Book Review: AILEEN'S GUESTHOUSE : A Heartfelt Contemporary by Eva Pasco

A bit of change of pace with this book, best described as Women's Literary Fiction. 

About the Book

(Charlestown, Rhode Island) - Overlooking Horseshoe Point at the end of Sea Lea Avenue in the picturesque village of Quonochontaug, you'll find Aileen's Guesthouse. There, a smattering of Quonnie's locals and lodgers cross paths. Whether through cultivated connection or random encounter, these folks have more in common than first meets the eye. 

An incoming tide strews debris of self-recrimination, regret, and remorse for their unintentional culpability in jeopardizing the life of an immediate family member. Whether altering destiny, attributing to demise, or precipitating a debilitating accident—no one is exempt from heartache: 

Aileen Stanton - for getting sidetracked on her watch; Gertrude Stanton - for her preoccupation; Ox (James) Babcock - for loaning a ten-dollar bill; Grand dame, Lillian Wright - for engaging in an illicit affair during the Roaring Twenties; Birdman, Drake Lynch - for wielding his power of persuasion; and Career mom, Perla Moreno - for her momentary lapse in judgment 

The guesthouse provides a home away from home. For some, a refuge for healing. For others, a retreat for cultivating hopes and dreams. For the invited reader of adult fiction, a portal for stepping into the 1970s in close proximity to those who survive the ravages of a guilt-wracked conscience and struggle to find meaning in the suffering they've caused. 

Welcome to Aileen's Guesthouse. Dinner is served at six o'clock sharp. 

Review 

Aileen’s Guesthouse is an old mansion owned by the now deceased Sam Stanton, Aileen’s father. it's located in Rhode Island, not far from URI or the Connecticut border. As the story starts, 13-year-old Aileen, her mother, and her younger brother live in the guesthouse along with Mrs. Wright and the bird man, Mr. Lynch. 

A tragedy strikes and with it, a shift in the personalities of these guests as they support Aileen and her mother. As the story continues, other characters emerge with a pattern of survivor guilt after tragedy and recovery for many of the characters, with domino effects on others.

Pasco’s writing draws the reader in, not only with empathy for the characters but with her wit. I loved her descriptions and references to all things 70s. It is truly a tale of life, loss, and love, not always in that order. It was an amazing time and Pasco captured all the ups and downs as she wove her tale. 

AMAZON

About the Author (from her Amazon page)

Reviving a dormant flair for writing after retiring from teaching in the third-grade trenches, multi-award winning author, Eva Pasco, prefers writing in the genre of Contemporary Women's Fiction. Her lit with grit is distinguished for its character-driven plots featuring female protagonists over forty propelled by the nuances of their human condition.  

A native Rhode Islander, Eva weaves historic events, geographic landmarks, and regional culture into the fabric of her storytelling, blurring the lines of demarcation between fact and fiction.

Release Blitz: ADJOURNMENT by Emersyn Vallis

When Sidney Chandler chooses to leave home she walks away from her life as she knows it… her family…

Him…

She stepped back, allowing them all to heal… move on… live without her…

Now at the age of twenty nine and almost a decade behind her, she is a master of disguise. Long gone is the timid girl who lived blinded by the ideas of love. 

Until fate decides to intervene and the one man she has struggled to evade at all costs is pushed back into her life. He knows the real girl behind the façade, only he can pull her out of her self-imposed exile… breathing life back into her cold, protected heart.

Fate will do what fate wants and Sidney’s choices are no longer her own… but were they ever really hers to begin with?

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Turning around to go back inside my laughter stops. I don’t feel the crystal dish slip from my fingers. I just stand here… frozen.

There’s yelling and noise but it’s all muffled… like that night. 

I close my eyes. 

Breathe… Breathe… 

My heartbeat pounding through me the muffled sounds become clear and I hear Morgan screaming at me.

“Jesus, Sidney! Do you want Mom to kill you?” 

Blinking feverishly I look down to see she caught it just as it was about to smash. I can’t bring myself to worry about that right now. I look back up and watch as Simon, the boy I was so in love with just moments ago pulls away from a girl that up until this point was my best friend. A girl I thought I was going away to college with, a girl who knew how I felt about him. 

This is not happening… at my party no less…

“Breathe… You’re in control…” Molly whispers, her hand connecting with my back startles me. 

You know when you witness something and you know you should look away but you can’t because it’s one of those moments, those damn life changing moments that your brain makes sure to take notes on so that nothing is missed, no detail is overlooked, and nothing is ever forgotten. It’s one of those moments in life that you know instantly will repeat itself over and over in your head until it eventually causes you to change. It will break you and from those pieces in that moment will rebuild you. I thought that night was my moment, but I guess that was just a giant stepping-stone to this. Maybe I was wrong about fate… maybe it forgot about me.

My pulse continues to beat through my body in a deep throbbing rhythm, the darkness of a black out building up. He steps back from her, slightly turning his head in my direction and I know he knows I’m standing here, he just refuses to turn and look at me. I’m so dumb, I should have seen this coming. I mean did I really think I was so different from any of my predecessors? Women, real women, who have actually given themselves to him completely only to find out the next morning they’re just one in a crowd of many. Nothing special and forgotten about as soon as he received whatever it was he wanted from them. 

I did… because he told me I was. We had a plan…

 

Emersyn Vallis is a first time author with Adjournment being the first book in the Fated Series. Currently residing on the east coast with her husband and three children she is typically mistaken for being quiet and reserved her friends often describe her as a spastic spider monkey and always the first to be there with her quick wit to pull you back up when you’re feeling down. After reading as a hobby for most of her life it wasn’t until she had discovered R. L. Mathewson’s ‘Neighbor from Hell Series’ and Tara Sivec’s ‘Playing with Fire Series’ that she came up with the idea to fuse comedy and suspense together and her passion for writing was born.

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iRead Book Tours Blog Tour : THE PUBLICIST ONE AND TWO by Christina George

Synopsis: The Publicist Book One
Behind every book, there’s always more to the story.

Can one woman change an age-old institution like publishing? Probably not, but Kate Mitchell sure wants to try. As a publicist with a large, respected New York publishing house, Kate finds herself at the mercy of a broken publishing system, books that don’t always sell (at all) and author egos that are often, well, as big as the island of Manhattan.

Enter the star Editor, MacDermott Ellis. Tall, handsome, charismatic, married, and ready to save the day. Kate wants to do the right thing but her hormones seem to be driving her decisions. Then there’s Allan Lavigne, once a revered author, now as forgotten as yesterday’s news; and his nephew Nick, who wants to sweep Kate away from New York for another coast, California.

As Kate tries to navigate the landmine of publicity, the over-the-top author expectations, and the careful dance of “I’m sorry, your book isn't on the bestseller list this week”, she also finds authors who are painfully overlooked by a publisher wanting more sex, more celebrities, and more scandal.
Review:
This is a well-written story with many personalities and, perhaps, more than a grain of truth.  Certainly, in any business, there is the push for profit and sometimes that road isn't the prettiest. Most people have had to deal with the egos and idiosyncrasies of individuals who think a lot of themselves - sometimes with humorous outcomes, sometimes less humorous.  That said, the Publicist Book 1 probably provides a glimpse of the day to day ups and downs of those behind the scenes.  Add to that the relationship between Mac and Kate, and then between Kate and Nick.  A bit steamy at times ...  The most memorable character, however, is Allan Lavigne - the elderly gentleman who wrote a bestseller many years ago and still has a contract with the publishing firm for a second.  Kate brings him food, helps to clean his apartment, and is his friend - probably his only friend.  I have to say Allan was my favorite!  The Publicist ends with a lot of balls up in the air... so on to Shelf Life: The Publicist Book Two.

Synopsis:  Shelf Life: The Publicist Book Two
The story only an insider could tell.

Publishing: An industry of out-of-control of egos, unrealistic expectations, and books with the shelf life of milk.

This is Kate’s world, but for how long?

When one of Kate Mitchell’s star authors is carted away in handcuffs, she thinks it’s only the beginning of her troubles. As her world crumbles around her, Kate desperately looks for anyone to hold onto but finds that happy endings are truly works of fiction. When her career and love affair hit their expiration date, Kate sets off on a new adventure…

Starting over in California is easy, but Kate soon learns that leaving her old life behind isn't. Nicholas Lavigne is eager to help her forget, but two things still own her heart, the dream of discovering the next great American novel, and MacDermott Ellis.

As Kate tries to rebuild her life she finds a surprising gift that reboots her career in a new and unexpected direction. Suddenly her name becomes synonymous with one of the biggest bestsellers publishing has seen in ages and she’s welcomed back with open arms. At the height of her success the ghosts of her past come back to remind her of the world she’d been trying to forget and the man who never let go of her heart.

Review:
Shelf Life begins about where The Publicist ends.  Kate continues to go back and forth on whether she can move in the same direction as the company.  She leaves the company and Mac and heads for California. Needless to say, the publishing world (and Mac) still have heart.  As with The Publicist, Shelf Life is well-written and includes a variety of characters and scenarios.

I read both books together and I would recommend others do the same as the story continues from one book to the other much as chapters do. Without reading The Publicist, I think a reader would be missing much.  



Meet the Author:

Christina George has worked in publishing for twenty years (give or take). Here’s what this book isn't. It’s not a slam against publishing (though it is broken) and it’s not a slam against authors (though some of them are crazy). This book is not autobiographical though many of the stories are true. No you won’t know which ones, cause it’s more fun to guess, right? George continues to work in publicity and helps authors because at the end of the day she does love books, she loves publishing, and she loves authors. She hopes you’ll enjoy this romp through Kate’s world as much as she enjoyed creating it.


Website: http://www.thepublicistnovel.com
Twitter: @publicistgal
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kate.mitchell.528316

Blog Tour: A Life Less Ordinary by Victoria Bernadine

Today is a break from mystery and into chick lit/contemporary fiction.  I'd like to welcome Victoria Bernadine who has provided a guest post on editing and how hard it is for an author...

The Cutting Room Floor

Good morning!  Thanks for hosting me today!

One of the hardest things I have to do is edit a book I’ve written.  Other people’s work – no problem!  I love telling other people what to do – LOL.  My own work, though?  A wee bit of a struggle.

Of course, the editing I’m talking about here isn’t the basic stuff:  spelling, punctuation, and grammar.  I’m talking about that edit where you read the book as a reader and not as a creator.

This is the point in the process when I read the book with an extremely critical eye, and assess each scene and character to determine if they actually serve a purpose in the story.  It’s the point where I have to determine the story I really want to tell, and let everything else go.

The end result is, I hope, a better story, but the number of things I’ve had to leave on the cutting room floor over the years is rather heartbreaking, and proof I’m far too easily distracted by shiny things.

A Life Less Ordinary is a prime example of this.

In my first (still incomplete) draft of the book, every person Manny and Zeke meet on their trip had a backstory that was explored in some depth.  They all had their own hopes, dreams and purposes in life.  I was passionately in love with all of them.  They made me laugh, they made me cry, and they made me want to hug them and tell them everything was going to be okay.

But then I put on my Reader Hat, and realized the story I really wanted to tell came to a screeching halt every time I delved too deeply into these minor characters.

I struggled against it, but in the end, I had no choice but to take out my editing scissors and leave these mini-plots on the cutting room floor.  I know the story is better for it, and the characters are still in the book, although not as extensively, and I continue to love them passionately…but I do still mourn those scenes.  Just a little.

How about you and your readers?  Are there scenes or characters you wish you’d kept?  Are there books you’ve read where a Reader Hat edit would have been helpful?

About Victoria:
Victoria Bernadine (a pseudonym) is, as the saying goes, a “woman of a certain age”. After twenty-something years of writer’s block, she began writing again in 2008. Victoria enjoys reading all genres and particularly loves writing romantic comedy and post-apocalyptic science fiction. What those two have in common is anybody’s guess. She lives in Edmonton with her two cats (The Grunt and The Runt). A Life Less Ordinary is the first novel she felt was good enough to be released into the wild.




Review:
This is Bernadine's first book and she is off to a great start.  A story of a woman deciding to change her life, Bernadine has created complicated characters with unique personalities.  Manny is likable, a little naive, and the road trip she designs is definitely outside her comfort zone.  Zeke, the blogger who forgets to mention to Manny that he is blogging the whole trip and her reactions, is quite the opposite. While they are the focus of the trip, along with Harvey, many other subplots add to the story.


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