What’s on Page 25?

Thanks for stopping by the Chick Lit Author Blog Hop!  Hop & Win! The winner will receive a FREE Kindle Keyboard 3G, with Free 3G + Wi-Fi, and a 6″ E Ink Display. That lucky grand prize winner will also receive a “chick lit starter library” filled with great chick lit books written by the indie authors participating in the blog hop.

New to blog hops? Want to learn how to win the grand prize? Find complete information here.

Here is a sneak peek at All My Restless Life to Live: Elle is a soap opera writer who unravels mysterious communications from her dead dad’s computer:

Page 25:

I had stayed with my mom for awhile right after my dad died. I lasted three weeks and was just now getting over the trauma of it. My mother had answered my cell phone, read my email, critiqued my show scenes, made me half-sandwiches—looking pointedly at my stomach—and wouldn’t let me drink what she still called “pop” after five o’clock. I still regret snapping the day she asked me if I had brushed my teeth. “It’s not you, it’s me,” I had to break up with my own mother and move out.

I sneaked a look at my watch. “Mom, look. I’m sorry. We’ll do more stuff together, I promise. You’re starting your workout class on Monday, right?”

She nodded.

“So, how about it? Dad’s computer?” (Win the grand prize! The 2nd secret word in the 25-word sentence is: to)

“Ellen, I’m sorry. You just have to trust me here, but I cannot let you use your dad’s computer. It just wouldn’t be right.”

“Give me one good reason why not.” I glared at her, feeling like an adult scolding a child, almost wanting to add, “young lady,” just like she always used to do to me when she busted my chops over something.

She twisted her fingers, and wouldn’t look at me. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she finally said.

Duh – duh – duh . . .

Keep hopping! Click here to return to the list of blogs.

All My Restless Life to Live —Life is a soap opera, especially for Elle Miller, who writes for one. (Ellen dropped the “n” in her name in hopes of finding a better ending for herself.) When her laptop crashes, she borrows her recently deceased dad’s computer and gets way more than she bargained for.
Elle unravels mysterious communications from his computer, while her mom decides to give Internet dating a try. As Elle tries to save her career at I’d Rather Be Loved with a storyline featuring a trip through Atlantis, she takes a trip to the Emmys, and finds herself in the middle of a romance between a real doctor and a hunk who just plays one on TV. Friends, family, and clues from “the other side” all help Elle figure out the difference between living the good life and living a good life. Available Tuesday, June 4th!

Seemed Like A Good Idea

Ooooh!

Hmmm . . .

WTF?

FML.

Sigh.

Is it safe?

What’s on Page 25?

Thanks for stopping by the Chick Lit Author Blog Hop!  Hop & Win! The winner will receive a FREE Kindle Keyboard 3G, with Free 3G + Wi-Fi, and a 6″ E Ink Display. That lucky grand prize winner will also receive a “chick lit starter library” filled with great chick lit books written by the indie authors participating in the blog hop.

New to blog hops? Want to learn how to win the grand prize? Find complete information here.

Here is a sneak peek at All My Restless Life to Live: Elle is a soap opera writer who unravels mysterious communications from her dead dad’s computer:

Page 25:

I had stayed with my mom for awhile right after my dad died. I lasted three weeks and was just now getting over the trauma of it. My mother had answered my cell phone, read my email, critiqued my show scenes, made me half-sandwiches—looking pointedly at my stomach—and wouldn’t let me drink what she still called “pop” after five o’clock. I still regret snapping the day she asked me if I had brushed my teeth. “It’s not you, it’s me,” I had to break up with my own mother and move out.

I sneaked a look at my watch. “Mom, look. I’m sorry. We’ll do more stuff together, I promise. You’re starting your workout class on Monday, right?”

She nodded.

“So, how about it? Dad’s computer?” (Win the grand prize! The 2nd secret word in the 25-word sentence is: to)

“Ellen, I’m sorry. You just have to trust me here, but I cannot let you use your dad’s computer. It just wouldn’t be right.”

“Give me one good reason why not.” I glared at her, feeling like an adult scolding a child, almost wanting to add, “young lady,” just like she always used to do to me when she busted my chops over something.

She twisted her fingers, and wouldn’t look at me. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she finally said.

Duh – duh – duh . . .

Keep hopping! Click here to return to the list of blogs.

All My Restless Life to Live —Life is a soap opera, especially for Elle Miller, who writes for one. (Ellen dropped the “n” in her name in hopes of finding a better ending for herself.) When her laptop crashes, she borrows her recently deceased dad’s computer and gets way more than she bargained for.
Elle unravels mysterious communications from his computer, while her mom decides to give Internet dating a try. As Elle tries to save her career at I’d Rather Be Loved with a storyline featuring a trip through Atlantis, she takes a trip to the Emmys, and finds herself in the middle of a romance between a real doctor and a hunk who just plays one on TV. Friends, family, and clues from “the other side” all help Elle figure out the difference between living the good life and living a good life. Available Tuesday, June 4th!

Effing Alzheimer’s

My mother-in-law has an amazing laugh, and, until recently, was pretty good at maintaining superficial conversation, over and over and over, again. She drove me crazy (in the way that Korean mother-in-laws do) long before Alzheimer’s hit. She’s eighty-two, loved ballroom dancing and doesn’t shake her butt anymore when she walks.

A couple of falls, followed by a medical crisis with her boyfriend, “The Colonel,” (who lived with her and took care of her) and she spiraled into needing twenty-four hour care. My husband went into a series of “lasts” . . . the last picture taken in her own home, and possibly the last one with him. We took her house keys out of her purse, she won’t be needing those anymore. We threw away her soy sauce, brown sludge that must have been in her refrigerator since 1999.

We took her to breakfast, and a (final) walk through the park next to her house. We stopped at a water fountain and my husband, who was trying so hard to squeeze every moment of now out of the day, held his mom’s arm. He gave her a penny and told her to make a wish. She tossed it and we watched that penny make its arc in slow motion. She didn’t have any wishes left. Fucking Alzheimer’s.

All The Lonely People

Reprinted with permission from the fabulous-always-fascinating Writer Unboxed Newsletter.  Please click HERE right now to join the fun!

Reader Unboxed Book Review:

All The Lonely People — Jess Riley

Where do they all come from? In All The Lonely People, main character Jaime, who has lost her mother to cancer, realizes she and her siblings do not like each other: “We weren’t that family. We didn’t organize rummage sales together, we didn’t send one another birthday cards . . . We carried entire bowls of chips on our shoulders, with dip.”

Even her sweet husband gets the short end of the stick: “There will come a day when the idea of having sex feels like going to the gym—you know you should do it even when you don’t feel like it, you’re usually glad you did afterwards.”

A classic fight at Thanksgiving dinner leads Jaime to take drastic measures. She takes out an ad on Craigslist for a new family for Christmas, creating a list of demands for ideal relatives. Number seven? “Please be funny and don’t take yourself seriously.”

Set in Wisconsin, all the lonely people who answer the ad first meet for Christmas dinner, bringing their own hurts and hearts to the table. Jaime creates a new bond with this ragtag group of outsiders, as she realizes she is not blameless in manufacturing disappointment. As the story plays out over Jaime’s least favorite time of year, “. . .that frozen, dreary long night that lasts from January to March . . .” all the lonely people try to figure out where they all belong.

Author Jess Riley pulls off a refreshing look at the vulnerability of family dynamics, with all the charm and fierceness of a Midwesterner “shut in during a three-day howler piling snowdrifts against the front door.” Underneath the very funny dialogue that reveals the human absurdities of the loneliness and dysfunction hiding in families, Jamie gets a chance to look for tribal connections through her niece Hannah, the superglue of the family. Quirky characters with insights about life and love make me wish for more MidwestLit!

Bonus: Cool author alert! The virtual Jess Riley is as charming as you would suspect by reading her book.

Up next: July 16th, Mandatory Release (mandatory read!).