #0f1111; outline: currentcolor !important;">When her grandmother gives Kira a memoir that her mother had been working on before she died, Kira is drawn into the past and all the sizzling secrets that come along with it. With few allies left in her gossipy country-club town, Kira turns to Jack for help. As she gets closer to what—and who—might have brought about her mother’s end, it becomes clear</span></span></p><p class="yiv3314795151MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor !important; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #0f1111; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">that someone wants the past to stay buried. </span></span><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"><u style="outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="color: black; outline: currentcolor !important;"><br style="outline: currentcolor !important;" /></span></u></b></p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u>Read My Review:</u> May's novel <a href="http://www.seasidebooknook.com/search?q=the+hunting+wives" target="_blank">My Summer Darlings</a>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I have read May's <i>The Hunting Wives</i> and loved it (review to come).</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white;">May has a gift for writing small-town scandal that shocks and thrills. Her flawed, nuanced characters shape </span><b style="outline: currentcolor !important;">A LIKEABLE WOMAN </b><span style="background-color: white;">into a juicy page-turner that also stays rooted in its eye-opening observation of what it costs to be a “likeable woman.” May is a wildly acclaimed author beloved by bestselling thriller writers like Andrea Bartz, Caroline Kepnes, Riley Sager, Chandler Baker, Simone St. James, A. J. Finn, Samantha Downing, Liv Constantine, and more. May’s last novel, </span><i style="outline: currentcolor !important;">The Hunting Wives</i><span style="background-color: white;">, received national media attention from places like E! Online, PopSugar, The Skimm, Parade, and Bustle, and starred reviews from </span><i style="outline: currentcolor !important;">Publishers Weekly </i><span style="background-color: white;">and</span><i style="outline: currentcolor !important;"> Library Journal</i><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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</style><form action="https://api.follow.it/subscription-form/L1FwSnRQa2hHN2hUTEtENW9ObFA5S1B0SUV5a1JuRFIySEJEeGphVW16VDloNDNBdTZUYTUzSzZTZ3AyY3lIMUZGOWtjRlVBeW5MSEJJWG9iOU5welpQK3FxT3BtaWlqbnY1WE1OWXpMbkZSWVp0a1BXdkVEU2hFMzc2a0p5ODZ8YmdnekJxalZEUDBlaFhIU0JOL29XYlVWOWUxM2kxV2tFQ1U3RStDenBPYz0=/8" method="post"><div class="form-preview" style="background-color: white; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative;"><div class="preview-heading"><h5 style="font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Get new posts by email:</h5></div><div class="preview-input-field"><input name="email" required="required" spellcheck="false" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; text-align: center;" type="email" /></div><div class="preview-submit-button"><button style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold;" type="submit">Subscribe</button></div></div></form><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794756989839922202.post-76254178460844432342023-07-11T03:00:00.001-04:002023-07-11T03:00:00.151-04:00I Wish We Weren't Related<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /><div><span style="caret-color: rgb(35, 31, 32); color: #231f20; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;">Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKpdDT3glPbSIGOFft7DYiQNzj8YBqX3ylRTBxi_bjsZ9bB6MlGdK0ddxFfaXwNlGzAUtJ_uo4hxZDeR7m7czjBmvEjYR1ZXvIJLekt4WQgOTP4AedMl_169T0h82GhvFgvMg3_5qgHPBtZoYn-TfHWACE4qVNPJdu7hQXrc6lc2QKHkI0J6xVWKC4iTiH/s279/I%20wish%20we%20were%20not%20related.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKpdDT3glPbSIGOFft7DYiQNzj8YBqX3ylRTBxi_bjsZ9bB6MlGdK0ddxFfaXwNlGzAUtJ_uo4hxZDeR7m7czjBmvEjYR1ZXvIJLekt4WQgOTP4AedMl_169T0h82GhvFgvMg3_5qgHPBtZoYn-TfHWACE4qVNPJdu7hQXrc6lc2QKHkI0J6xVWKC4iTiH/s1600/I%20wish%20we%20were%20not%20related.jpeg" width="181" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span></span><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;">After a shocking phone call from her mother, Reeva Mehta’s life starts to sound like the plot of a Bollywood drama: the father who she thought had died thirty years ago has been alive this whole time. Only now he actually </span><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"><i class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="outline: currentcolor !important;">is</i></span><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"> dead. And her mother has been lying to her about his whereabouts for most of her adult life. Worse? Her father’s dying wish was for Reeva and her sisters, Sita and Jaya, to attend his funeral prayers. Which means spending a fortnight together… at his house…surrounded by relatives they never knew existed…and each other. </span><p class="yiv2203924650MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: sans-serif; outline: currentcolor !important;"></span></p><p class="yiv2203924650MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"> </span></span></p><p class="yiv2203924650MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;">Reeva is less than thrilled to be passing two whole weeks with her sisters – especially after picture-perfect social media influencer Jaya stole the love of Reeva’s life and is currently dating him. And Sita, the successful, married mom of Reeva’s adorable twin nieces, took Jaya’s side. Reeva has enough going on right now. Her job as a divorce lawyer isn’t exactly a walk in the park, and she can’t decide if her new relationship is something that she wants to last. Oh, and stress-induced alopecia is causing her hair to fall out.</span><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: sans-serif; outline: currentcolor !important;"></span></p><p class="yiv2203924650MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"> </span></span></p><p class="yiv2203924650MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;">It’s the family reunion that Reeva never wanted… but as her relationships with her sisters have grown increasingly strained, her stressful job has resulted in her own health issues, and she’s struggling in the aftermath of a grueling breakup, maybe it’s exactly what she needs to set her life on a better path.</span></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span class="yiv5578288026ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;">Sanghani is a British Indian journalist whose fiction is funny, smart, relatable, and could not be more entertaining. In addition to being an author, Sanghani is also a </span><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;">body positive campaigner, and founded the #SideProfileSelfie movement to celebrate big noses</span><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"><b class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="outline: currentcolor !important;">. </b></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"><b class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="outline: currentcolor !important;"><br /></b></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"><b class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="outline: currentcolor !important;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; outline: currentcolor !important;"><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;">I WISH WE WEREN’T RELATED</span></b><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"> can be described as </span><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"><i class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="outline: currentcolor !important;">Bridget Jones’s Diary</i></span><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"> meets Netflix’s Never Have I Ever (if Devi were a few years older!). </span>I WISH WE WEREN’T RELATED</b></span><span class="yiv2203924650ContentPasted0" style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; outline: currentcolor !important;"> is her fourth novel.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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But hiding the photo of local GP Joe Harvey in her bag sets in motion a chain of events that will dramatically alter her life forever.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Driven by an unhealthy desire for a man she hardly knows, the mother of two begins to worm her way into Joe’s life, knowing it’s reckless but still unable to control herself. As her obsession intensifies, Katie’s world becomes increasingly stressful and she’s forced to cover her tracks by lying to everyone around her. Katie’s dancing with danger, and there will be consequences. And while she can’t live without him, Joe barely knows she exists . . . yet. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyuPTTis8raRALHdYfRiJ3xa2l4SlzdsuJ8JOiasvkdgQjkAf_6DRYi8WyOKeHJL2QEnYgXGMg-LnhDgCyDeNFNUHCksW89iSnfrpbil6Nsfl0wWDyCm_kyaIB8I5z42nwfMNyrD5W16_L68BoA-3cHL_Vv0SW8Ulfa_fGNPGSMcZoE94cwC2Gsg6E3xkp/s2214/The%20Bad%20Wife%20Full%20Tour%20Banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1239" data-original-width="2214" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyuPTTis8raRALHdYfRiJ3xa2l4SlzdsuJ8JOiasvkdgQjkAf_6DRYi8WyOKeHJL2QEnYgXGMg-LnhDgCyDeNFNUHCksW89iSnfrpbil6Nsfl0wWDyCm_kyaIB8I5z42nwfMNyrD5W16_L68BoA-3cHL_Vv0SW8Ulfa_fGNPGSMcZoE94cwC2Gsg6E3xkp/w449-h251/The%20Bad%20Wife%20Full%20Tour%20Banner.jpg" width="449" /></a></div><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://loom.ly/g0p0SUU" target="_blank">Purchase Link</a></span></b></p><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9zowSFE-tNfFn0iIFVKn1b-Ri2903TkAkKGwsP5YatzhaLdXmwJK1WJW4wyYvD6gvwuajh-rVHKcmq3MnGpTeRCoVdmJaS-WwS4HEJAUGVZourKtejCl_wk0ilp7eEUHtck9kGwOUZCBJzODjRZiYyd47CC7h5qZB--SpLteV92jvuqGgC3dCkf4w02-R/s640/The%20Bad%20Wife%20IMG_6323.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9zowSFE-tNfFn0iIFVKn1b-Ri2903TkAkKGwsP5YatzhaLdXmwJK1WJW4wyYvD6gvwuajh-rVHKcmq3MnGpTeRCoVdmJaS-WwS4HEJAUGVZourKtejCl_wk0ilp7eEUHtck9kGwOUZCBJzODjRZiYyd47CC7h5qZB--SpLteV92jvuqGgC3dCkf4w02-R/s320/The%20Bad%20Wife%20IMG_6323.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: start;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Sarah Edghill worked as a journalist for many years, before turning to fiction. She has been short-listed in several short story and novel competitions and lives in Gloucestershire with her husband, three (mostly grown-up) children and far too many animals. Her debut novel, <i>A Thousand Tiny Disappointments,</i> was published in September 2021 and her second novel, <i>His Other Woman,</i> followed in May 2022 and was a Kindle Best Seller.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="IT"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Social Media Links – <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="IT"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/SarahEdghillAuthor" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Facebook</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="IT"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/sarah.edghill/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Insta</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="IT"><a href="https://twitter.com/EdghillSarah" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Twitter</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sarahedghill.com" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Website</span></a></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhksmoT9j3fayEtuscVcY7NKnSFb1vD6iVjPgRAeQkfV6IhBo0RsYaPG2Ch2CGR7mdcAQQPRnVAgigTYCwnrWQU3l5tGqGgG5pvYwHb6ieTMq8446pxp8ym-_LxQbo82xfSgwuovpACQPM8bV7IlEYX5kMZidg4JT4rzxRQIV9bEiDV8HSNvUBmgr6d0XbX/s640/The%20Bad%20Wife%20Promo.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="640" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhksmoT9j3fayEtuscVcY7NKnSFb1vD6iVjPgRAeQkfV6IhBo0RsYaPG2Ch2CGR7mdcAQQPRnVAgigTYCwnrWQU3l5tGqGgG5pvYwHb6ieTMq8446pxp8ym-_LxQbo82xfSgwuovpACQPM8bV7IlEYX5kMZidg4JT4rzxRQIV9bEiDV8HSNvUBmgr6d0XbX/s320/The%20Bad%20Wife%20Promo.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Words from Sarah:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif; text-align: left;">My latest book,</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif; text-align: left;"> </span><i style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif; text-align: left;">The Bad Wife</i><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif; text-align: left;">, features a woman called Katie, who becomes obsessed by a stranger. She meets him when she’s at a low point in her life and, despite knowing nothing about him, falls in love. Unable to get this man, Joe, out of her head, she fantasizes about the two of them getting into a relationship, then begins to worm her way into his life – with devastating consequences for both of them.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;">Obsession isn’t a new subject, especially in thrillers, but <i>The Bad Wife </i>isn’t a thriller in the traditional sense. Katie is a normal mother of two, there’s nothing particularly unusual or weird about her family and the plot isn’t full of car chases, kidnaps, stabbings, skeletons in cupboards, or big reveals. However, there are secrets, and Katie’s actions have consequences; as she becomes increasingly obsessed, she starts to wreak havoc in her own life – and that of the man she barely knows. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;">Katie’s obsessive behavior can’t be justified, but the way she behaves (and at times she does behave very badly indeed) is driven by circumstances in her life: she is dealing with overwhelming grief for her dead mother, frustration at the behavior of her self-centered children and depression at being in a marriage where all the love seems to have melted away. She is also stuck in a dead-end job and – probably most relevant of all – she is in her early forties and heading towards the dreaded menopause. Nowadays we’re more aware than ever that the menopause can affect women’s mental and physical well-being – along with their behavior - in ways which can be disruptive and overpowering.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;">My starting point for this book was unrequited love: the idea of a woman falling head over heels for a stranger. Love is a powerful emotion – even when it’s one-sided – and I wanted to show how relatively easy it might be for a woman who is struggling with her own demons, to fall in love with someone to such an extent that, even though she knows little about them, she starts to wonder what her world would be like if they were part of it. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;">Having said that, love is no excuse for outlandish behavior, and I’m certainly not trying to defend what Katie did. But I hope I show in <i>The Bad Wife</i> that she’s a woman who’s feeling under fire from all sides – even the people who should love her and care about her the most, don’t appear to be looking out for her. So, take all those factors into consideration – grief, depression, hormones – and you’ve got a fairly volatile emotional cocktail waiting to explode on the page.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;">I can’t imagine actually having to live through this nightmare but, as an author, it’s fantastic material and I hope readers of <i>The Bad Wife</i> enjoy hearing Katie’s story as much as I enjoyed creating it. One of the best things about writing fiction is that you can create characters who display an endless range of emotions – happiness, misery, anger, kindness, hate, love, meanness, jealousy, and frustration. And all of these natural human responses can be used to cause drama and set up potential flashpoints and damaging situations. What every author hopes, is that the reader gets so wrapped up in what’s happening, that they can’t put the book down and are impelled to read one more chapter before turning off the light at night. Then just one more...<o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><div><br /></div></u><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-dkiVrFmTfZUYN5Q8ACZIYyPnTmN_KmCctUfDSR0O0zClltb7xRJ_K-79MhlhDty0F-Q63cQkCcHVl71A_pWSmYR-QYoYVQ0pBRDl5kP9KCIvUhY-ljXVjPzTKgSVXe_TafXliYbADahgTm0JmGDSaUy5Q8KXK9J3jm857ejM_KY3oIW_4qo86ePGbMeA/s2290/This%20Child%20Cover.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2290" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-dkiVrFmTfZUYN5Q8ACZIYyPnTmN_KmCctUfDSR0O0zClltb7xRJ_K-79MhlhDty0F-Q63cQkCcHVl71A_pWSmYR-QYoYVQ0pBRDl5kP9KCIvUhY-ljXVjPzTKgSVXe_TafXliYbADahgTm0JmGDSaUy5Q8KXK9J3jm857ejM_KY3oIW_4qo86ePGbMeA/s320/This%20Child%20Cover.jpeg" width="210" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-dkiVrFmTfZUYN5Q8ACZIYyPnTmN_KmCctUfDSR0O0zClltb7xRJ_K-79MhlhDty0F-Q63cQkCcHVl71A_pWSmYR-QYoYVQ0pBRDl5kP9KCIvUhY-ljXVjPzTKgSVXe_TafXliYbADahgTm0JmGDSaUy5Q8KXK9J3jm857ejM_KY3oIW_4qo86ePGbMeA/s2290/This%20Child%20Cover.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></b></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111;">When Stephanie is told she’s pregnant and that she is sick on the same day, she faces an impossible choice…</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">After trying for a baby for so long, finding out I was pregnant was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. But in the same breath as the news I had been waiting years to hear, the doctor told me I was seriously ill.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">If I carry my baby to term, I will almost certainly die.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">If I proceed with treatment, my baby will not live.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">My husband – the father of this child – is telling me to save myself. But with all the secrets I know he is keeping from me, I can’t trust him anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">What would you do?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">An emotional yet uplifting tear-jerker that will have you reaching for the tissues – perfect for fans of EMMA ROBINSON and JODI PICOULT.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYtKasJq5cramsI51raRijDK0kdD43JpZVXzxWV0SqP7pbEJvQFryaGRo3aw7s0w-juKaxXtROQwyMjsVbJAJ73-GiTsYDGdvI2c08kdpTxKiVpqxSBhyh01NNiFCeEyrHypXWHqRQnlqBPCv6tUkv9SsUj5sH3OXAVMvH-cZSGYcKiiiSNnMQk7AxV22/s2176/This%20Child%20of%20Mine%20Full%20Tour%20Banner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="2176" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYtKasJq5cramsI51raRijDK0kdD43JpZVXzxWV0SqP7pbEJvQFryaGRo3aw7s0w-juKaxXtROQwyMjsVbJAJ73-GiTsYDGdvI2c08kdpTxKiVpqxSBhyh01NNiFCeEyrHypXWHqRQnlqBPCv6tUkv9SsUj5sH3OXAVMvH-cZSGYcKiiiSNnMQk7AxV22/w458-h263/This%20Child%20of%20Mine%20Full%20Tour%20Banner.jpg" width="458" /></span></a></b></div><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;">Purchase Links<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="http://amzn.to/3KR3WB4" target="_blank">Amazon</a></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.biggreenbookshop.com/signed-copies/signed-this-child-of-mine-by-emma-claire-wilson/prod_1246.html" target="_blank">Signed copies on Big Green Books</a></span></b></div></b><p></p><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmRIUW2TcpDjSug-sJ8tF8kKkjCzp-V9q8XlKe5Yd0qu00q8EtSka6-xyHtr9PY9-LLhc_3YlOgXS9EWVLsXWgktsZUFsHESJ-cfSg0ulrhBoXjbTkCF1Th4TZEV0_n5LKWUNXd7obuncOp6MAcSDRJhOL3mkWh7skh8vECBZR0LjCyOCoDazkU_qoQjc6/s3309/This%20Child%20IMG_9621%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2205" data-original-width="3309" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmRIUW2TcpDjSug-sJ8tF8kKkjCzp-V9q8XlKe5Yd0qu00q8EtSka6-xyHtr9PY9-LLhc_3YlOgXS9EWVLsXWgktsZUFsHESJ-cfSg0ulrhBoXjbTkCF1Th4TZEV0_n5LKWUNXd7obuncOp6MAcSDRJhOL3mkWh7skh8vECBZR0LjCyOCoDazkU_qoQjc6/s320/This%20Child%20IMG_9621%201.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt; text-align: start;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">Emma-Claire Wilson is an author of emotional commercial and book club fiction. She writes ‘to make sense of the world’, and loves nothing more than tackling tough subjects and issues that affect her readers on a daily basis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt; text-align: start;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">When she is not writing fiction, she enjoys exercising her brain muscles with freelance copywriting, coaching other writers or writing articles for The Glass House Online Magazine.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt; text-align: start;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">Her debut, This Child of Mine, although not autobiographical, was based on personal experiences and resulted in a highly emotional piece of fiction that secured her representation with Kate Nash Literary Agency.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt; text-align: start;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;">After almost 20 years living on the continent, she returned to the UK with her husband, two daughters and rescue dog, Pip. Now, trying hard to acclimatise to the UK weather, you will mostly find her snuggled under a blanket; sometimes dreaming of her next holiday in the sun but mostly reading stories that affect her or writing books she hopes will affect others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: start;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: start;"></p><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="NL" style="font-family: verdana;">Social Media Links – </span></b></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><div style="text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" lang="NL"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="NL"><a href="https://linktr.ee/ecwilsonauthor" target="_blank">Linktree</a></span></b></div></span></b><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="NL"><a href="https://twitter.com/ECWilsonWriter" target="_blank">Twitter</a></span></b><b><span lang="NL"> @ECWilsonWriter</span></b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="NL"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/ecwilsonauthor/" target="_blank">Insta</a></span></b><b><span lang="NL"> @ecwilsonauthor</span></b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ECWilsonAuthor " target="_blank">Facebook</a></div></b><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="NL"><a href="http://emmaclairewilson.com" target="_blank">Website</a> </span></b></div></b></span><p></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;">Words from the Emma-Claire:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Setting as Character<br />Why Mother Nature Plays Her Own Part in This Child of Mine<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">By Emma-Claire Wilson<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">I am often asked ‘what is your writing process’, and generally, I say ‘I write what I see, smell, feel, taste and touch.’ It’s as simple and as complicated as that. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">You see, for me, not a single word of the novel is written into a manuscript until I can see the movie in my mind. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I wake up one day and it’s all there. I spend a lot of time staring at walls, or out to sea, or across fields at everything and nothing, while the story in my mind moves from scribbled sketches to fully formed movie scenes in my mind. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">I don’t really create the stories word by word as I write. Instead, I create the stories in my mind like moving images and the final part of the process is transferring those images from spinning around in my own head and placing them on the page in word form in an order than others can make sense of. That’s my process. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">When I explained this to a friend recently, she asked ‘do you write down all the details? As if you are living it?’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">Essentially, yes. In fact, I write everything I see, smell, taste, touch, hear… I write it all down. Every single last detail. I have no control over what makes it onto the page in the early stages, everything gets poured onto the page. Only in the edit do I decide how much detail needs to be stripped out. From details of the characters physical characteristics, ticks and physical attributes, but also the setting and world around them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">If someone was to open my novel at a random page and ask me to describe it, I could tell you the colour of the flowers on the outside of the house they are sitting in. That’s how real these books are to me. Until they are that real, I can’t get the story out. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">One of the most important aspects of this for me, is making sure the setting of the novel makes sense, and for This Child of Mine, the settings in the book are as important as the story itself. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">Set between the wild and unpredictable southern coast of England (Brighton) and the vast expanses of open space and rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">I had the idea for this particular novel while living in Denmark, the only part of the book I wrote at that time was the rough outline of what I thought it might be about, and the prologue, which was actually removed during the edit (and turned into the twist of the novel). It wasn’t until I was sat on the moors of Yorkshire, surrounded by scenery that it all clicked into place. I had never been to Yorkshire before, at least not <i>this</i>Yorkshire, but my soul knew this place. It felt at home, felt peace, and as soon as I rested my palms on the laptop, the story poured out. Stephanie and her story had lived in me for so long, but until I could place where the story needed to be set, it didn’t feel real. That day on the moors, brought the entire story to life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">For me, setting is just as important and plot and structure and my characters will never feel rounded until the setting is complete. So, for me, setting is vital – without it, everything falls apart.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">I grew up in Brighton, and loved nothing more than watching the ever changing seascapes as they mirrored my moods as a teenager. I would sit with angry angst filled tears on the benches on the promenade and watch the waves crash against the pebbles. The power and force of mother nature was always so present in my life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">When I tripped to Yorkshire on retreat with Rowan Coleman, the first chapters of this novel were written on the moors near Howarth. Again, I was struck by the feeling of mother nature surrounding me, covering me in a safe cloak as I poured my soul onto the pages. So for me, putting the raw and real power of mother nature into this novel was crucial. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">I wanted my readers to feel like they are watching as Stephanie navigates her pain. For me, it always felt like mother nature was a step ahead of her decisions, guiding her through and helping ease her pain. In the moments when she felt alone, mother nature was already waiting to comfort her. Making sure that those hills and rolling waves had their own moment to shine was so important for that reason. Mother Nature IS a character all by herself. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">Juxtaposing Stephanie’s life between the wild seas of the south coast and the vast Moors of Yorkshire made her feel real enough to touch for me. I could smell the salt in her hair and see the dirt from the moors on her running shoes. I sat for hours on the moors and by the sea and soaked up all the senses around me. I sat for hours and just let myself absorb it all, and then, I hope, I put it on the page so that each and everyone that reads my novel can truly feel, like they are sat right next to Stephanie as she navigates her journey. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB">This Child of Mine is an incredibly emotional novel, and as such, I really wanted to lean in on all the senses to try and evoke a sense of being there. From the sticky risotto on the kitchen stove, to the blanket of tears that surrounds Steph on the moors, for me, description and setting are vital, and part of what draws me into a novel, so I only hope that I have managed to achieve this in my own novel.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL24cnEUoW1Q28_emQV7GinMFoErAs19sAWQ82HUEE0UAl8hNr3MFuDyrMY8hxKC97tXR3fnwGfcM-QYzkDYkrnA6-Q409QPdHFZhBFlGTVaqIOxoBQA4OroysuwR_-KJH0gFZfiwGk5sf9j-I6YsjjjOygzYb3kFL8L4_ugiYMYp3Zwv8dKsGogdAPHZ5/s2400/Greatest%20Love%20Story%20Ever%20Told%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL24cnEUoW1Q28_emQV7GinMFoErAs19sAWQ82HUEE0UAl8hNr3MFuDyrMY8hxKC97tXR3fnwGfcM-QYzkDYkrnA6-Q409QPdHFZhBFlGTVaqIOxoBQA4OroysuwR_-KJH0gFZfiwGk5sf9j-I6YsjjjOygzYb3kFL8L4_ugiYMYp3Zwv8dKsGogdAPHZ5/s320/Greatest%20Love%20Story%20Ever%20Told%202.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiayQUmWnxe3Gu-oUBzg0EFIbDU4JX99TEd0pkPhE5wtwbPROPAkCLCz0h1_vdIZlx8LBmu2jwyXj5jCLaNuC7v4kdt6HtPgZQgZWljpfpq3hOnSZhROiMTMrSNnsa1yoeQlS3eEYm8U4TDOOZeAYdWzoQQAawb7yR5kHwqjTBmm4XlfAE3QTlP5Spravbm/s450/5Starfish.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiayQUmWnxe3Gu-oUBzg0EFIbDU4JX99TEd0pkPhE5wtwbPROPAkCLCz0h1_vdIZlx8LBmu2jwyXj5jCLaNuC7v4kdt6HtPgZQgZWljpfpq3hOnSZhROiMTMrSNnsa1yoeQlS3eEYm8U4TDOOZeAYdWzoQQAawb7yR5kHwqjTBmm4XlfAE3QTlP5Spravbm/s320/5Starfish.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;">YOU WILL CRY WHEN YOU READ THIS!</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><i>The funniest, happiest, saddest, happiest romantic comedy you will ever read. With a small twist!</i><br /><br />What’s the 'small' twist? You’ll have to read it to find out. But let’s just say, you’ve never read anything like this before.<br /><br />WARNING: Be prepared for many happy tears. And a lot of laughter.<br />READ THE REVIEWS to see why readers love this book.<br /><br />For fans of:<br />Jojo Moyes, Cecelia Ahern, Sophie Kinsella and Nick Spalding<br /><br />FROM THE 1 MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiATRETt609bcLoHEgBkePDG6_lyith_QyRLcZe-UXrz6vnquQtQ9Q_JsaVIYNHrcoXz04kYCQdfPxb8U0fAtIXsECr4TRQNa_p-U98CZNOwd7mGNFojLVukWk8Yvc0f1PLr0vICgjCxEVZ6AoutuqgQAmT1-l3XqR09gqJkCfleS8GQhraYTrMEGdqAoJJ/s2750/The%20Greatest%20Love%20Story%20Ever%20Told%20Full%20Tour%20Banner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="2750" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiATRETt609bcLoHEgBkePDG6_lyith_QyRLcZe-UXrz6vnquQtQ9Q_JsaVIYNHrcoXz04kYCQdfPxb8U0fAtIXsECr4TRQNa_p-U98CZNOwd7mGNFojLVukWk8Yvc0f1PLr0vICgjCxEVZ6AoutuqgQAmT1-l3XqR09gqJkCfleS8GQhraYTrMEGdqAoJJ/s320/The%20Greatest%20Love%20Story%20Ever%20Told%20Full%20Tour%20Banner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Purchase Links<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greatest-Love-Story-Ever-Told-ebook/dp/B0BYK97DDR" style="color: #954f72;"><b>https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greatest-Love-Story-Ever-Told-ebook/dp/B0BYK97DDR</b></a><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><b style="color: #954f72;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Love-Story-Ever-Told-ebook/dp/B0BYK97DDR" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Love-Story-Ever-Told-ebook/dp/B0BYK97DDR</a></b></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" style="font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs2bd_qifBViG8isUgdOk1m7AYLcAT47TMDPkQCcplPFHYNguRjY2HP08VIGhOso8WoU13d2_bY6-UGKSZ3Lg8dwO0H99R8oYjfpuxRuAhmV1i53fomCy5SqJwJmZWTwVFhkukUcFKVG/s1600/JilleenMyReview.png" /></a></p></span></span><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;"><u>Thoughts</u>: Absolutely LOVED this book. It is the BEST book I have read in 2023! <b><i>The Greatest Love Story Ever Told</i></b> is labeled as a romantic comedy....with a twist. I am not sure I would have labeled it a romantic comedy. Yes, it is about love and yes, there are so many funny parts....but the comedy isn't part of the romance. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;">I am not really sure where to begin. Callum is just so lovable and innocent. However, he learns the really hard lesson of life with his best friend, Angel Rain. He also changes the life of Michael Lamb, who is a very awkward but brilliant mathematician. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;">The characters, Callum's family, teachers, nurses, and Angel's family are all wonderful and make the story that much better. You can't help but fall in love with them all as they go through their journey together. They will make you laugh and cry and sometimes both at the same time. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;">I couldn't put the book down and I for sure didn't want it to end. I have told so many people about this wonderful and amazing book. I feel I can't do it justice when trying to explain why it is so wonderful. If you read, <b><i>The Greatest Love Story Ever Told</i></b>, you will understand what I mean. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">I hope Suzy writes more about Callum as I can't let him go from my heart. I want to read the Bad Mother's </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Diary Series and all of Suzy Quinn's other books. Netflix pick this author up and make a series, please!</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;">Buy <b><i>The Greatest Love Story Ever Told</i></b> today. You will not be sorry. Oh, you might to make sure you have some Kleenex on hand.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawSZ7kwFgufhgSaFgti3_vXPL_AcaRHwCcwBxpI9K7KUadYDV1pXHyUXZS_CASPnYaGJwph_fRfz33PbXbP7sYijWIpgwlo0c1r1OMbVYDy5JBXDqKeWwtbwKuzG54DcXIumRBOQ6upeKDDdci83j0Rs-uS01VKt-WX6aXbDbxT7Etwgs3DnWpWS7FqZQ/s3088/IMG-2983.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3088" data-original-width="2316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawSZ7kwFgufhgSaFgti3_vXPL_AcaRHwCcwBxpI9K7KUadYDV1pXHyUXZS_CASPnYaGJwph_fRfz33PbXbP7sYijWIpgwlo0c1r1OMbVYDy5JBXDqKeWwtbwKuzG54DcXIumRBOQ6upeKDDdci83j0Rs-uS01VKt-WX6aXbDbxT7Etwgs3DnWpWS7FqZQ/s320/IMG-2983.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt;">Suzy K Quinn writes edgy romantic comedy and has sold over 1 million books worldwide. She is a bestseller in the UK, US and Germany and has plans for total world domination with literary love bombs in the near future. So watch this space. Then go read one of her books.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt;">Suzy lives in Wivenhoe, Essex, with her husband Demi and two daughters. She is a twin, an incompetent parent of two and now fully decaffeinated. Her twin sister, Cate Quinn, is also a bestseller author.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 10.5pt; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt;">Suzy loves her readers and is ALWAYS happy to chat on social media. You can find her @suzykquinn on most social media channels. Throw her an emoji ball, she is friendly. xx</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Social Media Links – <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/suzykquinnbooks/" style="color: #954f72;"><b>https://www.facebook.com/suzykquinnbooks/</b></a><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://twitter.com/SuzyKQuinn" style="color: #954f72;"><b>https://twitter.com/SuzyKQuinn</b></a><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><b style="color: #954f72;"><a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@suzykquinn" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.tiktok.com/@suzykquinn</a></b></span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8z4-eQFjZlbQuDPHU1yJ53qCxzbC-Cxqtgbk3LHWXogy4TFh1D_13v1hESqfR6Coy0J3Cuygvnnsh3xUYTi6wzxtIPFxYTkffkVKW04N-LkXj9369meXtrJdxFJ1_0tcUezfUhzcnpNUogLh6Fpk1E1WhlQOaKUN4EWlqUmSk5MKwNLJKcYxyvnKod17/s2421/The%20Corner%20Shop%20in%20Cockleberry%20Bay%20FINAL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2421" data-original-width="1516" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8z4-eQFjZlbQuDPHU1yJ53qCxzbC-Cxqtgbk3LHWXogy4TFh1D_13v1hESqfR6Coy0J3Cuygvnnsh3xUYTi6wzxtIPFxYTkffkVKW04N-LkXj9369meXtrJdxFJ1_0tcUezfUhzcnpNUogLh6Fpk1E1WhlQOaKUN4EWlqUmSk5MKwNLJKcYxyvnKod17/s320/The%20Corner%20Shop%20in%20Cockleberry%20Bay%20FINAL.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Rosa Larkin is down on her luck in London, so when she inherits a near-derelict corner shop in a quaint Devon village, her first thought is to sell it for cash and sort out her life. But nothing is straightforward about this legacy. While the identity of her benefactor remains a mystery, he - or she - has left one important legal proviso: that the shop cannot be sold, only passed on to somebody who really deserves it.</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111;"><br /><span style="background: white;">Rosa makes up her mind to give it a go: to put everything she has into getting the shop up and running again in the small seaside community of Cockleberry Bay. But can she do it all on her own? And if not, who will help her succeed - and who among the following will work secretly to see her fail?</span><br /><br /><span style="background: white;">There is a handsome rugby player, a sexy plumber, a charlatan reporter and a selection of meddling locals. Add in a hit and run incident and the disappearance of a valuable engraved necklace – and what you get is a journey of self-discovery and unpredictable events.</span><br /><br /><span style="background: white;">With surprising and heartfelt results, Rosa, accompanied at all times by her little sausage dog Hot, will slowly unravel the shadowy secrets of the inheritance, and also bring her own, long-hidden heritage into the light</span></span><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_sa3p1G7zv9GyURoTxVOYpcFBGi7CQHYgdKgFqD6EKfZ1VZnp-rrNGwMn3M-nGIWXeV-PAnYeGFtQB9k_5Nz3zAvWmQEY9aby4FTIq2F1oVOxN4e0DR_T_Yrue-NL0AVjwjEhOQMZ_epUXmAxOUhIvHcbcE9AXw6TLluB3l-Wf39lFSWEkKXo_95fjZeR/s700/The%20Corner%20Shop%20in%20Cocklebrry%20Bay.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="700" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_sa3p1G7zv9GyURoTxVOYpcFBGi7CQHYgdKgFqD6EKfZ1VZnp-rrNGwMn3M-nGIWXeV-PAnYeGFtQB9k_5Nz3zAvWmQEY9aby4FTIq2F1oVOxN4e0DR_T_Yrue-NL0AVjwjEhOQMZ_epUXmAxOUhIvHcbcE9AXw6TLluB3l-Wf39lFSWEkKXo_95fjZeR/s320/The%20Corner%20Shop%20in%20Cocklebrry%20Bay.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: start;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Purchase Links<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: start;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corner-Shop-Cockleberry-Bay-uplifting-ebook/dp/B07B8KML35" style="color: #954f72;"><b>https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corner-Shop-Cockleberry-Bay-uplifting-ebook/dp/B07B8KML35</b></a></span><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: start;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Corner-Shop-Cockleberry-Bay-uplifting-ebook/dp/B07B8KML35" style="color: #954f72;"><b>https://www.amazon.com/Corner-Shop-Cockleberry-Bay-uplifting-ebook/dp/B07B8KML35</b></a></span><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p></span></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN1wuh8o5vT8QlxB7IONYjfNt5iL8fbyZi9s3ULZRNpsNDlKY1_SieN6b0LSaIoStH4LcnYX0AK-tQyG-wrtGAtWvC8ctvNK5K0pzCa_mSdKG-wA9Dxo_Dy-yEHhTxdTgXX7FSAR1AAQdYVRrbyvZSGFfAzG0wMVzKDKDC1xyXOdrnQsOvgGGZ298pUSAI/s529/60a4b9f1c085ba6a3968d0d8_LR__MLR7604.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="529" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN1wuh8o5vT8QlxB7IONYjfNt5iL8fbyZi9s3ULZRNpsNDlKY1_SieN6b0LSaIoStH4LcnYX0AK-tQyG-wrtGAtWvC8ctvNK5K0pzCa_mSdKG-wA9Dxo_Dy-yEHhTxdTgXX7FSAR1AAQdYVRrbyvZSGFfAzG0wMVzKDKDC1xyXOdrnQsOvgGGZ298pUSAI/s320/60a4b9f1c085ba6a3968d0d8_LR__MLR7604.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: start;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="background: white; color: #333333;">Nicola May is a rom-com superstar. She is the author of sixteen romantic comedies, all of which have appeared in the Kindle bestseller charts. <em>The Corner Shop in Cockleberry Bay</em> became the best-selling Kindle book in the UK, across all genres, in January 2019, and was Amazon’s third-bestselling novel in that year. It spawned three sequels, followed by the hit <em>Ferry Lane Market</em> trilogy.</span><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="IT">Social Media Links – <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.nicolamay.com/" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank"><i><span lang="IT">www.nicolamay.com</span></i></a></span><i><span lang="IT"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.nicolamay.com/" style="color: #954f72;"><b>www.nicolamay.com</b></a></span><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NicolaMayAuthor" style="color: #954f72;">Nicola May - Home | Facebook</a></span><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693334px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><b style="color: #954f72;"><span lang="IT"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/author_nicola/" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.instagram.com/author_nicola/</a></span></b></span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGqpYKGzIDNU7RQnAmnGPQD6_bLmYzp06nHcc7WgrCfVzqhvVbCJ5B4tapLGlke19eJJbgXlo5Wk1LOGmeZbQr_dOIpvoqN_Tx5mOI4wzTM8Gk1zD4ceWWUTY48bkDYFn6ji9wCt-6SZtofAE510_4Y-AoFy2wNIvvC0ZDFGoMqzKLde4IgrKFwZ2n27qd/s3700/The%20Housekeepers%20Cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3700" data-original-width="2434" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGqpYKGzIDNU7RQnAmnGPQD6_bLmYzp06nHcc7WgrCfVzqhvVbCJ5B4tapLGlke19eJJbgXlo5Wk1LOGmeZbQr_dOIpvoqN_Tx5mOI4wzTM8Gk1zD4ceWWUTY48bkDYFn6ji9wCt-6SZtofAE510_4Y-AoFy2wNIvvC0ZDFGoMqzKLde4IgrKFwZ2n27qd/s320/The%20Housekeepers%20Cover.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQTWkkWVnnZMA-3M5vC3d1Wq6oLyyda3RLfVKS42My6t3RbzzCbjl-Wei6sVVDy7fk59efLhfjA1EzqsyPyfUCSNhpYK9yb6hglivgBAVVKRNj_zpEKlk6EWVje1DErjHDpUju3YvESKL10PXBzz0yrisgUnuYDjHEauAsLMzliiUqt9RfdIjEhDHBaA7V/s450/Sounds%20Good%20To%20Read.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQTWkkWVnnZMA-3M5vC3d1Wq6oLyyda3RLfVKS42My6t3RbzzCbjl-Wei6sVVDy7fk59efLhfjA1EzqsyPyfUCSNhpYK9yb6hglivgBAVVKRNj_zpEKlk6EWVje1DErjHDpUju3YvESKL10PXBzz0yrisgUnuYDjHEauAsLMzliiUqt9RfdIjEhDHBaA7V/s320/Sounds%20Good%20To%20Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-2132447f-7fff-bd82-4ca3-5dab025ebe49"><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 9pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The night of London's grandest ball, a bold group of women downstairs launch a daring revenge heist against Mayfair society in this dazzling historical novel about power, gender, and class</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mrs. King is no ordinary housekeeper. Born into a world of con artists and thieves, she’s made herself respectable, running the grandest home in Mayfair. The place is packed with treasures, a glittering symbol of wealth and power, but dark secrets lurk in the shadows.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Mrs. King is suddenly dismissed from her position, she recruits an eclectic group of women to join her in revenge: A black market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs. King’s predecessor, with her own desire for vengeance.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their plan? On the night of the house’s highly anticipated costume ball—set to be the most illustrious of the year—they will rob it of its every possession, right under the noses of the distinguished guests and their elusive heiress host. But there’s one thing Mrs. King wants even more than money: the truth. And she’ll run any risk to get it…</span></p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After all, one should </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">never </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">underestimate the women downstairs.</span></span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-6c2b5a67-7fff-2440-bbd7-7b6a2950fc8a" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">THE HOUSEKEEPERS</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author: Alex Hay</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISBN: </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9781525805004</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: July 4, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publisher: Graydon House</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$30.00 US | $37.00 CAN</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo68sF6uEPsFa9jYpIVg9ReFPGH5Q1OjugoV-wZXXXHgI7sP6MR2jI_vPXnlzx73s3Ylsg1EIOYyKCl39FoSKuUoqN9RV-gGbxAdPcSws-tqjR3i-JxTPquxao0OP-h3s-fahpXeUhe7EisX6Pz10k8Y6lZkOoMogBcgfrm47kMm83Zqil8ll1IKRVK0pV/s1600/684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1600" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo68sF6uEPsFa9jYpIVg9ReFPGH5Q1OjugoV-wZXXXHgI7sP6MR2jI_vPXnlzx73s3Ylsg1EIOYyKCl39FoSKuUoqN9RV-gGbxAdPcSws-tqjR3i-JxTPquxao0OP-h3s-fahpXeUhe7EisX6Pz10k8Y6lZkOoMogBcgfrm47kMm83Zqil8ll1IKRVK0pV/w512-h128/684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Buy Links: </span></div></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-housekeepers-alex-hay/18794135?ean=9781525805004" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BookShop.org</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-housekeepers-alex-hay?variant=40912960946210" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harlequin</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-housekeepers-alex-hay/1142080806?ean=9781525805004" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barnes & Noble</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Housekeepers/Alex-Hay/9781525805004?id=8292090795540" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Books A Million</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Housekeepers-Novel-Alex-Hay/dp/1525805002/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+housekeepers+alex+hay&qid=1686235709&s=books&sprefix=the+housekeepers+alex%2Cstripbooks%2C122&sr=1-1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amazon</span></a></p></span></span></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-4201abc0-7fff-7295-c44d-6c095c9a3f18" style="text-align: start;"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: medium;"><colgroup><col width="624"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 27pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 2pt; margin-top: 2pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ALEX HAY</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> grew up in the United Kingdom in Cambridge and Cardiff, and has been writing as long as he can remember. He studied history at the University of York, and wrote his dissertation on female power at royal courts, combing the archives for every scrap of drama and skulduggery he could find. He has worked in magazine publishing and the charity sector and lives with his husband in London. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Housekeepers</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is his debut novel and won the Caledonia Novel Award.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 2pt; margin-top: 2pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Links:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://alexhaybooks.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/AlexHayBooks" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/alexhaybooks/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1556322.Alex_Hay" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goodreads</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 2pt; margin-top: 2pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-5d78edf3-7fff-a3fa-8fe2-2b23e35f1c70" style="white-space: normal;"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="white-space: normal;" /></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Excerpt:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">Friday June 2, 1905Park Lane, London</span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-d5a7a997-7fff-6997-8955-d36ee6accf28"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mrs. King laid out all the knives on the kitchen table. She didn’t do it to frighten Mr. Shepherd, although she knew he would be frightened, but just to make the point. She kept good knives. She took excellent care of them. This was her kitchen.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They had scrubbed the room to within an inch of its life, as if to prevent contamination. The tabletop was still damp. She could feel the house straining, a mountain of marble and iron and glass, pipes shuddering overhead.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She reckoned she had twenty minutes until they threw her out. Madam was awake and on the prowl, up in the vast ivory stillness of the bedroom floor, and they were already late with breakfast. It was important that Mrs. King didn’t waste time. Or endanger anyone else. She didn’t care what they did to her—she was past caring about that—but troubles had a way of multiplying, sending out tendrils, catching other people. She moved fast, going from drawer to drawer, checking, rummaging. She was looking for a wrinkle in things, a missing piece, something out of place. But everything was in perfect order.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Too perfect, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she thought, skin prickling.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A shadow fell across the wall.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’ll need your keys, please, Mrs. King.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She could smell Mr. Shepherd standing behind her. It was the odor that came off his skin, the fried-up scent of grease and gentleman’s musk.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Breathe, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she told herself. She turned to face him.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He made an excellent butler. But he’d have done even better as a priest. He had that air about him, so tremendously pious. He stared at her, feasting his eyes on her, loving every minute of this.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Good morning, Mr. Shepherd,” she said, voice smooth, same as every morning.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mrs. King’s rule was: choose your first move wisely, and you could steer things any way you liked. Choose it badly, and you’d get boxed into a corner, pummeled to pulp. Mr. Shepherd pursed his lips. He had a strange mouth, a nasty little rosebud.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Keys,” he said, holding out his hand.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Straight to business, then. She circled him, making her approach. She wanted to capture a picture of his face in her mind. It would be very helpful later, once things were properly underway. It would give her all the encouragement she needed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m still doing my rounds, Mr. Shepherd,” she said.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He took a tiny step back, to preserve the distance between them. “No need for that now, Mrs. King,” he said, eyeing the door.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The other servants were eavesdropping in the kitchen passage. She could feel them, folded just out of sight, contained in the shadows. She placed them like chess pieces in her mind. The chauffeur and the groomsman in the yard, the housemaids on the back stairs. Cook in the pantry, entirely agitated, twisting her handkerchief into indignant knots. William, sequestered in Mr. Shepherd’s office, under close guard. Alice Parker upstairs, keeping well out of trouble. Each of them watching the clock. The entire house was waiting, motion suspended.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I never leave my work half-finished, Mr. Shepherd,” she said as she slid around him. “You know that.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And she made for the door.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She saw figures scattering, ducking into pantries and offices. Her boots echoed hard on the flagstones. She felt the cold, damp breeze coming down from the back stairs and wondered, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Will I miss it? </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The chill. The unforgiving scent of carbolic on the air. It wasn’t nice, not at all, but it was familiar. It was funny how you got used to things after so much time. Frightening, even.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mr. Shepherd followed her. He was like an eel, heavy and vicious, and he moved fast when he wanted to.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Mrs. King,” he called, “we saw you in the gentlemen’s quarters last night.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I know,” said Mrs. King over her shoulder.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A steep staircase ran from the kitchen passage up to the front hall. She kept her eyes fixed on the green baize door at the top. It was a partition between worlds. On the other side the air thinned and the light became frosted around the edges. “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">go up there,” called Shepherd.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mrs. King didn’t care for this. Being ordered about by Shepherd made the inside of her nose itch. “I’ve things to check,” she said.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He continued to follow, sending a tremor through the staircase.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Come on, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thought Mrs. King, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">chase me.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You stay right here,” he said, reaching to pull her back.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She stopped on the staircase. She wouldn’t run from Shepherd.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He got her by the wrist, his stubby fingers pressing into her veins. His breath smelled stale, but she didn’t recoil. She did the thing he hated most. Looked him straight in the eye.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He said, “What were you </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">doing </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">last night, Mrs. King?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shepherd had begun balding over the years, and all he had left were scrubby little hairs dotted right across his brow. Yet still he slicked them with oil. No doubt he waxed them every morning, one by one.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Perhaps I was sleepwalking.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Perhaps?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes, perhaps.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mr. Shepherd loosened his grip slightly. She saw him calculating. “Well. That might change things. I could explain that to Madam.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“But, then again,” she said, “perhaps I was wide-awake.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mr. Shepherd pressed her wrist to the banister. “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Keys</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Mrs. King.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She peered up at the green baize door. The house loomed over her, vast and unreachable. The answer she needed was up there. She knew it. Hidden, or sliced into bits, but </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">there</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Somewhere. Waiting to be found.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll just have to come back and get it, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she thought.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">She took him to the housekeeper’s room, her room, and he stood guard in the doorway, blocking the light. Already it seemed to belong to her past. It wasn’t cozy, just cramped. On the table was the master’s present to her. Four weeks before, she’d marked her birthday, her neat and tidy thirty-fifth. The master had given her a prayer book. He gave them all prayer books, gilt edging, satin ribbons.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She held her head up as she handed Mr. Shepherd the keys.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Any others?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She shook her head.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We’ll see to your personal effects. You can come and collect them in…” He considered this. “In due course.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mrs. King shrugged. They could inspect her bedroom and sniff the sheets and lick the washbasin all they liked. Even give away her uniforms, if it pleased them. Serge dresses, plain ribbons, tight collars. You could construct any sort of person with those. “Best to choose a new name,” they’d told her when she’d first arrived, and she chose King. They frowned, not liking it—but she held firm: she chose it because it made her feel strong, unassailable. The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mrs. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">came later, when she made housekeeper. There was no Mr. King, of course.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She kept her navy coat and her hatpins, and everything else she folded away into her black leather Gladstone. There was only one more thing she needed to remove. Pulling open a drawer in the bureau, she rummaged for a pack of papers.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She threw them on the fire. One neat move.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mr. Shepherd took a step. “What are those?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The menus,” said Mrs. King, all the muscles in her chest tight.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The packet was held together with a ribbon, and she watched it darken on the fire. Red turning brown, then black.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The what?” His eyes hurried around the room, disturbed, as if he were looking for things he’d missed, secrets stuffed and hidden in the walls.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“For Miss de Vries’s ball,” she said.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mr. Shepherd stared at her. “Madam won’t like it that you did that.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’ve settled all the arrangements,” Mrs. King said with a cool smile. “She can take it from here.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She studied the ribbon on the grate. It was satin no longer, simply earth and ash. How quickly it changed, dematerialized. How completely it transformed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shepherd marched her through the servants’ hall to the mews yard, but he didn’t touch her again. They passed the portrait of the master hanging above the long table. The frame had been draped with black cloth. She wondered when Shepherd would replace the portrait, now that the funeral had passed, now he’d been buried. Would he put up one of Madam instead, something in soft oils and lavender? It would give everyone the willies if he did. That girl’s eyes were like pincers. She guessed Shepherd would delay as long as he could. He’d be mourning his master longer than anyone.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope you’re watching from heaven, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she said inwardly, looking at the portrait. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or wherever you’ve landed. I hope you see it all play out. I hope they pin your eyes open so you have to watch what I do to this house.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">house</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She’d admired it, once. It was bigger than any other on Park Lane. A sprawling mass of pillars and bays, seven floors high from cellars to attics. Newly built, all diamond money, glinting white. It obliterated the light, shriveled everything around it. The neighbors hated it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Had any house in London ever been decorated in such sumptuous and stupendous style? Miles of ice-cold marble and gleaming parquet. Walls trimmed with French silks and rococo paneling and columns. Electricity everywhere, voltage throbbing through the walls, electroliers as big as windmills. Enormous gas fires. Acres of glass, all smelling wildly of vinegar.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And everywhere, in every room, from floor to ceiling, such </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">treasures</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: stupendous Van Dycks, giant crystal bowls stuffed with carnations. Objets d’art in gold and silver and jade, cherubs with rubies for eyes and emeralds for toenails. The zebra-hide sofas in the saloon, and the baccarat tables made of ivory and walnut, and the pink-and-onyx flamingos outside the bathrooms. That library, with the most expensive private collection in Mayfair. The Boiserie, the Red Parlor, the Oval Drawing Room, the ballroom: all dressed with peacock feathers and lapis lazuli and an endless supply of lilies.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They didn’t impress Mrs. King at all anymore.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">She didn’t shake hands with Mr. Shepherd. “I shall keep you in my prayers, Mrs. King,” he said.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Do.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She supposed the upstairs servants were already clearing out her room. The girls would be scrubbing the floorboards with boiling water and soda crystals and taking the bedsheets to be laundered, eliminating any trace of her.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was important that she didn’t look over her shoulder on the way out. The wrong look at the wrong person could betray her, spoil things when they were only just underway. A pigeon landed on the portico of the gigantic marbled mausoleum as she crossed the yard. She didn’t give it a second glance, didn’t dip her head in respect to the old master. She marched straight past instead.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She stepped into the mews lane, alone. Heard the distant rumble of motors, saw a clutch of wild poppies growing out of a crack in the paving stones. They were being neglected, trampled, yearning upward to the sky. She plucked one, pressed a fragile crimson petal in her palm, held it warm. She took it with her.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her first theft.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or, rather, the first correction. It wasn’t simply </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stealing</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, not at all.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excerpted from The Housekeepers by Alex Hay. Copyright © 2023 by Alex Hay. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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I was going to run my own business and find fame and fortune! Fall in love…</span></span><div><span style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17);"><br /></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 11pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But here I am. Still waiting for it all to happen, sitting on the floor, surrounded by lilies and roses, trying to do my best friend’s wedding flowers because – in her words – ‘how hard can it be, Frankie?’. The answer is actually ‘very hard’ but it’s not the only thing that’s tough right now. My boyfriend won’t commit, I barely have a job, and once again I have the hangover from hell…<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 11pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">What I don’t know is that life’s about to throw me a curveball a new friend I will make with a beautiful, sad-eyed little boy who is so very tragically ill. I still don’t know about that heartbreak.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 11pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Even so, in this moment, I know that it’s time for some changes. Maybe it’s time to make my dreams come true? To try to become a marathon-running, healthy-living, wildly-in-love florist-to-the-stars!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0f1111; line-height: 15.693334px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Because I’m beginning to realise that you only get one chance at life. I don’t yet how you change everything, all at once, but what I do know is it all starts with me…</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0f1111; font-family: verdana;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17);"><br /></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 15.693334px;"><a href="https://mybook.to/allstartedsocial" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Purchase Link</span></a></span></b></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYhcx0yeGHrE51WiGwohoHxaJckGc-aemQBZa_hK34VjAEp4QF7haCPdPVEmMCgBfOPvNuh-cSBqZG6HnpnitGDA1II7OGyF_kWPi0FGYU2sn4XbxhFrLOPUJSffwqSTNg62tbE6m-AetGeUP9LwHI8xIbswBJnXppe9kIsbkqJhEXThJLiuInqO7s3GT/s1904/It%20All%20Started%20With%20You%20Full%20Tour%20Banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1525" data-original-width="1904" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYhcx0yeGHrE51WiGwohoHxaJckGc-aemQBZa_hK34VjAEp4QF7haCPdPVEmMCgBfOPvNuh-cSBqZG6HnpnitGDA1II7OGyF_kWPi0FGYU2sn4XbxhFrLOPUJSffwqSTNg62tbE6m-AetGeUP9LwHI8xIbswBJnXppe9kIsbkqJhEXThJLiuInqO7s3GT/s320/It%20All%20Started%20With%20You%20Full%20Tour%20Banner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span>Thoughts: I wasn't sure the direction It All Started With You was going to take based on the first few chapters. Once you get passed the out-of-control Frankie and get into the story, it is hard to put it down. Her best friend, a powerhouse lawyer, loans her starter funds to purchase a flower shop. As she learns how to run a business she develops amazing friends, grows into a fabulous person, and falls in love. I loved the characters and together they made the story. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">My great-grandfather started a flower shop/greenhouse and it was passed down to my grandfather and later to my mother. I loved the magical part of the flowers in the story and how certain flowers impact the outcome of an event. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Great read and I look forward to more books by Debbie Howells.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYDSbjULo3s9v1W0NCqgnADgtChHuZIZneJAp6Xhb1glbgI3LGRhFKF3xY6tBGkDPTHFKUTvw83YxKqU9tCYeFmz8NZCZvD1LxL7n5RAKFTDMTao-SdNs13JVNyJkrZS3uOFDcNi9rIdstsy8cTGJdcA1g-Ieq0rDCR9Zkq3L4h6q2hNAAsejihXxEt_w7/s3500/Debbie%20Howells%20Portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3500" data-original-width="2500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYDSbjULo3s9v1W0NCqgnADgtChHuZIZneJAp6Xhb1glbgI3LGRhFKF3xY6tBGkDPTHFKUTvw83YxKqU9tCYeFmz8NZCZvD1LxL7n5RAKFTDMTao-SdNs13JVNyJkrZS3uOFDcNi9rIdstsy8cTGJdcA1g-Ieq0rDCR9Zkq3L4h6q2hNAAsejihXxEt_w7/s320/Debbie%20Howells%20Portrait.jpg" width="229" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="background: white;">Debbie Howells’s first novel, a psychological thriller, <i>The Bones of You</i>, was a Sunday Times bestseller for Macmillan. Four more bestsellers followed, including most recently <i>The Vow</i>, published by Avon. Fulfilling her dream of writing women’s fiction, she has found a home with Boldwood and her first title with them, <i>The Life You Left Behind</i> was published in February 2022.</span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Social Media Links – </span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="Debbie Howells Author | Facebook" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Facebook</span></a></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="Debbie Howells (@debbie__howells) / Twitter" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Twitter</span></a></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="Debbie Howells (@_debbiehowells) • Instagram photos and videos" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Instagram</span></a></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://bit.ly/DebbieHowellsnews" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Newsletter Sign Up</span></a></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 22px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="Debbie Howells Books - BookBub" target="_blank">Bookbub profile</a></span></span></b></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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As Lucy settles into her holiday home for some tranquility, she soon learns that she is not the only tenant, when a llama named Llarry strolls out of the farm's supposedly-derelict barn. He is shortly followed by others in a menagerie of abandoned animals left behind—from a sickly donkey who likes eating crisps to a flirtatious cockerel sleeping in the back garden.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 16.866667px; margin: 0in 0in 7pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;">To Lucy's consternation, no one is willing or able to take them on, leaving her with a strange mix of furry and feathered friends to find homes for. Reluctantly adapting to her circumstances in order to deal with this problem, Lucy will discover other surprises about the animals in her care, and the place she is temporarily calling home. About herself, as well.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 16.866667px; margin: 0in 0in 7pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;">Will her ordinary life ever be the same after her experience on New Moon Lane? More importantly, should she really want it to be?<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 16.866667px; margin: 0in 0in 7pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt-XUypBgDGlEnuBvv_DE0BG47mCB8jMoOxdLa1CVEFrka_TerG8iY3MHA-HgulgSrsapsXD1pKZWq8Xe3FCdRXsZ4HTsJlCM7GUnbgd9OGcjVZEhEqELEs3guapbOP-SAv6F16sSecRjGY_63_5S7z5ISrwuKRw0VO10is5N3HpFzEIH7je5u6ZXmONzh/s700/The%20Llama%20Farm%20on%20New%20Moon%20Lane.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="700" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt-XUypBgDGlEnuBvv_DE0BG47mCB8jMoOxdLa1CVEFrka_TerG8iY3MHA-HgulgSrsapsXD1pKZWq8Xe3FCdRXsZ4HTsJlCM7GUnbgd9OGcjVZEhEqELEs3guapbOP-SAv6F16sSecRjGY_63_5S7z5ISrwuKRw0VO10is5N3HpFzEIH7je5u6ZXmONzh/w395-h156/The%20Llama%20Farm%20on%20New%20Moon%20Lane.png" width="395" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Purchase Link -</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://mybook.to/newmoonlane" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 16.959999px;">https://mybook.to/newmoonlane</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8umIzYBYSF1FnjmouS22KOgw5PiYG_5VWRWcdSQDuwDww7u2miNVShCIK13JHgf4x1UwdEQUbyTIeeCwlGSkCFtvuXIP5YMP7eZZwZyRRlZf1Gw7wvcFxogoE326htJLKMbG-xNzW3s-D5i2ZDEwKZ1VgrOGqOAsdi1SARbJFAb5Z5G8Q3zfgIhJwF5kt/s391/The%20Llama%20-%20Briggs-Author%20Pic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="391" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8umIzYBYSF1FnjmouS22KOgw5PiYG_5VWRWcdSQDuwDww7u2miNVShCIK13JHgf4x1UwdEQUbyTIeeCwlGSkCFtvuXIP5YMP7eZZwZyRRlZf1Gw7wvcFxogoE326htJLKMbG-xNzW3s-D5i2ZDEwKZ1VgrOGqOAsdi1SARbJFAb5Z5G8Q3zfgIhJwF5kt/s320/The%20Llama%20-%20Briggs-Author%20Pic.jpg" width="246" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: start;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;">Laura Briggs is the author of several feel-good romance reads, including the Top 100 Amazon UK seller 'A Wedding in Cornwall'. She has a fondness for vintage style dresses (especially ones with polka dots), and reads everything from Jane Austen to modern day mysteries. When she's not writing, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, caring for her pets, gardening, and seeing the occasional movie or play.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;">Social Media Links – <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;">Author Facebook:<b> </b><a name="author_biography1"></a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;">http://on.fb.me/1JjeMoI</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: verdana;">Author Twitter: <a name="author_biography2"></a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: #0563c1; text-decoration: underline;">http://bit.ly/1ME9ivJ</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-decoration: none;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-decoration: none;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Giveaway – Win an e-copy of The Llama Farm on New Moon Lane (Open Internationally)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-decoration: none;"><strong><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #333333;">*Terms and Conditions</span></strong><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #333333;"> –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-decoration: none;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #333333;"><br /></span></p>
<div style="text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;"><u><a class="rcptr" data-raflid="33c69494557" data-template="" data-theme="classic" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/33c69494557/" id="rcwidget_bftldmm5" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway</a></u></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-decoration: none;"><u style="caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716;"><br /></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; line-height: 15.546667px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><u style="caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-decoration: none;">Excerpt From the Author:</u><span style="caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716;"> </span>Very happy to be sharing about my newest read with everyone at Seaside Book Nook today. It’s called <i>The Llama Farm on New Moon Lane</i>, and features a quiet young heroine named Lucy who’s in need of a holiday in the countryside. In the short extract below, Lucy discovers the first of a series of surprises in store for her at the little farm cottage.</p></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Up early, Lucy filled the kettle and put it on the stove. She made three notes and lined them up on the counter — first, to call the realtor to find out about the utilities, second, to buy some fresh food to eat, and third, to light the boiler. All three felt extremely challenging at present. Sometimes a cup of tea helped her feel more like facing them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The old blue cupboard in the kitchen was grimy, so Lucy wiped it out, then stacked the new blue and white dishes on its shelves. She sipped her tea, looking at the darkness through the kitchen window, imagining the lonely fields and woods. She put the cup into the sink, wiped the counters, and opened the back door to scatter breadcrumbs from the late night toast snack. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The squeaky hinges disturbed a cluster of black and white settled on the back of the sheltered bench, and a little cockerel sprang down from its back, making chattering noises as soon as he saw her, as if making an appeal against her rudeness. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">An escapee from the neighboring farm, Lucy reasoned. She shut the door, then went to dress for her first task of settling in for the next few weeks, that of getting the hired car back to the service. </span><span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Y1w0nJge0FAT8Ubi3ww2SMmWbdOIy9OBqkdiHx8urFqgefBiiRnetqygXVBXnfp4dD9wneBN9BodOP6Sips9KeyBEeta2ADjJKQBxIGICksIae5amdsiVaMwnrnwH_Lx5JFQaJhJ41yrSrBaBcs5kV_9T0iM3Z5Pnj_aSNXR6gGTFjOuI_T8EbaEqPvq/s3200/The%20Night%20It%20Ended%20final%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3200" data-original-width="2125" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Y1w0nJge0FAT8Ubi3ww2SMmWbdOIy9OBqkdiHx8urFqgefBiiRnetqygXVBXnfp4dD9wneBN9BodOP6Sips9KeyBEeta2ADjJKQBxIGICksIae5amdsiVaMwnrnwH_Lx5JFQaJhJ41yrSrBaBcs5kV_9T0iM3Z5Pnj_aSNXR6gGTFjOuI_T8EbaEqPvq/s320/The%20Night%20It%20Ended%20final%20cover.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-1565d0d8-7fff-4bdb-2ef4-53d3aa302c9a"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Disarmingly sensory, with plot twists that are sure to give readers whiplash, Garner has done a phenomenal job of giving us just enough information to think we know where the story is going, only to pull the rug out from under us—over and over again. A nail-bitingly spectacular debut!” </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Amanda Jayatissa, author of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You're Invited</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finding the truth seems impossible when her own dark past has her seeing lies everywhere she looks...</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From the outside, criminal psychiatrist Dr. Madeline Pine's life appears picture-perfect--she has a beautiful family, a successful mental health practice and a growing reputation as an expert in female violence. But when she's called to help investigate a mysterious death at a boarding school for troubled girls, Madeline hesitates. She's been through tragic cases before, and the one she was entangled in last year nearly destroyed her...</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet she can't turn away when she hears about Charley Ridley. After the girl was found shoeless and in pajamas at the bottom of an icy ravine on campus, the police ruled it a tragic accident. But the private investigator hired by her mother has his doubts. And if it were Madeline's daughter who died, she'd want to know why.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arriving at the secluded campus in upstate New York, Madeline's met by an unhelpful skeleton staff and the four other students still on campus during winter break. Each seems to hold a piece of the puzzle. And everyone has secrets--Madeline included. But who would kill to protect them?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Intertwining the narrative with the transcript of an anonymous interview, this stunning suspense debut from Katie Garner will take you on a twisting path where nothing--and no one--is what it seems.</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-9fa50f89-7fff-2828-6165-fdb45f0d6b8d" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Night It Ended</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author: Katie Garner</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Sale June 27, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publisher: MIRA</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paperback Original</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISBN 978-0778334453</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Price: </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$18.99</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;" /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-62fa741a-7fff-e8e7-075e-f564357c711b" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buy Links:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-night-it-ended-katie-garner?variant=40901604311074 " target="_blank">HarperCollins</a> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-night-it-ended-katie-garner/1142299804" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-night-it-ended/18847353?ean=9780778334453 " target="_blank">BookShop</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Night-Ended-Novel-Katie-Garner/dp/0778334457" target="_blank">Amazon</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780778334453?AID=10747236&PID=7310909 " target="_blank">Books-A-Million</a></span></p><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAcsDS8BtlYdxvSWjeB7REnbO7uDkDeKGgw0F8Tkb02ePC4jerHA6blPos-fejpEf6bvxJRPc23Hm0eCmQfVm74Tx9txNfIxcCaFOVshlsK5QmE00FiXbFIMZN-5zTJWKpDVAHzdcEQpnvVK_AE7RtELGMvlkHBCMLErN4AGX12s2UejwgRHo7uPYyLRXQ/s1600/684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1600" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAcsDS8BtlYdxvSWjeB7REnbO7uDkDeKGgw0F8Tkb02ePC4jerHA6blPos-fejpEf6bvxJRPc23Hm0eCmQfVm74Tx9txNfIxcCaFOVshlsK5QmE00FiXbFIMZN-5zTJWKpDVAHzdcEQpnvVK_AE7RtELGMvlkHBCMLErN4AGX12s2UejwgRHo7uPYyLRXQ/w576-h144/684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" width="576" /></a></div><br /></span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-29e06f9c-7fff-83ad-6bab-14e4cea79c77"><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reviews</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"The ending was pretty shocking and definitely not what I was expecting" —Novel Gossip</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Standing ovation for the brilliant Katie Garner! Captivating, ingenious, and absolutely audacious, this tour de force in structure and storytelling kept me turning the pages as fast as I could. Yes, </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Night It Ended </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a dark gothic murder investigation at a mysterious school for troubled girls—but don’t judge, don’t assume, don’t try to figure it out—just let Garner's masterful sleight of hand carry you away through the gasp-worthy twists and turns. Do not miss this!" —Hank Phillippi Ryan, </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">USA Today</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> bestselling author of </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The House Guest</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A gorgeously atmospheric dark academic thriller set at a snowy boarding school so vividly rendered you can practically feel the frost freezing your blood. Garner centers female rage in the most delicious and page-turning of ways, plunging readers into a world where women’s machinations, conspiracies, anger, and even violence rule all. </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Night It Ended </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a twisty, frantically-paced story you’ll be desperate to devour all the way to the ice-cold ending.” —Ashley Winstead, author of </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Last Housewife</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Set at an exclusive school for trouble teenaged girls, </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Night It Ended </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Katie Garner is dark, twisted, and utterly compelling. Impossible to put down, you won’t know who or what to believe and the creepy location will have you looking over your shoulder more than once. One heck of a debut with an ending that left me speechless.” —Hannah Mary McKinnon, internationally bestselling author of </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Never Coming Home</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Disarmingly sensory, with plot twists that are sure to give readers whiplash, Garner has done a phenomenal job of giving us just enough information to think we know where the story is going, only to pull the rug out from under us—over and over again. A nail-bitingly spectacular debut!” —Amanda Jayatissa, author of </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You're Invited</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Wow. I loved this. Compulsively readable. I flew through it. Brilliant use of the unreliable narrator. I enjoyed the police interviews interwoven with the present-day mystery. It kept me on my toes. And that last plot twist…amazing. I did not see it coming.” –Amber Garza, author of </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I Was You</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Katie Garner's debut novel is a chilly, twisty ride—think dark academia meets Gillian Flynn. </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Night It Ended</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is both a brooding Gothic mystery set at a boarding school for wayward girls and a jittery domestic thriller and just when you think you've got a handle on the story, Garner pulls the rug out from under you. I couldn't put it down.”—Halley Sutton, author of </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lady Upstairs</span></p></span></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Zi0NNkuVTPST9NHF7E-aHXcidbmh-W6B2PlFtIC3dGKIo3qsSHGExu8az2Tw43WnXDusZbwT8aPZ8FjKy7L5p6qNorrXKRYnQ1VZJXC-SYrCtyLEUEL5ojYS4bZmJfarKjQ1sx7Sp-Cxdyf1isNjU7r_TN7r9t5DvBmfriiqm2nWSbT_bqM17Y1698V6/s1538/Katie%20Garner%20author%20photo,%20credit%20Kyle%20Giacomarra%20%20-%20Copy.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1538" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Zi0NNkuVTPST9NHF7E-aHXcidbmh-W6B2PlFtIC3dGKIo3qsSHGExu8az2Tw43WnXDusZbwT8aPZ8FjKy7L5p6qNorrXKRYnQ1VZJXC-SYrCtyLEUEL5ojYS4bZmJfarKjQ1sx7Sp-Cxdyf1isNjU7r_TN7r9t5DvBmfriiqm2nWSbT_bqM17Y1698V6/s320/Katie%20Garner%20author%20photo,%20credit%20Kyle%20Giacomarra%20%20-%20Copy.bmp" width="250" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2f846327-7fff-fa0d-3818-ed42b3c2c8c9" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Katie Garner was born in New York and grew up in New Jersey. She has a degree in Art History from Ramapo College and is certified to teach high school Art. She hoards paperbacks, coffee mugs, and dog toys and can be seen holding at least one of those things most of the time. </span></p><br /><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Katie lives in a New Jersey river town with her husband, baby boy, and shih-poo where she writes books about women and their dark, secret selves. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Night It Ended</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is her debut novel.</span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-32ac4afa-7fff-3f5c-34cd-fcc73a469147" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Links:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.katiegarnerauthor.com/ " target="_blank">Author site</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://twitter.com/kgarnerauthor " target="_blank">Twitter</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/katiewritesmystery/ " target="_blank">Instagram</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62679690-the-night-it-ended " target="_blank">Goodreads</a></span></p><br /></span></span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Excerpt:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">Friday, December 16</span></span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-57119ac8-7fff-b641-9cef-04c5ccffef8c"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m speeding home when the phone rings, persistent and angry, demanding to be heard. I know I should answer it, even though I want nothing more than to throw it out the window. I could let the call slide into voice mail, delete it, never hear the voice on the other side.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I can’t.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I jerk to the side of the icy road to a chorus of blaring horns, dig the phone out from the cavernous tote bag resting on the passenger seat beside me. The phone is sleek and black, brand-new—opposite of the cracked, chunky white one I’m used to shoving in my back pocket.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A sweet little chime and the ringing ends.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1 new voice mail.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Quickly, I glance in the side mirror. Car exhaust melts away into the morning winter sky. Nothing is behind me, nothing but air. I exhale a deep sigh of relief, press the phone to my ear.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“H-hi, this message is for Dr. Madeline Pine—”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A siren wails in the distance. The phone slips through my fingers, lands mutely in my lap. A knot swells in my throat. I glance in the side mirror again, feel my heart pound, each breath shrinking to tiny gasps. The sirens near. An emergency vehicle speeds past.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s only an ambulance.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My body wilts. I take a deep breath. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In. Out. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The knot in my throat loosens.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hate the person I’ve become. I’ve never been this nervous, this afraid, anxiety and fear clinging to my every move. I wish I could escape—step into someone else’s life, if only for a moment.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just twelve short months ago everything was different. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was different. Any other December, I would’ve been home, prepping for the holidays, shopping online for last-minute deals on things none of us needed. My husband, Dave, would be staying too late at work, his dinner wrapped in a blanket of aluminum foil, kept warm on the stove. My teenage daughter, Izzi, would be upstairs in her room, scrolling noiselessly through her phone, feet kicked up on the bed behind her.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The house would’ve hummed with the steady softness of disjointed home life, but instead here I am, lurched to the side of the road, the air frigid in the tiny cabin of my car, listening to a voice mail I never thought I’d hear.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I replay the message:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“H-hi, this message is for Dr. Madeline Pine. If you get this, I’m Matthew Reyes, a private investigator working on behalf of a family. Listen, I was hoping you could please call me back at this number, I—I’d really appreciate it. We have a sixteen-year-old female who died on school property. The police believe it’s an accident, but the mother hired me to be sure. The girl was found at the bottom of a hill. No witnesses. I thought you might be able to help—given your expertise. Please call me back. Thanks.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I repeat his words in my head. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The girl was found at the bottom of a hill</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—I can picture it, picture her. She’s there, fallen sideways, her body splashed across the woodland floor. Moss and stones, skin and blood, leaves and twigs. I don’t know her, but I don’t have to. I already feel as if she were mine.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The man who left the voice mail, Matthew Reyes, has a voice both gravelly and weary, and I know what he wants the moment he mentions the school. Police often believe they can demand anything they want and get it immediately—even psychological evaluations—but it takes time to gain trust from strangers, and even more time to tease out the truth. Especially from teenage girls.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I start weighing my options. I’m not sure I’m capable of this, of anything. Especially after last year…especially after what just happened in that too-hot office during this morning’s disastrous therapy session.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My face flushes at the memory of the woman who’d been sitting cross-legged in front of me. Her beautiful face. Her pink silk shirt blurring out of focus. Her condescending tone—as though the therapy sessions weren’t all for her benefit to begin with.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s what I have to remind myself. That’s what I have to hold on to. They’re for </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">her</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Not me. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the one who’s fine. I should be taking comfort in that, taking comfort in the fact that I never have to see her beautiful face again, never have to be reminded of—</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s over. I didn’t have a choice before. Now I do. I have lots of choices. An avalanche of choices. My life before today was preprogrammed for me. Not anymore. I fixed it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tears slip down my cheeks. I bite them back, strangle the phone in my lap, squeeze it so tight I wonder how it fails to snap in two. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Choices. Possibilities.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My mind whirls as I punch the gas, merge into traffic, race home. I run inside, slam the door, bolt the lock. Gazing around my gloom-infested house, I shrivel back as wind blows branches of a nearby tree, scraping the side of the house like fingernails.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peering at the bulging paper bag of prescriptions on the kitchen island, my eyes prick with tears. My glasses fog. I take them off, rub the lenses clean on my turtleneck.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After so many months, the pills should be working. I should stop taking them altogether. Just throw them all in the toilet, flush them down, watch them whirl around the porcelain bowl.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think of words my daughter, Izzi, said to me: </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mom, please just stop.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stop.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know the person I’ve become, too empty, too full, all at once. I need to change. I want to be different. Every day, I think of ways I can be. It can still happen. I’m free now. I have choices now, possibilities. Maybe it’s never too late to change everything. Maybe I just need to escape.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Besides, wiggle room is all it takes for a snake to get out of its skin.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The phone rings again. I snuff the urge to hurl it across the room before glancing at the screen. It’s the same number as before. The same number as the voice mail. I hold my breath and answer.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hello?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hello—is this Dr. Madeline Pine?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Um—yes. It is.” My heart thuds. “Who’s this?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A sigh of relief, deep and heavy, into the phone. “This is private investigator Matthew Reyes. Thank you so much for answering, Dr. Pine. I—I know it’s a chaotic time of year and you’re probably busy with family but…would you be able to make a trip up to Iron Hill?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I—I don’t know where that is.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s about two hours north of Poughkeepsie. Upstate New York.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Right, okay.” </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Far. Very far. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Too far for my ailing car to make it. I know I should just buy a new one, but I can’t. My husband Dave always said the color perfectly matched my eyes. Now I can’t even remember the last time we looked at each other.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“So, are you busy this weekend?” Reyes asks, then pauses. “I mean, you’re sure you don’t mind ditching your family right before the holidays?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“When you put it that way, it sounds horrible.” </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Awkward laugh. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“But, um, my husband and daughter aren’t home now, anyway—they’ve gone away to visit my in-laws.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You have no idea how grateful I’d be if you could make it,” he says, sounding hopeful. I don’t know what he looks like, but I can imagine him smiling. “I mean, I’ve been calling around to different psychologists all day, and—well, it should only be for a couple of days. You’d definitely be back by Christmas, </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the latest</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wince, feel a surge of sorrow. I’m too embarrassed to admit that Dave and Izzi have no intention of spending the holidays with me this year. It’s what I deserve after what I did.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m sorry,” I say, “please refresh my memory. Have we ever met? You said you’re a private investigator hired by the victim’s—er, the deceased’s—family?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes, I mean, we haven’t met, but I read about the work you did on the Strum case last year. I believe one of the victims was around the same age as our current victim. And I pulled up your book online—</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dark Side: A Psychological Portrait of the Criminal Female Mind</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You specialize in women. Just so happens the case is at an all-girls boarding school.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My stomach clenches. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Focus. Deep breath. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I shift my gaze to the calendar hanging in the kitchen. I don’t even know why I bother to keep one anymore. I have the same schedule now, week in, week out. Before, the month of December would’ve been filled with holiday office parties, Izzi’s end-of-year school activities, Dave’s plans for winter break, which I’d always beg him to change.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I glance up. Friday, December 16. This morning’s therapy session slashes across my mind again. I see her face. Blank, empty. Her lips begin to curl around a word. I see myself in the reflection of her eyes. I’m close. Closer. I swallow hard.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The, um, the students don’t go home for the holidays?” I ask, slumping down to the floor.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Winter break is Saturday, the tenth to New Year’s. A few students stayed behind.” Reyes pauses. “The students who either couldn’t travel for various reasons or chose not to go home.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I lean the back of my head against the wall.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reyes continues. “The school is asking me to wrap up my investigation before students and staff return January 2.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Okay…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He senses my discomfort, keeps talking. “Please. </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">say yes. You mentioned you have a daughter. How would you feel if it were her?” he asks. “If she was found dead, you’d want closure, right? To be sure everything was done by the book and no stone was left unturned.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My stomach flips. “Of course I would.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“So, please. Please say you’ll help.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think of my daughter, Izzi, the lengths I’d go to if she was found at the bottom of a hill. Even if it was an accident, I’d want to know why. I’d want to know how she got there. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If she was alone. Afraid. Or if someone else was responsible. I’d want to know. I’d find them, I’d—</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t know if I can do this,” I confess.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I shut my eyes, see </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">her </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">face again, legs crossed, sitting prim in that too-hot office, the heat blasting, the furniture too big for the tiny space. I tug at the neck of my sweater, suddenly tight, see my reflection in her eyes—close, so close.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No. Stop. I suck up a big breath, blow it all out.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t know if you’re aware, but after that case last year—” My voice cracks.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The Strum case?” A note of curiosity in Reyes’s question.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yeah. Since then, things have been difficult. I ended up taking some time off—”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I—I wasn’t aware. I’m sorry.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s fine. It just—it makes cases like this difficult.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Oh—”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“But before I say yes or no, can you give me an overview? What, exactly, I’ll be doing when I get there? I want to be sure I know what I’m stepping into.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reyes lets out a breath. “Yeah—yes, of course,” he says, a hint of desperation in his voice. “Well, it happened at a private, all-girls boarding school called Shadow Hunt Hall. They have a very small student body on a very large campus. It’s densely wooded and incredibly isolated. It’s one of those ‘back-to-nature, no technology on campus’ sort of places. The girls are mostly… I guess the best word for it is—troubled?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Isn’t that the best kind of girl?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Uh, here,” he says, ignoring my attempt at a joke. “I’ll send you some info.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I glance at the screen, see he’s texted a link to the school’s website. I tap it open, swipe down the page. The school is ancient. Giant and stone, with iron gates and actual turrets, like a possessed fairy-tale castle. The curriculum looks interesting.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Definitely nontraditional. It’s all music and arts and dance. I skim the mission statement:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We believe in a holistic, individual approach to learning and rehabilitation, focusing on a curriculum centered on nature, group trust, and a healthy mind-body connection.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Code words for no junk food or internet.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reyes waits patiently on the other end as I peruse the site. I click on the Tuition & Financial Aid page and flinch. A single term is more than twice the down payment we put on the house.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You there? Dr. Pine?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I lick my lips. “I’m here.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He pauses. “I’m having trouble getting any of the students to even talk to me,” he admits. “That’s why I need you.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think of Izzi, chewing on her fingernails, avoiding eye contact when I ask how her day went. Ever since she started high school it’s been all one-word answers—</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">good, fine</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—before she’d bound upstairs, not to be seen again until dinner.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I can’t imagine how the girls at this boarding school would react to a male private investigator showing up out of nowhere, prodding them with questions right after their classmate died. No doubt they’d recoil, want nothing to do with him.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Okay… I’ll help you,” I whisper.</span></p><br /><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excerpted from </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Night It Ended</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Copyright </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">©</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 2023 by Katie Garner. Published by MIRA, an imprint of HarperCollins.</span></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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Never miss out on future posts by </span><span class="green-text" data-v-63149380="" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://follow.it/seasidebooknook?leanpub" style="color: #00b04e;" target="_blank">following Seaside Book Nook</a><span style="color: #231f20;">.</span></span></div></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB8lqHSTHzrFij8mWbHqLbCL8Wa-nOqhsj_jorR5hSTM8P4peXWWzc3nQ0-NykXq6s1LYQjJM_XlZ_dq3c25O75HuFT1EJA4MLi09N9fveDh7Wki4CC9O_GRC_DnZZxrBvkaglG8MTr5tTBedDwBV-lAHiEO-bWYCnL250Q9xxJLiwnHENveYtmjBCZeTh/s3200/9780369736420.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3200" data-original-width="2125" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB8lqHSTHzrFij8mWbHqLbCL8Wa-nOqhsj_jorR5hSTM8P4peXWWzc3nQ0-NykXq6s1LYQjJM_XlZ_dq3c25O75HuFT1EJA4MLi09N9fveDh7Wki4CC9O_GRC_DnZZxrBvkaglG8MTr5tTBedDwBV-lAHiEO-bWYCnL250Q9xxJLiwnHENveYtmjBCZeTh/s320/9780369736420.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-0165c9c1-7fff-0992-4dbe-6f2541191b56"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For fans of fast-paced historical thrillers like Our Woman in Moscow and The Rose Code, Rimmer’s brilliant new novel follows three female SOE operatives as their lives intersect in occupied France, and the double agent who controls their fate.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twenty-five years after the end of the war, an aging Marcel Augustin is reflecting on his life during those perilous, exhilarating years as a British SOE operative in occupied France—in particular the agent who saved his life during a mission gone wrong, whose real name he never knew, nor whether she survived the war. Piqued by her father’s memories, Marcel’s daughter Charlotte begins a search for answers that resurrects the unrest and uncertainty from that period of his life. What follows is the story of Eloise, Josie and Virginia, three otherwise ordinary, average women whose lives intersect in 1943 when they’re called up by the SOE for deployment in France. Taking enormous risks to support the allied troops with very little information or resources, the three women have no idea they’re at the mercy of a double agent within their ranks who's causing chaos within the French circuits, whose efforts will affect the outcome of their lives.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Charlotte’s search for answers continues, new suspicions are raised about the identity of the double agent, with unsettling clues pointing to her father, and more mysteries are unearthed from the last days of the war about the eventual fates of Eloise, Josie and Virginia.</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-494d5dfb-7fff-2c51-489c-73f897d32135" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Paris Agent : A World War II Mystery </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kelly Rimmer</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Sale Date: July 11, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9781525826689</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trade Paperback</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$18.99 USD</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">368 pages</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;" /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBjd1z2SkWgOsEo7Z64EjuiNgsdZXw6ZxTt2IDRi1BE3FC6CYlDH_CkhrxKpGSdLj4cvbxmH4lRH3kuUp1ptkpU9VrTFl9UnPyOnGVTL5oQUZuv1mnFYH5Pudg0ZSESmwRsOLobFzf6GG9dCG09XY3UnpXK048FYWmFhIJQ50mc2SgzJVc0fwZfQgxiQ/s1600/684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1600" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBjd1z2SkWgOsEo7Z64EjuiNgsdZXw6ZxTt2IDRi1BE3FC6CYlDH_CkhrxKpGSdLj4cvbxmH4lRH3kuUp1ptkpU9VrTFl9UnPyOnGVTL5oQUZuv1mnFYH5Pudg0ZSESmwRsOLobFzf6GG9dCG09XY3UnpXK048FYWmFhIJQ50mc2SgzJVc0fwZfQgxiQ/w472-h118/684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" width="472" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-d5c93a8a-7fff-a224-b20e-976a586dd1b3" style="text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BUY LINKS:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-paris-agent-kelly-rimmer/18794141?ean=9781525826689" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-paris-agent-kelly-rimmer/1143459526?ean=9781525826689" target="_blank">B&N</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Paris-Agent/Kelly-Rimmer/9781525826689" target="_blank">Books A Million</a></span></p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paris-Agent-Kelly-Rimmer/dp/1525826689" target="_blank">Amazon</a></span></span></div><br /></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-3f37a0d2-7fff-fe76-d001-07bb235d30d0" style="text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kelly Rimmer</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the worldwide, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">USA TODAY </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bestselling author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The German Wife, The Warsaw Orphan, and The Things We Cannot Say</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She lives in rural Australia with her husband, two children and fantastically naughty dogs, Sully and Basil. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty languages. Please visit her at </span><a href="http://www.kelly.rimmer.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">www.Kelly.Rimmer.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SOCIAL LINKS:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author website: https://www.kellyrimmer.com/</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook: @Kellymrimmer</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter: @KelRimmerWrites</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram: @kelrimmerwrites</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="text-align: start;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Excerpt:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prologue</span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-b6ee96e4-7fff-6373-2414-6e6758dfac00"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ELOISE</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Germany</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">October, 1944</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps at first glance, we might have looked like ordinary passengers: four women in civilian clothes, sitting in pairs facing one another, the private carriage of the passenger train illuminated by the golden light of a cloudless late-summer sunrise. Only upon closer inspection would a passerby have seen the handcuffs that secured us, our wrists resting at our sides, between us not because we meant to hide them but because we were exhausted, and they were too heavy to rest on our bony thighs. Only at a second glance would they have noticed the emaciated frames or the clothes that didn’t quite fit, or the scars and healing wounds each of us bore after months of torture and imprisonment. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was handcuffed to a petite woman I knew first as Chloe, although in recent weeks, we had finally shared our real names with one another. It was entirely possible that she was the best friend I’d ever known—not that there was much competition for that title, given friendship had never come easy to me. Two British women, Mary and Wendy, sat opposite us. They had trained together, as Chloe and I had trained together, and like us, they had been “lucky enough” to recently find themselves imprisoned together too. Mary and Wendy appeared just as shell-shocked as Chloe and I were by the events of that morning.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As our captors had reminded us often since our arrests, we were plainclothes assassins and as such, not even entitled to the basic protections of the Geneva Convention. So why on earth had we been allowed the luxury of a shower that morning, and why had we been given clean civilian clothes to wear after months in the filthy outfits we’d been wearing since our capture? Why were they transporting us by passenger train, and in a luxurious private carriage, no less? This wasn’t my first time transferring between prisons since my capture. I knew from bitter personal experience that the usual travel arrangement was, at best, the crowded, stuffy back end of a covered truck or at worst, a putrid, overcrowded boxcar.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But this carriage was modern and spacious, comfortable and relaxed. The leather seats were soft beneath me and the air was clean and light in a way I’d forgotten air should be after months confined to filthy cells.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This could be a good sign,” I whispered suddenly. Chloe eyed me warily, but my optimism was picking up steam now, and I turned to face her as I thought aloud. “I bet Baker Street has negotiated better conditions for us! Maybe this transfer is a step toward our release. Maybe that’s why…” I nodded toward our only companions in the carriage, seated on the other side of the aisle. “Maybe that’s why </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she’s</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> here. Could it be that she’s been told to keep us safe and comfortable?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chloe and I had had little to do with the secretary at Karlsruhe Prison, but I had seen her in the hallway outside of our cell many times, always scurrying after the terrifyingly hostile warden. It made little sense for a secretary to accompany us on a transfer, but there she was, dressed in her typical tweed suit, her blond hair constrained in a thick bun at the back of her skull. The secretary sat facing against the direction of travel, opposite the two armed guards who earlier had marched me and Chloe onto the covered truck at the prison, then from the covered truck onto the platform to join the train. The men had not introduced themselves, but like all agents with the British Special Operations Executive, I’d spent weeks memorizing German uniforms and insignias. I knew at a glance that these were low-ranking </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sicherheitsdienst</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> officers—members of the SD. The Nazi intelligence agency.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The secretary spoke to the guards, her voice low but her tone playful. She held a suitcase on her lap, and she winked as she tapped it. The men both brightened, surprised smiles transforming their stern expressions, then she theatrically popped the suitcase lid to reveal a shockingly generous bounty of thick slices of sausages and chunks of cheese, a large loaf of sliced rye bread and…was that butter? The scent of the food flooded the carriage as the secretary and the guards used the suitcase as a table for their breakfast.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was far too much food for three people but I knew they’d never share it with us. My stomach rumbled violently, but after months surviving on scant prison rations, I was desperate enough that I felt lucky to be in the mere presence of such a feast.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I heard the announcement as we came onto the carriage— this train goes to Strasbourg, doesn’t it? Do you have any idea what’s waiting for us there? This is all a bit…” Wendy paused, gnawing her lip anxiously. “None of it makes sense. Why are they treating us so well?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This is the Strasbourg train,” Chloe confirmed cautiously. There was a subtle undertone to those words—something hesitant, concerned. I frowned, watching her closely, but just then the secretary leaned toward the aisle. She spoke to us in rapid German and pointed to the suitcase in her lap.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Had we done something wrong? More German words but it may as well have been Latin to me, because I spoke only French and English. Just then, the secretary huffed impatiently and pushed the suitcase onto the empty seat beside her as she stood. She held a plate toward me, and when I stared at it blankly, she waved impatiently toward Chloe and spoke again in German.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“She wants you to take it,” Chloe translated for me, and I took the plate with my one free hand, bewildered. Chloe passed it to Wendy, and so on, until we all held plates in our hands. The secretary then passed us fat slices of sausage and cheese and several slices of bread each. Soon, our plates were filled with the food, each of us holding a meal likely more plentiful than we’d experienced since our arrival in France.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“She’s toying with us,” Mary whispered urgently. “She’ll take it back. She won’t let us eat it so don’t get your hopes up.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I nodded subtly—I’d assumed the same. And so, I tried to ignore the treasure sitting right beneath my nose. I tried not to notice how garlicky and rich that sausage smelled, how creamy the cheese looked, or how the butter was so thick on the bread that it might also have been cheese. I told myself the increasing pangs in my stomach were just part of the torture and the smartest thing I could do was to ignore them altogether, but the longer I held the plate, the harder it was to refocus my mind on anything but the pain in my stomach and the feast in my hands that would bring instant and lasting relief.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When all the remaining food had been divided between us prisoners, the secretary waved impatiently toward the plates on our laps, then motioned toward her mouth.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Eat!” she said, in impatient but heavily accented English.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chloe and I exchanged shocked glances. Conditions in Karlsruhe Prison were not the worst we’d seen since our respective captures, but even so, we’d been hungry for so long. The starvation was worse for Chloe than me. She had a particularly sensitive constitution and ate a narrow range of foods in order to avoid gastric distress. Since our reunion at the prison, we’d developed a system of sharing our rations so she could avoid the foods which made her ill but even so, she remained so thin I had sometimes worried I’d wake up one morning to find she’d died in her sleep.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What can you eat?” I asked her urgently.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She looked at our plates then blurted, “Sausage. I’ll eat the sausage.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the next ten minutes we prisoners fell into silence except for the occasional, muffled moan of pleasure and relief as we devoured the food. I was trying to find the perfect compromise between shoving it all into my mouth as fast as I could in case the secretary changed her mind and savoring every bite with the respect a meal like that commanded. By the time my plate was empty and my surroundings came back to me, the guards and the secretary were having a lovely time, laughing amongst themselves and chatting as if they didn’t have a care in the world.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For a long while, we prisoners traveled in silence, holding our plates on our laps at first, then after Wendy set the precedent, lifting them to our mouths to lick them clean. Still, the guards chatted and laughed and if I judged their tones correctly, even flirted with the secretary? It gradually dawned on me that they were paying us very little attention.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“How far is Strasbourg? Does anyone know?” I asked. Wendy and Mary shook their heads as they shrugged, but Chloe informed me it was hundreds of miles. Her shoulders had slumped again despite the gift of the food, and I nudged her gently and offered a soft smile. “We have a long journey ahead. Good. That means we have time for a pleasant chat while our bellies are full.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By unspoken agreement, we didn’t discuss our work with the Special Operations Executive (SOE). It was obvious to me that each of the other women had been badly beaten at some point—Wendy was missing a front tooth, Mary held her left hand at an odd angle as if a fractured wrist had healed badly, and Chloe… God, even if she hadn’t explained to me already, I’d have known just looking at her that Chloe had been to hell and back. It seemed safe to assume we had all been interrogated literally almost to death at some point, but there was still too much at stake to risk giving away anything the Germans had not gleaned from us already. So instead of talking about our work or our peculiar circumstances on that train, we talked as though we weren’t wearing handcuffs. As though we weren’t on our way to, at the very best, some slightly less horrific form of imprisonment.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We acted as though we were two sets of friends on a casual jaunt through the countryside. We talked about interesting features outside our window—the lush green trees in the tall forests, the cultivated patches of farmland, the charming facades of cottages and apartments on the streets outside. Mary cooed over a group of adorable children walking to school, and Wendy talked about little shops we passed in the picturesque villages. Chloe shared longing descriptions of the foods she missed the most—fresh fruit and crisp vegetables, eggs cooked all manner of ways, herbs and spices and salt. I lamented my various aches and pains and soon everyone joined in and we talked as if we were elderly people reflecting on the cruelty of aging, not four twenty-somethings who had been viciously, repeatedly beaten by hateful men.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I felt the warmth of the sunshine on my face through the window of the carriage and closed my eyes, reveling in the simple pleasures of fresh air and warm skin and the company of the best friend I’d ever known. I even let myself think about the secretary and that picnic, and feel the relief that I was, for the first time in months, in the company of a stranger who had shown kindness toward me. I’d almost forgotten that was something people did for one another.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’d never been an especially cheerful sort of woman and I’d never been an optimist, but those past months had forced me to stare long and hard at the worst aspects of the human condition and I’d come to accept a certain hopelessness even when it came to my own future. But on that train, bathed in early morning sunlight and basking in a full stomach and pleasant company, my spirits lifted until they soared toward something like hope.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the first time in months, I even let myself dream that I’d survive to embrace my son Hughie again. Maybe, even after all I’d seen and done, the world could still be good. Maybe, even after everything, I could find reason to have faith.</span></p><br /><span face=""Quattrocento Sans", sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excerpted from </span><span face=""Quattrocento Sans", sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Paris Agent</span><span face=""Quattrocento Sans", sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Kelly Rimmer, Copyright </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">©</span><span face=""Quattrocento Sans", sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 2023 by Lantana Management PTY Ltd. Published by Graydon House Books. </span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><style>@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:700');@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:400');
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color: #3d2716; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH7AIoWSFV6dzQ3FqEb2b39iC5UX7hH_Nu3XYSwDtASNc0sr6YndRR_OZWNtmZ3qzv3FnRaUq759GWIcBSp2cZSsQg7Zm7BWVP_2WH3101Hd8ct7ujOpwGSAQCT0eJE2auKGej-QasxBR1HSdqNDEVQ-PRw3eArkYve69eh8XQUq7_DWa2uozMtceEUw/s3200/Famous%20in%20a%20Small%20Town%20-%20final%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3200" data-original-width="2125" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH7AIoWSFV6dzQ3FqEb2b39iC5UX7hH_Nu3XYSwDtASNc0sr6YndRR_OZWNtmZ3qzv3FnRaUq759GWIcBSp2cZSsQg7Zm7BWVP_2WH3101Hd8ct7ujOpwGSAQCT0eJE2auKGej-QasxBR1HSdqNDEVQ-PRw3eArkYve69eh8XQUq7_DWa2uozMtceEUw/s320/Famous%20in%20a%20Small%20Town%20-%20final%20cover.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> <span id="docs-internal-guid-a30a99c5-7fff-e5dc-bdb6-bdfe9540ee44" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fried Green Tomatoes</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> meets </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Midnight at the Blackbird Café</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in USA Today bestselling author Viola Shipman’s </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a heartwarming story about intergenerational friendship and self-discovery, set in beautiful Northern Michigan.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 1958, 15-year-old Mary Jackson became the first woman ever crowned The Cherry Pit Spittin’ Champion of Good Hart, Michigan, landing her in the Guinness Book of World Records, and earning her the nickname Cherry Mary. Nearly 80 years old at the story’s start, Mary runs The Very Cherry General Store, a business that has been passed through three generations of women in the family. While there is no female next of kin, Mary believes the fourth is fated to arrive, as predicted by “Fata Morgana,” a Lake Michigan mirage of four women walking side by side.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Becky Thatcher (yes, like the Mark Twain character), an Assistant Principal from St. Louis, has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend and heads to Good Hart for a healing girl’s trip with her best friend. When Becky drunkenly spits a cherry pit an impressive distance, Mary urges her to enter the upcoming contest, and wonders if Becky could be the woman she’s been waiting for. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inspired by, and paying tribute to, Michigan’s National Cherry Festival, to the Tunnel of Trees, to lake life, and to the beauty of intergenerational friendship, </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is "full of summertime delight…and sweet, nostalgic charm” (Heather Webber, USA TODAY bestselling author of Midnight at the Blackbird Café). </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bursting with memorable characters and small-town lore, </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a magical story about the family you’re born with, and the one you choose.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“[A] charming coastal tale.”—</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">KATIE COURIC MEDIA</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Fans of nostalgic small-town charm and quirky characters will love Viola Shipman’s latest book for summer.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">READER’S DIGEST, Best Summer Books 2023</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0f1111; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Famous in a Small Town</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a beautiful reminder to…fully embrace the magic that lives inside you.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0f1111; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Heather Webber, </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">USA Today</span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> bestselling author of </span><span style="color: #0f1111; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Midnight at the Blackbird Café</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;" /><span id="docs-internal-guid-bb90bbce-7fff-210b-5e7d-4ed3ee1fbe10" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Famous in a Small Town</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author: Viola Shipman </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Sale June 13, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publisher: Graydon House</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paperback Original</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISBN 978-1525804854</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Price: </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$18.99</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buy Links:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/famous-in-a-small-town-viola-shipman?variant=40980279459874 " target="_blank">HarperCollins</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/famous-in-a-small-town-viola-shipman/1142722523 " target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-champion-of-good-hart-viola-shipman/18794129?ean=9781525804854 " target="_blank">BookShop</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1525804855/keywords=fiction?tag=harpercollinsus-20 " target="_blank">Amazon</a></span></p></span></span></span><div><div><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUV5MkgjGzrOOCY1co0IFaUFkYD7FtOSeTBaKTUQg8EaTxAaPtOmfJ4ao_RS6apge2YQ0WGsQD2Ze6tcgplI2llFhuEdadAeNG0IEMfYj2e9y6MJBopBHDtq3Q071yP4MSuI3Kt2uI6V-j1puorq0SCekYgI6ZCEC6dLHZV6ymCP7qFghWWaPl4ay66Q/s563/Viola%20Shipman%20Author%20Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="563" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUV5MkgjGzrOOCY1co0IFaUFkYD7FtOSeTBaKTUQg8EaTxAaPtOmfJ4ao_RS6apge2YQ0WGsQD2Ze6tcgplI2llFhuEdadAeNG0IEMfYj2e9y6MJBopBHDtq3Q071yP4MSuI3Kt2uI6V-j1puorq0SCekYgI6ZCEC6dLHZV6ymCP7qFghWWaPl4ay66Q/s320/Viola%20Shipman%20Author%20Photo.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b434848b-7fff-c45b-364a-3eb5b59df777" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">VIOLA SHIPMAN is the pen name for internationally bestselling LGBTQIA author Wade Rouse. Wade is the author of fifteen books, which have been translated into 21 languages and sold over a million copies around the world. Wade chose his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman, as a pen name to honor the working poor Ozarks seamstress whose sacrifices changed his family’s life and whose memory inspires his fiction. </span></p><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wade’s books have been selected multiple times as Must-Reads by NBC’s </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today Show, </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Michigan Notable Books of the Year and Indie Next Picks. </span><span style="color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He lives in Michigan and California, and hosts Wine & Words with Wade, A Literary Happy Hour, every Thursday.</span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2640b46d-7fff-5713-a5e7-f471f6e284c5" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Links:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.violashipman.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website</span></a><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/bylizzybarber/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">@</span></a><a href="https://twitter.com/viola_shipman" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Viola_Shipman</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/authorviolashipman" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Viola Shipman</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram: </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/bylizzybarber/?hl=en" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">@</span></a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/viola_shipman/?hl=en" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Viola_Shipman</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14056193.Viola_Shipman" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goodreads</span></a></p></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;">Excerpt:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-weight: 700; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">THE LAKE EFFECT EXPRESS</span></span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-246676c8-7fff-cbe0-535f-b3cc408c019c"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">August 1958</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Good News from Good Hart!”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Shirley Ann Potter</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was the spit heard ’round the world!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our town is still atwitter over the news that the daughter of Mr. Peter Jackson was crowned the 35th Annual Cherry Pit Spittin’ Champion of Leelanau and Emmet County last Saturday. Fifteen-year-old Mary Jackson, an Emmet County high-school sophomore, was not only the first woman—uh, girl—to win the contest, but her stone flew a </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guinness Book of World Records</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">–breaking distance of ninety-three feet six-and-a-half inches, shattering the previous record set by “Too Tall” Fred Jones in 1898 at the state’s very first Cherry Championship right here in Good Hart.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">News of her accomplishment has flown farther than her cherry pit, with reporters from as far away as New York and London anointing our town sprite with the moniker “Cherry Mary.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I caught up with Mary at the Very Cherry General Store—our beloved post office/grocery store/sandwich- </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and-soda-shop run by Mary’s mother and grandmother—to see how she managed such a Herculean feat.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My mom taught me to whistle when I was a kid (</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A kid!” Don’t you just love that, readers?</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), and I had to be loud enough for her to hear me when she was down at the lake. I think that made my lips strong,” Mary says. “And I started eating sunflower seeds when I was fishing on the boat with my grandma. She taught me how to spit them without having the wind blow them back in the boat.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mary says she practiced for the contest by standing in the middle of M-119—the road that houses our beautiful Tunnel of Trees—and spitting stones into the wind when a storm was brewing on Lake Michigan.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I knew if I could make it a far piece into the wind, I could do it when it was still.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While her grandmother was “over the moon” for Mary’s feat, saying, “It’s about time,” Mr. Jackson says of his daughter’s accomplishment, “It’s certainly unusual for a girl, but Mary isn’t your average girl. Maybe all this got it out of her system, so to speak. I hope so for her sake.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The plucky teenager seems nonplussed by the attention, despite seeing her face all over northern Michigan in the papers and the T-shirts featuring her face—cheeks puffed, stone leaving her mouth—and the words </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cherry Mary </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in bright red over the image.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A girl can do anything a man can,” Mary says in between retrieving mail, spreading mayonnaise on a tomato sandwich and twirling a cherry around in her mouth, before perfectly depositing the stone in a trash can across the room. “You just gotta believe you can. That’s the hard part. Harder than spitting any old pit.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin: 0pt 24pt 0pt 23pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mary seems ready to conquer the world, readers. Cheers, Cherry Mary! Our hometown heroine!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 112pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*******</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 112pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BECKY</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #57585a; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Okay, Benjie, would you like it if Ashley did this to you?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He scrunches up his face to stave off tears and shakes his head. “No.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, it’s not a nice thing to do.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I study Ashley’s hair, then take her face in my hands. “It’s going to be okay. Trust me?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The little girl nods her head. I give her a hug.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I walk over to my desk and open the bottom drawer . There is a large jar of creamy peanut butter sitting next to a bag of mini Snickers. The peanut butter is for emergencies like this: removing gum from a little girls’ hair. The Snickers are for me after I’m finished with this life lesson.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, I’m just glad neither of you are allergic to peanuts,” I say. “Allows me to do this.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I cover the gum stuck in the back of Ashley’s pretty, long, blond hair and then look at her.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I promise this works,” I say. “I’ve performed a lot of gum surgery.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She nods. Her eyes are red from crying, her cheeks blotchy.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Why did you do this, Benjie?” I ask the little boy seated in the chair before my desk. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He ducks his head sheepishly, his brown bangs falling into his eyes, and murmurs something into his chest.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I didn’t catch that,” I say. “What did you say? Remember it’s okay to express your emotions.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He looks at me, freckles twitching on his cheeks. “I can’t say,” he whispers.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes, you can,” I say. “Don’t make this any worse than it already is.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Benjie glances toward the door to ensure that it is closed. “Tyler Evans told me to do it or he’d punch me on the way home.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being a grade-school administrator is akin to being a detective: you have to work the perp to get the truth. Eventually—no matter the age—they break, especially when a verdict on punishment is waiting in the balance.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the last day of school. Benjie does not want his summer to be ruined.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I lean down and slide the gum out of Ashley’s hair. I go to my sink, dampen a cloth and put some dish soap on it, return and clean the rest of the peanut butter off her locks. I move to a tall filing cabinet and retrieve a clean brush. The filing cabinet is filled with bags of sealed brushes and combs, toothbrushes and EpiPens, certificates and old laptops. I run the brush through her hair. I hold up a mirror for her to see the back of her head.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“See, good as new.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What do you say to Ashley, Benjie?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m sorry.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Do you accept his apology?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ashley shakes her head no. “You ruined the last day of school. You’re a big ol’ meanie.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Ashley,” I say, my tone sweet but authoritarian.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I accept your apology,” she says.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You’re free to go,” I say to her.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“But you’re still a big ol’ poop head,” she says, racing out of my office, bubblegum-free hair bouncing.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I actually have to clench my hands very hard to stifle a laugh.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Big ol’ poop head.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How many times a day would I—would any adult—like to scream that at someone?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Are you telling my parents?” Benjie asks.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I have to,” I say, “but I’ll tell them </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you did it, and then I’ll have a talk with Tyler.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I have to do that, too,” I explain. “And I’ll talk to his parents as well.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He looks at me, his chin quivering.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We have a zero-tolerance policy here for bullying,” I say. “Trust me, Tyler won’t do it again. You have to stand up to bullies. You have to show them the right way to do things. Otherwise, they never change.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In addition to being a detective, an assistant principal is also akin to being the vice-president of the United States. Everyone knows your name, everyone knows you’ve achieved some level of status, but nobody really understands what the hell you do all day.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I promise it will be okay,” I say. “Just promise me you won’t do it again. You’re a nice boy, Benjie. That’s a wonderful thing. Always remember that.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I promise.” He looks at me. “Can I go now?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“One more thing. You know you aren’t supposed to bring gum to school.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I know. But one of the moms was handing it out before school.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mrs. Yates</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I instantly know. She wants to be the cool mom. She’s Room Mom for 2A, and, Mrs. Trimbley, the Room Mom for 2B, told me that competing with her this year was like being a contestant in </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Squid Game</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Benjie continues. “It’s Bubble Yum. My favorite. My mom won’t let me have it because it’s bad for my teeth.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Benjie opens his mouth and smiles. He resembles a jack-o’-lantern. He’s missing teeth here and there, willy-nilly, black holes where baby teeth once lived and adult teeth will soon reside.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Too late</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I want to say to Benjie, but he won’t get my humor. Only my best friend, Q, understands it, and my grandparents who made me this way.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think of how much I loved chewing gum as a kid.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Do you have any more?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Am I going to get in trouble again?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No,” I say with a laugh.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He reaches into the pocket of his little jeans and hands me a piece of grape Bubble Yum.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My </span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">favorite</span><span style="color: #221e1f; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Do you know what my teacher used to say when I’d sneak gum into class?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You snuck gum into class?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He stares at me with more admiration than if Albert Pujols from the St. Louis Cardinals suddenly appeared with an autographed baseball.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I did,” I say. “It was about the only bad thing I ever did. My teacher used to hold out her hand in front of my desk and ask, ‘Did you bring enough gum to share with the whole class?’”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Did you?” Benjie asks, wild-eyed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No,” I say. “That was the whole point. She wanted to embarrass me. And it always worked. Teachers just liked to say that.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I take the gum from Benjie. “This is just between us, okay?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He giggles and nods.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I pop the gum into my mouth. It’s even more insanely sweet and sugary and tastes even better than I remember. My taste buds explode. I chew, Benjie watching me with grand amusement, and then—looking out my window to make sure the coast is clear—blow a big bubble. A massive bubble, in fact. It expands until it’s the size of a small balloon. Benjie continues to watch me in silence as a child today might do today trying to figure out how to use a rotary phone. After a few moments, the flavor subsides.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Want to learn a trick?” I ask.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yeah!”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“If you ever get caught chewing gum, don’t stick it in a nice girl’s hair or swallow it. Learn to do this.” I narrow my lips as if I’m going to whistle, puff my cheeks and spit my gum into the air as if Michael Jordan were draining a game-winning three-pointer as time expired. The purple gum arcs into the air and deposits directly into a trash can next to a low-slung sofa ten feet across my office.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Benjie pumps his fist and lifts his hand to high-five me.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Where did you learn to do that?” he asks.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sunday school,” I wink. “My grandma taught me.”</span></p><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excerpted from </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Famous in a Small Town</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Copyright </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">©</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 2023 by Viola Shipman. Published by Graydon House, an imprint of HarperCollins.</span></p></span></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794756989839922202.post-29859360894655790362023-06-07T03:00:00.001-04:002023-06-07T03:00:00.140-04:0018 Golf Poems And a Recollection at the 19th Hole <p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF56Yer0WNP_qB2wbdlBgoTiuYbtljeulAZiWavj1GXOqYnLfcMHPvJhZdVD3hRTlSW5zRfVhh7xN3uqUaE5a1o6RYu0K_u6sgOpi6JndNSqlmMeopv5koQiGUzgqa124p4dbgxLyeQOxz3YbydGDzgxlf4Rh64DMXsAO0wq7EwBiBIurxsOQGJz90Mw/s2700/18%20Golf%20Poems%20Tour%20Banner%20w%20Button.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="2700" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF56Yer0WNP_qB2wbdlBgoTiuYbtljeulAZiWavj1GXOqYnLfcMHPvJhZdVD3hRTlSW5zRfVhh7xN3uqUaE5a1o6RYu0K_u6sgOpi6JndNSqlmMeopv5koQiGUzgqa124p4dbgxLyeQOxz3YbydGDzgxlf4Rh64DMXsAO0wq7EwBiBIurxsOQGJz90Mw/s320/18%20Golf%20Poems%20Tour%20Banner%20w%20Button.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-9b6j5XZMxJm0b6XDpsyzsPbwzX2ZuLKe2cNVvhZ4qWzDJrr4XdLsT5gZhhZfuodi-STe7WDkgeGYKw5UVLtSdrETkrFjKJd72RqxYn5TjWTO7YOR8fLKDCcHmmdmilaNSYPlkO4J6zXzHxCYW5yeAsn2WBazvH3kX7AKAWilPt8ftdijFFVMB0RBuw/s3737/18%20Golf%20Peoms%20Book%20Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3737" data-original-width="2787" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-9b6j5XZMxJm0b6XDpsyzsPbwzX2ZuLKe2cNVvhZ4qWzDJrr4XdLsT5gZhhZfuodi-STe7WDkgeGYKw5UVLtSdrETkrFjKJd72RqxYn5TjWTO7YOR8fLKDCcHmmdmilaNSYPlkO4J6zXzHxCYW5yeAsn2WBazvH3kX7AKAWilPt8ftdijFFVMB0RBuw/s320/18%20Golf%20Peoms%20Book%20Cover.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="color: #515151; font-family: Roboto; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">Ronald Colby worked in the professional theater in New York as an actor, both on Broadway and Off- Broadway. He wrote many plays that saw New York productions, and as a director/playwright, “The Village Voice” declared him an “influential originator” of the Off-Off Broadway movement.</span><br style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span><br style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">Colby also worked with such well-known directors as Francis Ford Coppola and was Executive Producer for </span><strong style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; text-align: justify;"><em style="position: relative;">The Outsiders</em></strong><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> and Mobile Masterpiece theatre productions including </span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><strong>A Death in the Family</strong></em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">.</span><br style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span><br style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">Theater is one of Colby’s passions. His other passion is golf, which is expressed in his new book, </span><strong style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; text-align: justify;"><em style="position: relative;">18 Golf Poems And a Recollection at the 19th Hole.</em></strong><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> Colby says he’s “written these poems primarily for golfers but also for non-players who need confirmation of the absurdities and complexities of the game.” He’s been playing golf since he was eleven, and like many, he became a devoted fan of the game.</span><br style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span><br style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;" /><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">In </span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">First Tee Jitters</em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">, he writes,</span></div></em></div><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span></div></em></div></span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">“Could it be, the view from player’s rounds completed</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">drinking and staring through clubhouse windows</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">that makes golfer on the first tee so anxious?”</em></div></em></div></em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span></div></em></div></span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">In “Escape” he expresses emotions:</span></div></em></div></span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">“</span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">Eviscerated by guilt and strife</em></div></em></div></span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">he arrives and drives</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">his shots breaking boundaries, incurring penalties</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">creating snowmen sans snow</em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">.”</span></div></em></div></em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span></div></em></div></span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">I Saw a Woman Swinging</em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> expresses his shock “at the power” of the female golfer.</span></div></em></div></em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span></div></em></div></span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">In </span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">My Father’s Latenight</em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> Swing, Colby reminisces about his childhood, when,</span></div></em></div></span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span></div></em></div></span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">“</span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">Near midnight,</em></div></em></div></span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">I take a lonesome whisky to my chair</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">and nestling, remember as a child</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">how in the darkness of my room</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">I could hear my father’s swing.”</em></div></em></div></em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span></div></em></div></span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">Relief</em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> is a contemplation about death:</span></div></em></div></em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span></div></em></div></span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">Golf is a game</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">to be played</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">A poor metaphor for strife and life</em></div></em></div></em><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">We’re only ticking up digits</em></div></em></div></em><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">Numbers whose meaning will fade away</em></div></em></div></em><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">Unlike the Reaper</em></div></em></div></em><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">Who shall appear one day.</em></div></em></div></em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span></div></em></div></span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">At the end of the day, it’s the Long Shadows cast across the course, where</span></div></em></div></span><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span></div></em></div></span><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">“Palms reach yards to catch last rays, and the golfer, resigned to the days end…</em></div></em></div></em><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">Lifting his bag, golfer stares as</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">sun loses its grip on rays and slides from view</em></div></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative; text-align: center;"><div style="display: inline !important; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><em style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: relative; text-align: justify;">leaving nothing behind but an afterglow.”</em></div></em></div></em><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> </span><br style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;">Complete with photographs and an essay at the end of the book where Colby reflects upon the sport and its fans, </span><strong style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; text-align: justify;"><em style="position: relative;">18 Golf Poems</em></strong><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"> is the perfect Father’s Day gift for those who love the sport, and the perfect gift at any time for all golf aficionados.</span></div><div style="color: #515151; font-family: Roboto; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #515151; font-family: Roboto; font-size: x-large; font-weight: 700;"><strong style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Buy the Book<br /><a href="https://amzn.to/41UEfo4" style="color: #24678d; text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Amazon </a></span></strong></div></em><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><div class="paragraph" style="color: #515151; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 1em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Book Details:</span></strong><br /><br /><u>Book Title</u>: <span style="color: #1f1f1f;">18 Golf Poems and A Recollection at the 19th Hole</span> by Ronald Colby<br /><u>Category</u>: <span style="color: #1f1f1f;">Adult Non-Fiction</span>, 54 pages<br /><u>Genre</u>: <span style="color: #1f1f1f;">Poetry</span><br /><u>Publisher</u>: The Colby Company <span style="color: #0f1111;"> </span><br /><u>Release date:</u> <span style="color: #0f1111;">2022</span><br /><u>Content Rating</u>: G for everyone.</div><div style="color: #8e8e8e; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"><div style="height: 20px; overflow: hidden; width: 629.2px;"></div><hr class="styled-hr" style="background-color: #d0d0d0; border: 0pt none; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.13); height: 1px; margin: 0px auto; text-align: center; width: 629.2px;" /><div style="height: 20px; overflow: hidden; width: 629.2px;"></div></div><div class="paragraph" style="color: #515151; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 1em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium;">Reviews for Ron Colby's novel, <em style="position: relative;">Night Driver,</em> published by Rare Bird Literary, (January 2018):</span></strong><br /> <br /><em style="position: relative;">“Colby has written a novel of relentless energy. While driving a cab at night, his main character hunts his wife’s killers through LA’s dark streets of dreams and nightmares. It’s tense, episodic, complete, and compelling. It’s quite a ride.” </em><em style="position: relative;">― </em><strong>Francis Ford Coppola</strong><em style="position: relative;">, director of <strong>The Godfather </strong>and <strong>Apocalypse Now</strong></em><br /><br /><em style="position: relative;">"Colby’s well-paced first novel takes the reader on a winding, exhilarating ride through late-1970s Los Angeles." </em><strong><em style="position: relative;">― Publishers Weekly</em></strong><br /><br /><em style="position: relative;">“Big news: Ron Colby’s </em><em style="position: relative;"><strong>Night Driver </strong>is a contemporary noir novel that deserves a place next to Chandler, Connolly, and Wambaugh. The story of a man who drives a taxi through the night streets of Los Angeles searching for his wife’s killers makes an exciting, original and hard-to-put-down book. Colby knows his turf, his characters and he gets everything right.” <strong>― </strong></em><strong>Michael Elias</strong>, <em style="position: relative;">author of </em><strong>The Last Conquistador</strong></div><div class="paragraph" style="color: #515151; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 1em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span><a name='more'></a></span></div><div class="paragraph" style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 1em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: center;"><div class="paragraph" style="font-family: Roboto; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 1em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: red;"><em style="position: relative;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">The perfect Father’s Day gift for those who love the sport,<br /></span></strong></em><em style="position: relative;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">and the perfect gift at any time for all golf aficionados!</span></strong></em></span></div><div class="paragraph" style="color: #515151; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 1em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;"><em style="position: relative;"><strong><span><!--more--></span></strong></em></div></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative;"></em></div></div></span></span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUHSqUOQSFOIWIcGnvFaNoqGSb9Dne79Ex0PFEZfSv-QDmI-E21x_HmEcbY7Uq08qYkmtkTO-Ep28_1sOORCTVrDes0ipCnxdOhNwewJX3x38TQri8u8bpKvZfzAscyh7iaFRPVFI1V_7sT4wFeDY76pUBps-IKU5GPxanBdhB_94mip5khH7hnNQL7w/s1570/iRead%20Website%20new%20logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="1570" height="53" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUHSqUOQSFOIWIcGnvFaNoqGSb9Dne79Ex0PFEZfSv-QDmI-E21x_HmEcbY7Uq08qYkmtkTO-Ep28_1sOORCTVrDes0ipCnxdOhNwewJX3x38TQri8u8bpKvZfzAscyh7iaFRPVFI1V_7sT4wFeDY76pUBps-IKU5GPxanBdhB_94mip5khH7hnNQL7w/s320/iRead%20Website%20new%20logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; 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outline: none;">– book spotlight / author interview / giveaway</span></b></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; outline: none;"><b style="outline: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: black; outline: none;">June 8 –</span></b><a href="http://mamof9.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #0563c1; outline: none;" target="_blank"><b style="outline: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: black; outline: none;"> </span></b><b style="outline: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; outline: none;">mamof9</span></b></a></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; outline: none;"><b style="outline: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: black; 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outline: none;"> Liese's Blog</span></b></a></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; outline: none;"><b style="outline: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: black; outline: none;">June 16 –</span></b><b style="color: #0563c1; outline: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; outline: none;"><a href="http://stephjb.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #0563c1; outline: none;" target="_blank"> Stephanie Jane</a></span></b></p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMf8f3wRMEaEMEdTwiKF9g2sIsmiNOPLvaWql2KOVi95UHhyu9PuosrvMdZqH6oH2mt6YKlBRSXj_5jSiutpqTvMd9vFO-BZpt-WBEf2CtG6ddSTaaNG8MB2GJ2W8tl-PzPWvgzwvdEPZBAAwahrPuYgtRt4lTkvloyPF2GscytgNE6ED3DaGc2_9m-g/s566/Ronald%20Colby%20w%20Chair.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="441" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMf8f3wRMEaEMEdTwiKF9g2sIsmiNOPLvaWql2KOVi95UHhyu9PuosrvMdZqH6oH2mt6YKlBRSXj_5jSiutpqTvMd9vFO-BZpt-WBEf2CtG6ddSTaaNG8MB2GJ2W8tl-PzPWvgzwvdEPZBAAwahrPuYgtRt4lTkvloyPF2GscytgNE6ED3DaGc2_9m-g/s320/Ronald%20Colby%20w%20Chair.png" width="249" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="paragraph" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 1em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="position: relative;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="paragraph" style="color: #515151; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 1em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0f1111;">Ronald Colby</span> <span style="color: #0f1111;">wrote many plays that saw New York productions, and as a director/playwright, <em style="position: relative;">“The Village Voice”</em> declared him an “influential originator” of the Off-Off Broadway movement.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #0f1111;">Early in his career, Francis Coppola recruited Colby into his fledgling company, and Colby moved quickly from casting and acting into the roles of production executive and producer. The films included, <em style="position: relative;"><strong>YOU’RE A BIG BOY NOW, FINIAN’S RAINBOW, THX-1138, THE RAIN PEOPLE, THE GODFATHER PART II, HAMMETT,</strong></em> and <em style="position: relative;"><strong>THE OUTSIDERS</strong></em>. His short film “The Longest Lens” won among other awards, a Cine Golden Eagle, and his documentary “Child Abuse and Neglect” won a U.S. Award of Excellence.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #0f1111;">Ron went on to write screenplays for Universal Pictures, American Zoetrope, and in addition, worked on many films with such producers and directors as Milos Forman, Lorne Michaels, Ed Zwick, Wes Craven, etc. He was Executive Producer on the John Hughes films, <em style="position: relative;"><strong>SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL</strong></em> and <em style="position: relative;"><strong>SHE’S HAVING A BABY</strong></em>. In addition, he worked as a Production Executive on other films such as <em style="position: relative;"><strong>LISA, THE EXORCIST III,</strong></em> and <em style="position: relative;"><strong>ONE FROM THE HEART</strong></em>. The documentary he produced on the making of Coppola’s <em style="position: relative;"><strong>ONE</strong></em> <em style="position: relative;"><strong>FROM THE HEART,</strong></em> has been released on the newly issued DVD.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #0f1111;">Ron also worked on many television movies as a producer including the highest-rated Hallmark Hall of Fame movie <em style="position: relative;"><strong>HARVEST OF FIRE,</strong></em> and Showtime’s <em style="position: relative;"><strong>LUSH LIFE</strong></em>. He has also been Second Unit Director on over a dozen films. He was the Producer of Esmeralda Santiago’s acclaimed memoir, <em style="position: relative;"><strong>ALMOST A WOMAN</strong></em>, also for Masterpiece Theatre, which won Peabody and Imagen Awards for best feature.<br /></span><br /><span style="color: #0f1111;">Over the past four years, he wrote and directed three feature documentaries. Completed in 2008 is, <strong><em style="position: relative;">PIRATE FOR THE SEA</em></strong>, the film biography of Captain Paul Watson, the most controversial ocean environmentalist. </span></div><div class="paragraph" style="color: #515151; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 1em; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Enter the Giveaway:</span></strong></div></div></div></em></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="e-widget" href="https://gleam.io/cI2mD/18-golf-poems-book-tour-giveaway" rel="nofollow" style="text-align: left;"></a><a class="e-widget" href="https://gleam.io/cI2mD/18-golf-poems-book-tour-giveaway" rel="nofollow">18 Golf Poems Book Tour Giveaway</a></div><span style="text-align: left;"></span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Interview with the Author!:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;"><b>1.How did you do research for your book? </b></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">This was an inadvertent bonus, as I have been playing golf for over five decades. This book is a collection of poems I wrote and photos I took over that journey. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>2.What made you write a book about golf? </b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I always had a desire to create some projects set in the world of golf. It began in my freshman year of high school, I wrote an essay about how much I enjoyed playing a short public course alone before school in the quiet, watching, as morning dew trailed my ball across the green. I was encouraged by my teacher who complemented me on the essay as I had been a poor student and that encouragement was all-important. Since then, I have made several documentary films about golf as a central theme and wrote a screenplay adaptation of the cult classic novel, “Golf in the Kingdom”, which was optioned by, Clint Eastwood and Warner Brothers. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 21pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>3.There are</b></span></i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b> many books out there about golf. What makes yours different? </b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">My book has photographs taken over decades, by friends, myself, likewise the poems all written by me were created as a testament to some personal golfing experience, often worked on in different locations such as Antarctica, Kauai, Scotland, off and on for months or years. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>4.Do you have another profession besides writing? </b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I am a motion picture producer, documentary filmmaker, screenwriter, and novelist.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>5.What is your next project?</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Currently, I am completing , <u>The Young Filmmakers</u>, a memoir about fledging film directors during the violent Vietnam years of 1968-69.</span></i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794756989839922202.post-15555902481606006682023-06-06T03:00:00.001-04:002023-06-06T03:00:00.142-04:00A Little Ray of Sunshine<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomU42MICEkvXiXHYhaSerVTJsGGNXJXHizwvXCwyCxUvA9EJ-LkgwYDybrVnuA285tqBM_O9Nx6cVi2Z0Wa4sRa15_pn5qPZMNLqxik_RfKDo4OHz3eaIcdcsEPEWTnHSh7z-bDjMgjk0ADd7ZgnR5S1kRRe5O9Itrq8E-Q0YjWeeSqga_aWylW0xwg/s880/image001-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="880" data-original-width="570" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomU42MICEkvXiXHYhaSerVTJsGGNXJXHizwvXCwyCxUvA9EJ-LkgwYDybrVnuA285tqBM_O9Nx6cVi2Z0Wa4sRa15_pn5qPZMNLqxik_RfKDo4OHz3eaIcdcsEPEWTnHSh7z-bDjMgjk0ADd7ZgnR5S1kRRe5O9Itrq8E-Q0YjWeeSqga_aWylW0xwg/s320/image001-10.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br /><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Book Summary:</u></b> </span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">35-year-old bookstore owner Harlow Smith lives an intentionally quiet life. Which means her world is flipped upside down when a teenager walks into the bookstore and announces that he is the biological son she gave birth to and placed for adoption while in college. That heartbreaking decision was a secret to all in her life but her best friend and college roommate.</span><p class="yiv1721518466MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in; outline: none !important;"> </p><p class="yiv1721518466MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in; outline: none !important;">Matthew Walker asked that his family spend the summer before he leaves for college on Cape Cod for one reason: to meet Harlow Smith. He didn’t share his plan with his adoptive parents, Monica and Sanjay Patel, so they are nearly as shocked as Harlow.</p><p class="yiv1721518466MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in; outline: none !important;"> </p><p class="yiv1721518466MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in; outline: none !important;">Both Harlow and Monica struggle with their rapidly changing roles in Matthew’s life. Monica raised him, but feels abandoned by Matthew’s quickly developing relationship with Harlow. What scares her the most is that on some level, she knows Matthew has been searching for Harlow his whole life. What if there isn’t room enough in his heart for both of them?</p><p class="yiv1721518466MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in; outline: none !important;"> </p><p class="yiv1721518466MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); color: #1d2228; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in; outline: none !important;">Harlow is overjoyed at the opportunity to finally be involved in her son’s life, but she’s possessed by <i style="outline: none !important;">what ifs</i>. <i style="outline: none !important;">What if</i> she kept her baby? <i style="outline: none !important;">What if</i> she told her family? <i style="outline: none !important;">What if</i> she never met Monica and Sanjay? Placing Matthew for adoption gave him a life she never could have provided, but she’s plagued by guilt and regret. How can they make up for lost time?</p><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794756989839922202.post-80959834995211536512023-06-05T03:00:00.001-04:002023-06-05T03:00:00.135-04:00Even If the Sky is Falling<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6UNB3yyU66AkMm5p_Q1EwmS8bLD0vw9xp-hHOkivx2Eg9lxLJc2CnkR0OKyKn1sz1NgefoNGnFJGUePoBmxDQ9reFwNAxfKPyQKh5voNmq9VYCW8hAGjkX99lkm2fuMhSPzZwzB51cfYVoTkVqQGx4HesA5J404G_aR5F0wvAG3Q8g2qjeh-7TC6RzA/s3200/Even%20if%20the%20Sky%20is%20Falling%20Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3200" data-original-width="2125" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6UNB3yyU66AkMm5p_Q1EwmS8bLD0vw9xp-hHOkivx2Eg9lxLJc2CnkR0OKyKn1sz1NgefoNGnFJGUePoBmxDQ9reFwNAxfKPyQKh5voNmq9VYCW8hAGjkX99lkm2fuMhSPzZwzB51cfYVoTkVqQGx4HesA5J404G_aR5F0wvAG3Q8g2qjeh-7TC6RzA/s320/Even%20if%20the%20Sky%20is%20Falling%20Cover.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Synopsis:</u></b> </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-41823ba7-7fff-b4d2-68a1-30ded3fdd228"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For readers of Bolu Babalola’s LOVE IN COLOR and Dhonielle Clayton’s BLACKOUT, a collection of six stories filled with hope, humor, and heat that explore the chances a couple may take when they mistakenly believe the world is ending; for fans of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love Actually</span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and all the best 90s disaster films that end in a triumphant kiss, with stories by Taj McCoy, Farah Heron, Lane Clarke, Charish Reid, Sarah Smith, and Denise Williams.</span><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the global threat of meteor showers – exacerbated by an increasing amount of space debris in our solar system – causes widespread panic, a world-wide siren system alerting people to significant threats is developed. The plan immediately hits a rocky start when the US accidently launches the siren during a routine testing without being able to signal the all-clear, causing people to take immediate shelter.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Each of these 6 stories forces two people – strangers, colleagues, crushes, rivals – to take cover with one another, exploring what chances a person may take when they mistakenly believe the world is ending. Spoiler: it’s a lot of confession making and kissing.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Filled with joy, heat, and emotion, this collection also seamlessly incorporates issues impacting people of color in an authentic and genuine way.</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-7028970a-7fff-3b4b-dcf0-93d619396fe8" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EVEN IF THE SKY IS FALLING</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author: </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taj McCoy, Farah Heron, Lane Clarke, Charish Reid, Sarah Smith, and Denise Williams</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISBN: </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9781335452559</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: May 30, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publisher: Canary Street Press</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">18.99 US | 23.99 CAN</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;" /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkH-_HmOJZToUd6jRIssKuxs7N0TL9ECFCVUf_UsyWcVgv0GrXhoKO1PTMBf8ALsrTGO3KTlgfa_g0YeQSayFFgJjRizf5yKFqyGfqsHddbT16-iEIuUEz_i1OyvnpsnVFzIC-9hZkCqRo9EcMJrYEIgmJtcngHPqHJGHaORowrKzEdTjQjNHR0DwxfA/s1600/Copy%20of%20684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1600" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkH-_HmOJZToUd6jRIssKuxs7N0TL9ECFCVUf_UsyWcVgv0GrXhoKO1PTMBf8ALsrTGO3KTlgfa_g0YeQSayFFgJjRizf5yKFqyGfqsHddbT16-iEIuUEz_i1OyvnpsnVFzIC-9hZkCqRo9EcMJrYEIgmJtcngHPqHJGHaORowrKzEdTjQjNHR0DwxfA/w609-h152/Copy%20of%20684-HTP-Banner---Summer-2023-for-Google-Form.jpg" width="609" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-75ef9f62-7fff-6cc0-f11c-1e5ff8935cde" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buy Links: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/even-if-the-sky-is-falling-original-denise-williams/18979598?ean=9781335452559" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BookShop.org</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/even-if-the-sky-is-falling-taj-mccoyfarah-heronlane-clarkecharish-reidsarah-smithdenise-williams?variant=41001427337250" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harlequin</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/even-if-the-sky-is-falling-taj-mccoy/1142519068?ean=9781335452559" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barnes & Noble</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Even-If-Sky-Falling/Taj-McCoy/9781335452559?id=8292090795540" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Books A Million</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Even-Sky-Falling-Taj-McCoy/dp/1335452559/ref=sr_1_1?crid=312ICB9JPIRU3&keywords=even+if+the+sky+is+falling+taj+mccoy&qid=1683134906&s=books&sprefix=even+if+the+sky+is+falling+taj+mccoy%2Cstripbooks%2C83&sr=1-1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amazon</span></a></p></span></span></span></span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK7zB9ThHVhh0VgqqSUL7UAXPSFwYzhulR5lVY_wc8Hlt0JSJnp5tisK0i2iNL4Fg7A4fWgOgRJHoITA1WNTzg_ubLjkuL3t4LxZNnbyQ8EQ40Ut40XdiotjOFjYTRf-A7LvHjsO4Y2MhLKABkmQYpUhYgNN1_AK-cUsFxM_LjoYSkCetriYh-9GzbSQ/s6072/TajMcCoy_authorphoto_credit_Alaysia%20Jordan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6072" data-original-width="4000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK7zB9ThHVhh0VgqqSUL7UAXPSFwYzhulR5lVY_wc8Hlt0JSJnp5tisK0i2iNL4Fg7A4fWgOgRJHoITA1WNTzg_ubLjkuL3t4LxZNnbyQ8EQ40Ut40XdiotjOFjYTRf-A7LvHjsO4Y2MhLKABkmQYpUhYgNN1_AK-cUsFxM_LjoYSkCetriYh-9GzbSQ/s320/TajMcCoy_authorphoto_credit_Alaysia%20Jordan.jpg" width="211" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-8d898fb3-7fff-05fe-4e90-056f501db83c" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taj McCoy</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a law grad committed to championing plus-sized Black love stories and characters with a strong sense of sisterhood and familial bonds. Born in Oakland, Taj started writing as a child and celebrated her first publications in grade school. When she’s not writing, Taj boosts other marginalized writers, practices yoga, co-hosts the Fat Like Me and Better Than Brunch podcasts.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYsHGtyrHoc5jUjX6I-Evb2i8LVcUKtOxAhxcUGqHVFyJYYCK6Y5akEqczKRdMrFChZGVV5V4lRdbU_sxZb80txlmBWaoX7Bug9LlE3bUgSxYk26Osn_HT756ogA8tiNKcZWvNGsO7tNQehYmfF6pmK7vPpBsZVxtkV3HRyk6ZZ3zbRwfBhXhL6vXYHw/s1000/FarahHeronSmall.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYsHGtyrHoc5jUjX6I-Evb2i8LVcUKtOxAhxcUGqHVFyJYYCK6Y5akEqczKRdMrFChZGVV5V4lRdbU_sxZb80txlmBWaoX7Bug9LlE3bUgSxYk26Osn_HT756ogA8tiNKcZWvNGsO7tNQehYmfF6pmK7vPpBsZVxtkV3HRyk6ZZ3zbRwfBhXhL6vXYHw/s320/FarahHeronSmall.png" width="240" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Farah Heron</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> writes complex story arcs and uplifting happily ever afters while pursuing careers in human resources and psychology. Her romantic comedies and women's fiction are full of huge South Asian families, delectable food, and most importantly, brown people falling stupidly in love. She lives in Toronto.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_u-Bu3T_SKcuFid-xP5bllemCXz__cqQUNIsSlKx8diyjqCE5VzE-vk94WBa_3l4yc-4EJlby0BkYdxcx0rdQTUR0Bf21kQIlCEZFeKAD9oaiEIdsGoyu0755wnH6-B2C3cnyxYbZMfbYrFT4V8ZY7_PJ2bytWY5yTzTmSOwd4ibhEHBlTW-K23ZC3A/s485/Lane%20Clarke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="452" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_u-Bu3T_SKcuFid-xP5bllemCXz__cqQUNIsSlKx8diyjqCE5VzE-vk94WBa_3l4yc-4EJlby0BkYdxcx0rdQTUR0Bf21kQIlCEZFeKAD9oaiEIdsGoyu0755wnH6-B2C3cnyxYbZMfbYrFT4V8ZY7_PJ2bytWY5yTzTmSOwd4ibhEHBlTW-K23ZC3A/s320/Lane%20Clarke.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lane Clarke</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has been in love with books since the age of two. Her stories feature Black culture and big-hearted characters with self-doubts and big dreams, who—with a little laughter and good friends—can accomplish anything. She currently lives in Northern Virginia and works as an attorney in Washington, D.C.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMwI2p2Qzva9RjQ-zJR8nOdB5k5heGCQ3ZSYFbtU-S0HMVbgdyHSPNDzuSr29LnZvsptDejjNn4cc1eoPxpqYMcsFexw3oqNzaYNhBIgAiiztd2yAdg26k2TJE1Ulk2kZvEmQGr_F0hAM5nPu28nC_V86aZGkzblHo0L78X--X1DZFBWyqXE_e01zePQ/s2592/Charish%20Reid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2592" data-original-width="1944" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMwI2p2Qzva9RjQ-zJR8nOdB5k5heGCQ3ZSYFbtU-S0HMVbgdyHSPNDzuSr29LnZvsptDejjNn4cc1eoPxpqYMcsFexw3oqNzaYNhBIgAiiztd2yAdg26k2TJE1Ulk2kZvEmQGr_F0hAM5nPu28nC_V86aZGkzblHo0L78X--X1DZFBWyqXE_e01zePQ/s320/Charish%20Reid.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charish Reid</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a fan of sexy books and disaster films. When she's not grading papers or prepping lessons for college freshmen, she enjoys writing romances that celebrate quirky Black women who deserve HEAs. Charish currently lives in Sweden.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaqT6KxlkXfRaKPZ8FyTBxH-HqG-avf8fQo65moyauqhgBTCeyMkeJcAFno8De-UJK3lhsHTNOzoPuWkiz-FYRnXEsS-t8Lk8lO9SzkaW8oezOBv_C7haOIywIg1eU-rk56JKiypmzucFPSandK6-VwcFQLDjm8DuLx5c40bPRYKrJNNSVanyzjsTQ_Q/s450/Sarah%20Smith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="284" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaqT6KxlkXfRaKPZ8FyTBxH-HqG-avf8fQo65moyauqhgBTCeyMkeJcAFno8De-UJK3lhsHTNOzoPuWkiz-FYRnXEsS-t8Lk8lO9SzkaW8oezOBv_C7haOIywIg1eU-rk56JKiypmzucFPSandK6-VwcFQLDjm8DuLx5c40bPRYKrJNNSVanyzjsTQ_Q/s320/Sarah%20Smith.jpg" width="202" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sarah Smith</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a copywriter-turned-author who wants to make the world a lovelier place, one kissing story at a time. Her love of romance began when she was eight and she discovered her auntie's stash of romance novels. She lives in Bend, Oregon.</span></p><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: start;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGuH2-SQ4WfwOqvUV6dIPO_lTn6YCJbVEz4FBu8FYHyFrOuEgEAB7xOrAfj5ggFgnlVKFFZmjTyGdn34aOfH9c9rAOx87gi4OHGsTtokAx2-SRa3298HW43LdsMnCDJrufiofUXfOUAnmqB53eZN3KXO7MOsD5A2oai71OR0QFBpj1lxWaJQ_111HTMQ/s5121/Author%20Photo%20-%20Denise%20Williams.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5121" data-original-width="3414" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGuH2-SQ4WfwOqvUV6dIPO_lTn6YCJbVEz4FBu8FYHyFrOuEgEAB7xOrAfj5ggFgnlVKFFZmjTyGdn34aOfH9c9rAOx87gi4OHGsTtokAx2-SRa3298HW43LdsMnCDJrufiofUXfOUAnmqB53eZN3KXO7MOsD5A2oai71OR0QFBpj1lxWaJQ_111HTMQ/s320/Author%20Photo%20-%20Denise%20Williams.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>Denise Williams</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> wrote her first book in the second grade. That book featured a tough, funny heroine, a quirky hero, witty banter, and a dragon. Minus the dragons, these are still the books she likes to write. After penning those early works, she finished second grade and eventually earned a Ph.D. in education, going on to work in higher education. Denise lives in Des Moines, Iowa.</span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Social Links</span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-936abc00-7fff-7c80-8c46-e2c04c8ec3be" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://www.tajmccoywrites.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taj McCoy</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://farahheron.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Farah Heron</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.laneclarkewrites.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lane Clarke</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://charishreid.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charish Reid</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.sarahsmithbooks.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sarah Smith</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.denisewilliamswrites.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Denise Williams</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter: </span><a href="https://twitter.com/tajmccoywrites" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taj McCoy</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/FarahHeron" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Farah Heron</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/lanewriteswords" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lane Clarke</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/AuthorCharish" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charish Reid</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/authorsarahs" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sarah Smith</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/nicwillwrites" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Denise Williams</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Farah-Heron-Author-1540423292682932" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Farah Heron</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/CharishReidAuthor" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charish Reid</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/authorsarahs" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sarah Smith</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDeniseWilliams" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Denise Williams</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram: </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/the1whowill/?hl=en" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taj McCoy</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/farahheronauthor/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Farah Heron</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/lanewriteswords/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lane Clarke</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/charishreidauthor/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charish Reid</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/authorsarahs" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sarah Smith</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/nicwillwrites" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Denise Williams</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goodreads: </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7687767-taj" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taj McCoy</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18095699.Farah_Heron" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Farah Heron</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20609409.Lane_Clarke" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lane Clarke</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7313358.Charish_Reid" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charish Reid</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18792837.Sarah_Smith" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sarah Smith</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20099482.Denise_Williams" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Denise Williams</span></a></p><br /></span></span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;">Excerpt:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-weight: 700; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">ALL THE STARS</span></span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-2ab72253-7fff-9642-4af1-37dd62549967"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Willy Song, we are leaving this base and heading to the station in eight minutes, with or without you,” Halley growled through gritted teeth into her phone. She hung up before he could respond. This is the last time I allow this joker off base before a mission.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The dry air kicked up dust in the breeze, but the September heat radiated off the tarmac outside of a small hangar. Halley Oakes was one mission away from being promoted from a NASA senior communications specialist to project manager, and it all depended on the success of this team. Based on those she’d been assigned, Halley had her doubts that her promotion was any closer than it had been a year before. More than once, Song had put her in a bind that left her with egg on her face in front of her superiors. He could complete most of his job, but not before making matters worse. She was sure someone had been joking when she read the team roster days before.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m here, I’m here!” Willy jumped out of an SUV that hadn’t come to a full stop with a cloth grocery bag, clanging its contents in one hand and a mission binder in the other. “Man, I hope we have time for a pit stop, because I think I had some bad shellfish last night, and a three-hour ride with me could be unpleasant.” He scrunched up his nose, waving a hand in front of his face comically until he caught the arctic glare of his superior. His wiry hunched form straightened, and he pushed his floppy dark hair back so it wouldn’t fall into his eyes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ew. “What the hell is that you’re carrying, Song?” Willy Song was the tech specialist that no one chose for essential missions. Between his inappropriate jokes, his constant need to overshare and his record for accidents, there was no way he should be assigned to this detail. Of course, tell that to the chief—Song happened to be his only nephew.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Song hesitated briefly before a sly grin spread across his face. “Have you ever tried a peanut butter stout, boss?” He held open the bag by its handles to show off its contents—a six-pack of beer and a bag of pretzels. He practically danced with excitement; his feet tapping the tarmac to the beat of a rhythmless drum. “It’s locally made at a brewery here in Boulder. It’s supposed to be amazing, with subtle hints of chocolate and peanut butter.” He chef-kissed his fingers as his eyes rolled back.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Ew, no, and don’t call me that. I like Oakes just fine.” Halley wrinkled her nose. Beer was never really appealing to her, and adding peanut butter wasn’t likely to make it better. She smoothed her hands over a self-imposed uniform of black cargo pants, work boots and a thin V neck sweater with a small NASA emblem embroidered high on the left breast. Her curves felt understated in this uniform, and her thick halo of curls was pulled back into her standard “work attire” bun. She pushed the sleeves up her forearms, wishing she’d opted for something short-sleeved in this heat and running through the inventory of other clothes in her go bag.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Everyone else here, boss?” Song eyed the black Escalade loaded with equipment for the installation.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Glenn is already in the truck. We’re just waiting on Simmons.” Halley checked her watch for what felt like the millionth time. Jake Glenn, their systems engineer, always arrived like clockwork. Lynn Simmons, a part of the protective detail, usually beat everyone there and would nap until it was time to move. Where is she?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Simmons? I thought she got reassigned for that detail in Florida?” He shifted his binder under the arm holding his prized beer so he could scratch his head before unsuccessfully trying to smooth his wrinkled clothes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Halley’s head snapped in Song’s direction. “What?” she barked. A twisting sensation pierced her gut, and she blinked hard before staring at him with laser focus. “She was reassigned? Who is her replacement?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Song’s eyes widened as if he knew more. “Umm…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Halley snatched her phone out of her pocket to go through her emails from the chief. Surely someone would have told her that her team assignments changed. Sure enough, Chief Henry had emailed her while they were in the air on their Colorado-bound flight from Andrews Air Force Base, outside of DC. She scanned the email, inhaling a sharp breath when her eyes fell on the last name she wanted to see. Griffin Harper.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seeing the murderous glint in her dark eyes, Song retreated to the SUV as Halley’s cell rang. Shit, it’s the boss. “Sir,” she answered on the first ring, her tone devoid of emotion.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Oakes, I sent you an updated roster while you were in the air.” The chief’s no-nonsense tone was enough for Halley to understand that there would be no talking her way out of these last-minute reassignments. She assumed he came out of the womb scowling.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes, sir, I saw the update.” Her mouth formed a straight line. Protesting would just piss off the chief, and Halley was trying her hardest to advance in her career at NASA—something she’d been focused on since she started out as a summer intern in grad school. It had taken a decade to rise through the ranks and gain the trust of her superiors, first by becoming a specialist, and finally having “senior” attached to her title. Halley had built a reputation of reliability and strong leadership, and she could feel that she was right on the brink of advancement yet again. She could taste it. Complaining about assignments wasn’t something that many comms specialists could get away with while still being assigned to lead missions.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the years, Halley had become the chief’s go-to specialist on the team; he relied on her efficiency and quick thinking. He especially liked that she didn’t bombard him with questions on how to get things done. Her initiative was a constant topic whenever he had to dress down a slacker in their unit. There were colleagues who teased her for being a favorite, but no one could deny Halley’s work ethic.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This won’t be a problem, will it, Oakes?” Usually, Halley’s commanding officer wouldn’t have any knowledge of her personal relationships, but she and Griff had a huge blowout argument in the mess hall the last time they saw each other—right after he’d sent the text that ended their relationship. She’d gone after him to give him a piece of her mind, and when he had nothing to say in response, she blew up. The chief and several other senior officials were present. Over a year had passed, but Halley had never shaken her frustration at being led on by a man who promised the world when he ultimately wasn’t ready for an actual commitment or even to communicate his feelings like an adult. Because of her outburst in front of the senior team, her advancement had slowed, as if the higher-ups were waiting to see if she would rally or unravel altogether.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Not at all, sir. We will conduct ourselves professionally and make sure that the system is installed flawlessly.” Halley stood at attention, her voice firm, even though her insides were swirling.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Good. Has Song arrived?” Of course, he had to check up on his nephew.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sweat began to gather across Halley’s smooth brown forehead as she cleared her throat. She whisked it away with the back of her hand. “He has. He’s already in the transport vehicle. We’re just waiting for Harper to arrive, and then we’ll head for the base.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Good.” His voice softened slightly, as if he’d stepped away from the earshot of others. He was constantly surrounded by a team of people monitoring any number of projects and emergencies. “Now listen. Song looks up to you, and he could benefit from your guidance, Oakes. Make sure that this mission goes off without a hitch, yes?” The firmness of his tone indicated there was only one right answer. Being on the chief’s bad side could mean a six-month detail in a place no one wanted to go.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes, sir. We won’t let you down, sir.” The phone disconnected, and Halley bit her lip wondering whether she would be able to keep her promise. Her shoulders rounded slightly as she fell deep into thought. The chief’s nephew had already shared that he planned to sneak contraband into the station, and Halley’s emotionally unavailable ex was on his way to distract her and bring back all of the feelings that she never processed. She sucked her teeth, brooding over the inevitable. Sensing movement behind her, Halley’s back snapped straight, and she waited for the figure to identify itself. His smell-good cologne gave him away first.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hi, Halley,” the voice behind her rumbled with a gravelly bass tone that reverberated at her very core. “Been a long time.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excerpted from Even if the Sky is Falling, “All the Stars” by Taj McCoy. Copyright © 2023 by Taj McCoy. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.</span></p></span></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794756989839922202.post-22430942836441369472023-06-04T14:32:00.001-04:002023-06-04T14:32:58.785-04:00What's in Your Beach Bag This Summer (2023)?<p> <b style="font-family: verdana; text-align: center;">What's In Your Beach Bag This Summer?</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDrBORaKhP8x9I_aLsWonQv1zsUREizbSLWrFzahyqrQNjSu94rZjFC3XJUvokSSa_7CKEsl3b6DboSVlDBtayRQh3F9pQ6cH0YQe8KrF1ASCJvWbR9_5T_1-sO2eATsP-MUQ4lEV8lnk/s2048/read+in+sand2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDrBORaKhP8x9I_aLsWonQv1zsUREizbSLWrFzahyqrQNjSu94rZjFC3XJUvokSSa_7CKEsl3b6DboSVlDBtayRQh3F9pQ6cH0YQe8KrF1ASCJvWbR9_5T_1-sO2eATsP-MUQ4lEV8lnk/s320/read+in+sand2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">With Summer 2023 officially kicked off, it is the perfect time to determine what books I will put in my beach bag! </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is where I list 10 (sometimes more) books that I want to read over the summer. I seem to get the reading done most years, but have lagged in getting all the reviews posted. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Books that made the previous lists:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span><a href="http://www.seasidebooknook.com/2019/05/what-books-is-in-your-beach-bag.html" target="_blank">2019 - What's in Your Bag?</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> </span><a href="http://www.seasidebooknook.com/2020/08/update-whats-in-your-beach-bag.html" target="_blank">2020 - What's in Your Bag?</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <a href="http://www.seasidebooknook.com/2021/06/2021-whats-in-your-beach-bag-this-summer.html" target="_blank">2021 - What's in Your Bag?</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 2022 - What's in Your Bag? I can't believe I completely missed doing this post last year. I had just started a new job, my twins graduated from HS, my son ended his junior hockey career and all three kids were starting college...guess it slipped my mind.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana; font-size: 16px;">Let's get it done this summer! Leave me a comment letting me know at least one of the books you plan on reading this summer. I love book suggestions.</span></p><p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXDa90eHkvdOPI0v_po0CQ55qJEmEwgn-g81IWMhsBS7WkEvjgeeQFl71Ko9kOzsM4x5pJcxz0xZS70g8YFvMmiEW5_3QeKlTRT4C6B2o_31QoX7-ZY2apsECK8xRHrc37mgifyyUxZEk4/s170/beach+bag+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="109" data-original-width="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXDa90eHkvdOPI0v_po0CQ55qJEmEwgn-g81IWMhsBS7WkEvjgeeQFl71Ko9kOzsM4x5pJcxz0xZS70g8YFvMmiEW5_3QeKlTRT4C6B2o_31QoX7-ZY2apsECK8xRHrc37mgifyyUxZEk4/s0/beach+bag+2.jpg" /></a></span></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana;">In no particular order:</span></span></p><p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana;">1. The Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Suzy K Quinn </span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white;">2. The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white;">3. The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;">4. Summer of the Bluffs by Sunny </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;">Houston</span></p><p><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22);">5. The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand (what would summer be without a Elin H book, right?)</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;">6. The Things I Wish I Told My Mother by Susan Patterson</span></p><p><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;">7. Welcome to Beach Town by Susan <span style="caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22);">Riggs</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22);">8. The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22);">9. The Beach at Summerly by Beatriz Williams</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;">10. Künstlers in Paradise by Cathleen Schine</span></p><p><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;">11. Mystery book - I discovered the cutest independent bookstore and gift shop when I was in Pittsford NY (Rochester NY area-where I used to live) on the way back from picking up my daughter from college (year 1 done for all 3 kids). They had wrapped books - Blind Date With A Book! I love the idea and had to buy one! I still haven't unwrapped it - I am so nervous it is a book I already read!</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d2716; font-family: verdana;"><a href="http://bookculture.com" target="_blank">Book Culture</a> - 28 South Main Street, Pittsford NY 585-203-1501</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguM4-_TsqmoSSuX-zBAUrUSW6YCJep6_UrUXUXrGU-bbyCYRguNjahIyDR9YOY5x9Nu4Mx3vtDjnuIArcTPBhMw2NsN3Bt-0fGYZ9z_6632_YnoIbyiQxag3efbgUmPZ85eqpiGvIMemKpzZWc5SNfhRstZ-HFAUdtpxN-gInwpwuDId7sN_zYVXNc2Q/s4032/IMG_1004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguM4-_TsqmoSSuX-zBAUrUSW6YCJep6_UrUXUXrGU-bbyCYRguNjahIyDR9YOY5x9Nu4Mx3vtDjnuIArcTPBhMw2NsN3Bt-0fGYZ9z_6632_YnoIbyiQxag3efbgUmPZ85eqpiGvIMemKpzZWc5SNfhRstZ-HFAUdtpxN-gInwpwuDId7sN_zYVXNc2Q/s320/IMG_1004.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Happy Summer Reading and please don't forget to post a comment with recommendations!</span></p><p><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #3d2716; font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMoXCPbFEkV-ar3v-3eQqokrFBhxLxwUEHPAcJW3LArj93hdEA_pniGn-I2nrE8zKDINQtoyliU_phAbH7F_dHmxXicwAOXJ0u4BEdF7mQ8Q0Qx4rR3gSG4pT9XcHieC6mrTRXW8VIegizfppEsobpXDyM5_yVA2zg2LHDhCVbmFhyP4_g-ISig6K3HQ/s284/Greatest%20love%20story.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="178" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMoXCPbFEkV-ar3v-3eQqokrFBhxLxwUEHPAcJW3LArj93hdEA_pniGn-I2nrE8zKDINQtoyliU_phAbH7F_dHmxXicwAOXJ0u4BEdF7mQ8Q0Qx4rR3gSG4pT9XcHieC6mrTRXW8VIegizfppEsobpXDyM5_yVA2zg2LHDhCVbmFhyP4_g-ISig6K3HQ/w125-h200/Greatest%20love%20story.jpeg" width="125" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4UF6sgGVgoAXCtcCgXnXGdwNtRuauyCqoJ7QdYDIdIvpl-_FZytijr5B1LC0dIUxKzyUDtaWso0UpKfZii3krX-W6CELe4PRsDibV2a9xqa04ic1vgWCWTLcuCm4vMlbJVgK6fogveHWFQAQ09NaVVf-hUr7qDGuqgiXd16S7_ZysAou0tQ4MW5v3HA/s275/Eudora%20honeysett.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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color: #3d2716; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40pPWKJ9d9F9--w397fBRvdYm3kH_M8LygreTXTN1OkLhTKJlzdMDpPcRwKL373zJ6sdomjhzFrE8xDX8JrXkjlDdA7IdTkLU0N5ajbtK7fHc60bXA1Gb8MzltsS9wYUjs9jJXnapeul8DGzUekSolwjx-up5ia8g2Rb6JTAdKIErGKqHgGyaG0QTOg/s2400/The%20Little%20Italian%20Hotel%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1594" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40pPWKJ9d9F9--w397fBRvdYm3kH_M8LygreTXTN1OkLhTKJlzdMDpPcRwKL373zJ6sdomjhzFrE8xDX8JrXkjlDdA7IdTkLU0N5ajbtK7fHc60bXA1Gb8MzltsS9wYUjs9jJXnapeul8DGzUekSolwjx-up5ia8g2Rb6JTAdKIErGKqHgGyaG0QTOg/s320/The%20Little%20Italian%20Hotel%20cover.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Synopsis:</u></b> </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-c0877cb3-7fff-ebd2-84ee-74517bab7b70"><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When a relationship expert’s own marriage falls apart, she invites four strangers to Italy for a vacation of healing and second chances in this uplifting new novel from the author of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Messy Lives of Book People</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><span style="color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny Splinter, acclaimed radio host and advice expert, prides herself on knowing what’s best for others. So she’s sure her husband, Adrian, will love the special trip to Italy she’s planned for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. But when Ginny presents the gift to Adrian, he surprises her with his own very different plan—a divorce.</span><span style="color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beside herself with heartache, Ginny impulsively invites four heartbroken listeners to join her in Italy instead while live on air. From hiking the hills of Bologna to riding a gondola in Venice to sharing stories around the dining table of the little Italian hotel, Ginny and her newfound company embark on a vacation of healing.</span><span style="color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, when Adrian starts to rethink their relationship, Ginny must decide whether to commit to her marriage or start afresh, alone. And an unexpected stranger may hold the key to a very different future… Sunny, tender and brimming with charm, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Little Italian Hotel </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">explores marriage, identity and reclaiming the present moment—even if it means leaving the past behind.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-759eca6e-7fff-a57a-0f1e-b7ac0667d97b" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Little Italian Hotel</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author: Phaedra Patrick </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Sale June 6, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Park Row Books</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paperback Original</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ISBN </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9780778387121</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Price: </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$18.99</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;" /></span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-e90b4460-7fff-10de-695f-d0872bd1002e"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buy Links:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href=" https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-little-italian-hotel-phaedra-patrick?variant=40799581339682 " target="_blank">HarperCollins</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-little-italian-hotel-phaedra-patrick/18772980?ean=9780778387121 " target="_blank">BookShop.org</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href=" https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-little-italian-hotel-phaedra-patrick/1141998435 " target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0778387127 " target="_blank">Amazon</a></span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"></div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilzoWkvZLMdKpb7JaXrVCd7fBAkk0uwjhgoOxXMkomFUpBKQebv0CnYLvHPqOHgEo4sjLA042vCiWxXGHkMpsVZC_FDotu779TJJk5TvvgoIHIQ-HfOIzwaHvGn-L97UCnD1jdUmvx5UL_CCpD47gBofLdbfMBjz-q7BE0nKOEKlSdxPTgv06YyEWYog/s3080/Author%20Photo%20Phaedra%20Patrick%20credit%20Samral%20Photography%20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3080" data-original-width="2000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilzoWkvZLMdKpb7JaXrVCd7fBAkk0uwjhgoOxXMkomFUpBKQebv0CnYLvHPqOHgEo4sjLA042vCiWxXGHkMpsVZC_FDotu779TJJk5TvvgoIHIQ-HfOIzwaHvGn-L97UCnD1jdUmvx5UL_CCpD47gBofLdbfMBjz-q7BE0nKOEKlSdxPTgv06YyEWYog/s320/Author%20Photo%20Phaedra%20Patrick%20credit%20Samral%20Photography%20.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-81a51573-7fff-3457-66ae-aadf5fbe1634" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Phaedra Patrick is the bestselling author of several novels, including </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which has been translated into twenty-five languages worldwide. Her second novel, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rise and Shine Benedict Stone</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, was made into a Hallmark movie. An award-winning short story writer, she previously studied art and marketing and has worked as a stained glass artist, film festival organizer and communications manager. Phaedra lives in Saddleworth, UK, with her family. </span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-16d475ab-7fff-c660-b54c-6a7f4c92e698" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Links:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://www.phaedra-patrick.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.phaedra-patrick.com/</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter: </span><a href="https://twitter.com/phaedrapatrick" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://twitter.com/phaedrapatrick</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram: </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/phaedrapatrick/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.instagram.com/phaedrapatrick/</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">GoodReads: </span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14203653.Phaedra_Patrick" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14203653.Phaedra_Patrick</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/phaedrapatrick" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.facebook.com/phaedrapatrick</span></a><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;">Excerpt:</u><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mountains</span></span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-26ddaf72-7fff-5893-dbeb-42a099b69e9c"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“H</span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">i, it’s Ginny Splinter, I’m listening. Tell me your worries…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was something she said so many times a day on her </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just Ask Ginny </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">radio show it had become second nature, like sprinkling sunflower seeds on her muesli or kissing her husband, Adrian, on the cheek before he left for work each morning.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny arrived early at the Talk Heart FM studio that day to pass a financial planning article to a security guard who’d confided to her he was struggling to pay his rent. She stopped to chat to the young receptionist whose boyfriend wouldn’t commit to anything more serious between them.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You shouldn’t rely on him for your own self-esteem. Never forget you’re a prize worth winning,” Ginny told her with a kind smile. “Come talk to me anytime.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The receptionist wiped a tear from her eye. “Do you really mean that?” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A promise is a promise. Stay strong, sweetheart.” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny walked away with a glow in her chest, touched when others trusted her with their personal issues. She wasn’t one to toot her own horn, but when her friends wept into their chardonnay, she was the one they turned to for good advice and packets of tissues. Where others saw paths littered with broken glass, she chose to picture the sun rising over the mountains. It was probably why thousands of folk from Greenham, Ginny’s leafy northwest England hometown, tuned in to her daily advice show.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Throughout her fifteen years on the air, there wasn’t a problem Ginny hadn’t tried to fix, whether it was loneliness, retirement worries, body dysmorphia, noisy neighbors or bullying at work. She offered solutions for the lost loves, secret loves and the never-been-in-loves. Empathy was her superpower.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Other people’s issues made her appreciate her happy marriage all the more. Her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was just around the corner and she couldn’t wait to celebrate it in style. Whenever Ginny thought about the surprise holiday she’d booked for her and Adrian, in Italy, she couldn’t help smiling. Next month, in June, they were going to be staying in a gorgeous little village, Vigornuovo in Bologna, for three whole weeks. It would also be the perfect opportunity to renew their wedding vows, to reaffirm their love and commitment to each other and to have some fun, too.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The thought of spending quality time alone with her husband made a rush of warmth flood her skin. Ginny couldn’t wait to wander the side streets of Venice at dusk and admire Botticelli’s </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Birth of Venus </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. More than anything, she wanted to reignite the spark in her marriage. She and Adrian had been so busy recently that they were like cars speeding along a motorway in opposite directions. It made her feel uncharacteristically listless, especially now that their daughter, twenty-four-year-old Phoebe, had left home to move in with her fiancé, Pete, and was busy arranging her own wedding.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny usually advised fellow empty nesters to keep busy by taking up a new hobby, perhaps home baking or walking a neighbor’s dog, but she was struggling to practice what she preached. Her hormones had felt out of balance for some time and sticking HRT patches to her backside, to banish her hot flashes, hadn’t proved to be the wonder cure she’d hoped for.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last week, she’d had a worrying urge to rip open her blouse on the high street and flash her lacy bra to passersby. “See, I’m here, still desirable, not invisible!” she’d wanted to shout. But really, she wanted her husband to make her feel that way. The Italian holiday was going to be the perfect solution.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When she stepped into the elevator at work, Ginny was faced with a new life-sized poster of herself. She had an auburn high ponytail with a trademark curl at the end, and was wearing a pastel blue skirt suit with animal print heels. Her face had been airbrushed, removing every wrinkle, and she’d been given a golden halo and wings.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny Splinter, Advice Angel</span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, said the tagline.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny pursed her lips. She didn’t like that her lines had been erased. She’d earned them over forty-nine years of life experience, like gathering stamps in a passport.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the office, she waved at her latest producer, Tam. There was a conveyor belt of young graduates keen to join Talk Heart FM, using it as a training ground before migrating to bigger and better roles elsewhere. Tam was the latest recruit. She buzzed with ideas and her oversized black-rimmed glasses screamed ambition.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tam propelled her chair across the office at great speed while sitting in it. “Gin, babe,” she said, tapping a pen against her teeth. “Thought we’d shake things up today and take some live calls, if you’re up for it?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny sat down at her desk and frowned. “Are you sure that’s sensible? We’ve got time to run through the show and handpick a few problems. It gives me time to digest them and give my best advice.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her mind flicked back to a live call during which a woman had set fire to her husband’s clothes after discovering his affair. Fortunately, he’d not been wearing them at the time. Afterward, Ginny had fielded lots of calls from concerned listeners and had to assure them everything was okay. Since then, all her producers preferred to pre-record conversations.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tam drummed her fingers on the table. “Come on, Gin. Today’s lead news story is about a herd of sheep escaping into Greenham town center.” She fanned a yawn with her hand. “You must be bored of the same old format, too. We don’t want </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just Ask Ginny </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to become the missionary position of advice shows.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny narrowed her eyes. She knew her audience well. “Playing some great music, reading out listeners’ letters and giving them advice on air, plus a few pre-recorded interviews is a proven formula,” she said. “And the new poster makes me look like someone off </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love Island</span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tam slow-blinked and tapped her teeth again. “Hmm…” she said, looking Ginny up and down critically. “Not sure about that.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny was increasingly aware she was now twice the age of her colleagues. It felt unbelievable, laughable even, that she and Adrian would both turn fifty later that year. She always told callers that age was just a number, but she was finding the milestone confusing. One minute, she treated herself to a new pair of sparkly stilettoes, and the next she found herself reading reviews for thermal nightdresses. She bought pretty lingerie and vitamins to improve her energy levels. She was far from being old, but her youth sometimes seemed like a distant memory.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’ve made my decision.” Tam pointed her pen at Ginny’s chest like a pistol. “Let’s go for the live calls.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny tried not to growl.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few minutes later, she went live on air, playing songs by Ed Sheeran, Adele and Coldplay, slotting in a couple of her own choices by Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Strokes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many of the callers seeking advice used a pseudonym and sometimes even affected a fake voice. Ginny nervously gnawed the inside of her cheek as she took a live call from </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Confused of Greenham</span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The woman didn’t know whether to enter a third marriage with a kind, generous man she didn’t love, or to pursue a fling with a younger pizza delivery guy.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Picture yourself five years from now,” Ginny said. “You’re lying on your sofa, wrapped in a blanket with a dose of the flu. A hand gently sweeps the hair off your clammy forehead. You open your eyes and see someone holding out a cup of hot tea and some aspirin for you. Is it your fiancé or the pizza guy?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My fiancé, I suppose,” </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Confused </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">said.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Then there’s your answer. You can get pizza anytime from any place. Care and understanding are more difficult to come by.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny wrapped up the call and Tam’s weary voice came through her headphones. “Try making the next call sexier, Gin,” she said. “We don’t want listeners nodding off.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m here to help, not titillate,” Ginny said through gritted teeth. She ran a hand down her ponytail and picked up a call from the next person on the line. “Hello, it’s Ginny Splinter, I’m listening. Tell me your worries.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The woman’s voice sounded shaky. “Oh, hello. It’s Miss…Peach.”</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, hi there, Miss Peach. Thanks for joining me today,” Ginny said. “Is there anything you’d like to share?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The caller’s words stuttered out. “I only stayed with my husband for the sake of our child. You make a promise and then you’re stuck with it, for life. I wish I’d got out while I had the chance… I’ve wasted so much precious time and now I don’t know what to do.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A familiar ache of compassion rose in Ginny’s chest. It was something she welcomed but had also learned to control, so other people’s problems didn’t affect her too deeply. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she soothed. “It sounds like you’ve been through a tough time. There’s nothing you can do to change the past, but you can take control of your future.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What if it’s too late for </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that</span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s never too late to move on. Focus on yourself and consider what you really want from life—”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“And what if I don’t know?” Miss Peach snapped. “What if I’ve forgotten how to think about </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">me</span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny hmm’d and delivered a sympathetic pause while considering what advice to give her caller. People often just needed a gentle push in the right direction. “Why not make a list of all the things you enjoy, perhaps a walk in the country or a trip to the cinema. Try to get to know yourself again and—”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“As if </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will work,” Miss Peach interrupted, her tone growing more brittle. “And what do </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">know anyway? You think you’re little Ms. Perfect, don’t you?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny’s scalp prickled and her mouth dried. Her uneasy sensation made the room tilt a little. She waved a hand, trying to get Tam’s attention through the glass partition, but the producer was busy scrolling on her phone. “This call is about you, not me,” she told Miss Peach. “Please don’t let your regrets eat you up.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’ve seen photos of you and your husband in a magazine. Adrian, isn’t it? You think you have such a </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">marvelous </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">life together.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny’s heartbeat began to thump ominously in her ears. A few thousand people would be listening in to this conversation. Oh, god, she hoped Adrian or Phoebe weren’t tuning in. Organizing a wedding was stressful enough for her daughter without </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this</span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Ginny drew a finger across her neck, indicating to Tam she was thinking of cutting the caller off.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her producer didn’t notice.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Shouldn’t you address your own problems before you lecture other people?” Miss Peach continued. “Do you even know what your husband gets up to at work? How well do you </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">know him?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ginny hesitated and rubbed the double lines between her eyebrows. </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she knew Adrian, from the way the moles on his back formed a diamond shape, to how he liked his toast served warm, not hot, and with butter spread right to the edges. He didn’t like the bedroom to be stuffy so he slept with the window ajar, even if it meant Ginny had to wear socks in bed during winter. He thought Porsches were works of art but would feel like a cliché owning one. He could be grumpy until his morning coffee kicked in and he enjoyed a nice glass of Rioja most evenings. He loved dogs, hated cats, liked dark chocolate but never white and sang Oasis songs while he shaved.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nevertheless, something icy seemed to slither down her spine. “Miss Peach, what do you mean by—?” Ginny started.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Ask </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">him</span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” Miss Peach said.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Ask him </span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what</span><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #211d1e; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But there was a click and the line went dead.</span></p><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excerpted from </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Little Italian Hotel</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Copyright </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">©</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 2023 by Phaedra Patrick. Published by Park Row Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.</span></p></span></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794756989839922202.post-46151368711953431352023-05-25T07:57:00.000-04:002023-05-25T07:57:02.275-04:00The Revenge List<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; text-align: center;">~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~</span></p><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8aCZFk_rCvH5wtBGL5iV-I46BcTwfj6D0iixQDgz6TxIgUunoT5oO2VDwyMHD-RWFP20Z5DUfBdgrNZcIgan9rFQEvbt0kzHz2XhVMqJ7XHsq1VlIhnMIfXq9kPWDlfTYBTrh-Odv0UqdQrxNhcFqKaFW3goWo8tNWE_Pu081fDTJggKfo4XkowPxPg/s3200/9780778333463_TS_prd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3200" data-original-width="2125" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8aCZFk_rCvH5wtBGL5iV-I46BcTwfj6D0iixQDgz6TxIgUunoT5oO2VDwyMHD-RWFP20Z5DUfBdgrNZcIgan9rFQEvbt0kzHz2XhVMqJ7XHsq1VlIhnMIfXq9kPWDlfTYBTrh-Odv0UqdQrxNhcFqKaFW3goWo8tNWE_Pu081fDTJggKfo4XkowPxPg/s320/9780778333463_TS_prd.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span face=""\22 verdana\22 " , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s1600/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="82" data-original-width="450" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgObC7Gdf0G5Xg2IxDtU-U5cfB2kn6EtQ_ZvCj4NKrwwA-exUQD4LIv_i4P6COwtQdY7HdvihiinS40QJaarWy9_FKnqE88S0xp60T7i0Wf3yS42j2tuqaH8QgyLLYR6P51o9DwsctnjTLY/s320/Sounds+Good+To+Read.png" width="320" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><b><u>Synopsis:</u></b> </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-0cc8d6c0-7fff-e1c1-0d46-a0e7ecafa628"><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They say life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die. But all she could see was regret.</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The people in Frankie Morgan’s life say she’s angry. Emotionally stunted. Combative. But really, who can blame her? It’s hard being nice when your clients are insufferable, your next-door neighbor is a miserable woman and the cowardly driver who killed your mother is still out living it up somewhere.</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Somehow, though, she finds herself at her very first anger-management group session—drinking terrible coffee and learning all about how “forgiveness is a process.”</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One that starts with a list.</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frankie is skeptical. A list of everyone who’s wronged her in some way over the years? More paper, please. Still, she makes the pointless list—with her own name in a prominent spot—and promptly forgets about it…until it goes missing. And one by one, the people she’s named start getting hurt in freak accidents, each deadlier than the last.</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Could it be coincidence giving her the revenge she never dared to seek…or something more sinister?</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If Frankie doesn’t find out who’s behind it all, she might be next.</span></span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; line-height: 25px; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-aadae62c-7fff-e3f7-2be9-8211766b0ece" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Revenge List : A Novel </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hannah Mary McKinnon</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Sale Date: May 23, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9780778333463</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trade Paperback</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$18.99 USD</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">368 pages</span></p></span></span></span><br /><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYRoMLYfQUnEudUT3Btc34U8JL7oN3tla7B7I_m7FDsrWAnfTDa8A-CNeP4VYgMC3GxFktAcGwwwCD0fV1tNxcQ7eZDr27Y-sWnv2nysAbsZN1aQbXLiIJEqXx0KyufUYGQWnu1Wsg7LjXJP1JgMcb-_6Atoe13ZGGEDsLfaZBYjsVjNeXJWovZ_VUIw/s1500/685-THE-REVENGE-LIST-Blog-Tour-Banner-1500-x-500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1500" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYRoMLYfQUnEudUT3Btc34U8JL7oN3tla7B7I_m7FDsrWAnfTDa8A-CNeP4VYgMC3GxFktAcGwwwCD0fV1tNxcQ7eZDr27Y-sWnv2nysAbsZN1aQbXLiIJEqXx0KyufUYGQWnu1Wsg7LjXJP1JgMcb-_6Atoe13ZGGEDsLfaZBYjsVjNeXJWovZ_VUIw/w524-h172/685-THE-REVENGE-LIST-Blog-Tour-Banner-1500-x-500.jpg" width="524" /></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-81096bd8-7fff-86cf-054f-7086b9da7b56" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BUY LINKS:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://Bookshop.org" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-revenge-list-hannah-mary-mckinnon/1142010420" target="_blank">B&N</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-revenge-list-hannah-mary-mckinnon/18745472?ean=9780778333463&ref=&source=IndieBound&title=The+Revenge+List" target="_blank">IndieBound</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revenge-List-Hannah-Mary-McKinnon/dp/0778333469" target="_blank">Amazon</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Revenge-List/Hannah-Mary-McKinnon/9780778333463" target="_blank">Books A Million</a></span></p></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKWgGFBJwaX0aRXHMlVJOg4-hAT4Od2VNk4h92WrA2AxpQwLEQVglxmMjO9rJayCzRacfraR4EATiVY6iINnneX5reokBvAWQ2uxogTJE0stWyGv-KvdNT55mbx9quIlupaupFz7vV040/s1600/JilleenMeetTheAuthor.png" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDlW6H764SsuykOqBU2gTFbniT9zjF4goTttBONgqqiNcsDNwN8bANqClZJCabXOX6cmOIV22CXw2Ok5PItJzkIKmRBXTXtd_y_UIxdxMnxLDs2IXgLBTZEquQ7d8qAqXJkAEQNfGf8ELML3OLYmEnYHAVquQd5AI21x_Th23Xjqz8TGykibDJ6Zw7vw/s2445/Hannah%20Mary%20McKinnon%20author%20photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2445" data-original-width="2256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDlW6H764SsuykOqBU2gTFbniT9zjF4goTttBONgqqiNcsDNwN8bANqClZJCabXOX6cmOIV22CXw2Ok5PItJzkIKmRBXTXtd_y_UIxdxMnxLDs2IXgLBTZEquQ7d8qAqXJkAEQNfGf8ELML3OLYmEnYHAVquQd5AI21x_Th23Xjqz8TGykibDJ6Zw7vw/s320/Hannah%20Mary%20McKinnon%20author%20photo.jpg" width="295" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b9f06485-7fff-9be2-933f-ed71bc2c4cae" style="text-align: start;"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="0"></col><col width="624"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 22.5pt;"><td style="background-color: white; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; vertical-align: top;"><br /></td><td style="background-color: white; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 9pt; margin-top: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hannah Mary McKinnon was born in the UK, grew up in Switzerland and moved to Canada in 2010. After a successful career in recruitment, she quit the corporate world in favor of writing. She now lives in Oakville, Ontario, with her husband and three sons, and is delighted by her twenty-second commute. Connect with her on Facebook, on Twitter @HannahMMcKinnon, and on Instagram @HannahMaryMcKinnon. For more, visit her website, www.hannahmarymckinnon.com.</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SOCIALS:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="www.HannahMaryMcKinnon.com " target="_blank">Website</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="www.facebook.com/HannahMaryMcKinnon " target="_blank">Facebook</a> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(@hannahmarymckinnon)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.instagram.com/HannahMaryMcKinnon/" target="_blank">Instagram</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (@hannahmarymckinnon)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.twitter.com/HannahMMcKinnon" target="_blank">Twitter</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (@hannahmmckinnon)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15144570.Hannah_Mary_McKinnon" target="_blank">Goodreads</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.bookbub.com/authors/hannah-mary-mckinnon" target="_blank">BookBub</a></span></p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b9f06485-7fff-9be2-933f-ed71bc2c4cae"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://linktr.ee/hannahmarymckinnon " target="_blank">LinkTree</a></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><u style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Questions and Answers with Hannah McKinnon!</u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">Describe THE REVENGE LIST in four words?</span></div></blockquote><span id="docs-internal-guid-d1e6c67b-7fff-753b-8e15-8083b7647a76"><br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(61, 39, 22); color: #3d2716; font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twisted, surprising, gut-wrenching, original.</span> </span></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">How would you describe your latest book in a few sentences?</span></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-8abf99a0-7fff-7954-5c14-58dae532ded6" style="text-align: start;"><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 54pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Frankie Morgan loses her “forgiveness list” – the names of people who have wronged her in the past, and whom she could work to forgive – she thinks nothing of it. But as the people on Frankie’s list have increasingly serious accidents, Frankie’s in trouble. She wrote her own name on the list because her past self is the one person she’ll never forgive. If she doesn’t find out who’s behind the attacks, she might be next.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">What’s “the story behind the story.” Tell us about the inspiration for THE REVENGE LIST?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can usually pinpoint exactly where the inspiration for my novels came from. Typically, it’s a news article (</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You Will Remember Me</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her Secret Son</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) or a radio segment (Sister Dear), maybe some daydreaming (</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Neighbors</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) or a specific character (</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Never Coming Home</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With </span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Revenge List</span><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it was after batting various plot ideas around with my agent Carolyn, and former editor Emily that a random idea popped into my head: “What if an anger management group therapy exercise went terribly wrong?” That was it—we all needed to know what the rest of the story was. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">What did you have the most fun with, character or plot?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Both, because they’re intrinsically linked. I loved building Frankie’s history to figure out who had wronged her in the past, how it had shaped her life and was still influencing her in the present. Frankie’s a firecracker, and it was incredibly interesting to write from the perspective of a woman who struggles with anger and doesn’t always handle it in a way that’s expected.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Did any of the characters appear fully formed? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, they never do, but Frankie’s character came together quite quickly once I’d decided on a rough premise. I knew she’d have a certain amount of anger caused by her past, that she might be construed as an “angry woman” and I wondered what it would be like to write from that character’s perspective – without her being angry all the time, of course, because that would be exhausting. I also deliberately placed her in a male-dominated industry, which I have a lot of experience working in.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Did the story end the way you’d initially thought?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, it did. I had the ending in mind when I started outlining and it barely changed. It still gives me the shivers.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Five facts readers don’t know about THE REVENGE LIST</span></p><br /><ol style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; margin-left: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fictional coffee shop, Jake’s Cakes, originally appears in </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sister Dear.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It was fun to revive it as a little easter egg for anyone who reads both books.</span></p></li></ol><br /><ol start="2" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; margin-left: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I put Frankie in construction because it’s such a male dominated industry, but also because, I often went to construction sites when I was a kid as my dad worked as an architect. I still find them fascinating.</span></p></li></ol><br /><ol start="3" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; margin-left: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like Frankie, I had a job at a grocery store when I was in school but thankfully nothing bad ever happened there.</span></p></li></ol><br /><ol start="4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: decimal; margin-left: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I set the book in Portland, Maine because I’ve been there and loved it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I modeled reporter Danika Danforth’s personality on my good friend Hank Phillippi Ryan. One reader told me “reporters aren’t that nice” and I replied, “Hank is!”</span></p></li></ol><p role="presentation" style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p role="presentation" style="color: #0e101a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> <span> <span> </span></span></span>Do you have a favorite chapter or scene?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I adored writing the scenes with Frankie and Rico because I loved the brother/sister relationship and dynamic. I don’t have a brother, but if I did, I hope it would be someone like Rico as he was such a wonderful, caring man who clearly adored his sibling but wouldn’t put up with her nonsense, either.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you have a favorite character?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s got to be Frankie. I loved writing from her perspective – I found her so interesting and complex, including the fact that, even given her history, she’s still an optimist at heart. She became a great (fictional) friend.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">What do you hope readers will take away from THE REVENGE LIST?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I always say I hope to surprise readers, and that they keep thinking about the book long after they’ve finished the final page. My ultimate goal hasn’t changed: it’s to entertain, to provide people with a form of escape and to leave them satisfied thinking, “I enjoyed that. It was time well spent! What else has Hannah Mary written?”</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="text-align: start;" /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0