Tokens And Talismans

Please help me welcome Elizabeth Hein as today's Wednesday's Guest. She is going to talk about the importance of some of the tokens we may hold dear. In honor of Lara, the central character in Elizabeth's book, How to Climb the Eiffel Tower, I thought we would have some tea as we sit back and read what she has to share.

I am honored to be a guest here on Maryann’s blog and share a little insight into where story elements come from. 

The tokens we keep can take on significance far beyond their form. For instance, I wear a silver scarab ring as a memento of my journey through cancer treatment. In 2002, I visited the “Quest For Immortality - Treasures of Ancient Egypt” exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston. The timing of our trip was fortuitous. I had recently finished the radiation phase of my cancer treatment and was on the mend.

The special exhibit had a room that traced Thutmose III’s journey through the netherworld to the after life. The parallels between the Ancient Egyptian story and my experience with cancer treatment were remarkable. I stood in that room studying the hieroglyphs and reading about the Egyptian god Ra in the form of the rising sun, Khepri, until my family pulled me out of there. Khepri, the god that escorted the dead person across the river of death into the afterlife, is usually depicted as a scarab beetle. I love a good symbol so the image of the lowly dung beetle laying its eggs in a ball of dung and rolling it from place to place as a metaphor of rebirth and the rising sun resonated with me.

In the little gift shop at the end of the exhibit, I bought the silver scarab ring to mark my visit. For several years, I wore it every day as a talisman. I still wear it often, especially if I am feeling anxious or worried about the future. It reminds me of how I went through a terrible experience and came out the other side.
When I was writing How To Climb The Eiffel Tower, I decided to use my scarab ring as a model and imbue pieces of jewelry with significance. In a pivotal scene, Lara Blaine, the main character, finds the cross her grandmother wore and begins to wear it as a reminder of her grandmother’s love.

Jane Babcock-Roberts, the other main character, has a charm bracelet that she uses to remember all the places she has visited in her world travels. Whenever she visited a special place, she added a charm to her bracelet. Instead of scrap books or trinkets, she kept her memories around her wrist. I won’t give too much away, but that charm bracelet becomes significant to Lara and Jane’s relationship

Now it's your turn. Do you keep things? Have they become more significant to you over time? I’d love to hear about them.

Don't forget to enter the RAFFLECOPTER Give-Away  to win a lovely charm of the Eiffel Tower.

About Elizabeth:
Elizabeth Hein grew up in Massachusetts within an extended family of storytellers. Her childhood was filled with excellent food and people loudly talking over each other. After studying psychology at the College of the Holy Cross, she and her husband embarked on the adventure of parenting their two beautiful daughters. They now live in Durham, North Carolina.

In 2002, Elizabeth was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a cancer of the blood. During her extensive treatment, she met dozens of other cancer patients and developed close relationships with several of them. These friendships were the inspiration for How To Climb The Eiffel Tower. She learned that a cancer diagnosis is a life changing experience, yet it does not necessarily change a life for the worse.

Elizabeth Hein writes women’s fiction with a bit of an edge. Her novels explore the role of friendship in the lives of adult women and themes of identity. Her first novel, Overlook, spotlighted a housewife dealing with a cheating husband and the pressures of keeping up appearances. Elizabeth has published several short stories and is currently writing a novella and beginning to write a historical family saga about how love and identity effect four generations of women. Elizabeth enjoys interacting with her readers and can be found on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and her blog. 

Book Review - "How to Climb The Eiffel Tower" by Elizabeth Hein

How to Climb The Eiffel Tower 
Elizabeth Hein
Print Length: 256 pages
Publisher: Light Messages Publishing (October 1, 2014)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00K5E0O6Q

The author hooked me with the opening sentence: "Ellery Cancer Center protruded from the hospital's facade like a glass tumor."

This is how Lara Blaine, the central character, begins her journey through cancer treatment. That is challenge enough for any woman, but added to that is the emotional trauma she still carries from an abusive past. She has tried to hide from that past by maintaining a rigid routine of work and exercise, but this cancer thing throws that routine out the window. As the treatments make her sicker and sicker, she discovers that she cannot fight everything alone. For the first time in her life, she needs people and reluctantly allows one or two to come into her private life.

One of those friends is Jane, another cancer patient, and a wonderful character. It is Jane who helps Lara step away from the past and embrace herself as a strong, capable woman. I enjoyed getting to know  Jane  and Vanessa  and Sebastian  and all the other characters who touched Lara's life. They were all so well done, they came across as real people.

The book is listed as contemporary women's fiction, and it is an easy read, despite the heavy subject matter. There is just enough humor to lighten some moments, and Vanessa is one of those bright, happy friends anyone would want around to come over and brighten a day. All in all this is a wonderful story, very well-written, and it would be good for a book club discussion.

How to Climb The Eiffel Tower is scheduled for release in October, but is available for pre-order. Elizabeth is also doing a give-away via Rafflecoptor. The contest will run all week, so enter often and tell your friends. She is going to give one lucky entrant a charm of the Eiffel Tower. Click on the link below to enter the contest.

The Rafflecopter Giveaway

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Elizabeth Hein is a mother, author, and cancer survivor. She grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in North Carolina. She writes women's fiction with a bit of a sharp edge. She is fascinated by how friendship and human connection can help a person through the most difficult moments in their lives. When not writing, she is trying to raise two young women and a husband. She will be this week's Wednesday's Guest, so do try to come back

Book Review -- The Hardest Thing in This World by Nicole Eva Fraser

The Hardest Thing in This World
Nicole Eva Fraser
Second Wind Publishing 
ISBN: 978-1938101595 (paperback)
ASIN: B00G5LFLAC  (for Kindle)
Publication date: October 11, 2013
248 pages

BOOK BLURB: Sexy, smart-mouthed Melody Sawyer is an underachiever, a home health care nurse with good intentions and a chip on her shoulder. Her troubled daughter Renee recently dropped dead at age 24, but Renee's ghost keeps popping in on the family. And Melody has no clue about her married daughter, Kayla—who since age 16 has been deep in a clandestine affair with pro baseball player Baron Lee Presley.  The novel follows the Sawyer women’s offbeat, darkly funny, and sometimes tragic journey as they try to conquer the hardest thing in this world.

Fraser certainly knows how to grab a reader's interest in the opening of a story. We meet Melody Sawyer after the funeral of her daughter, Renee, when Melody has stolen the urn with Renee's ashes, eaten some of the ashes, then poured the rest down the drain. I don't know about you, but I sure wanted to know what motivated Melody's bizarre actions.

And that's what the rest of this book is about. We go back in time and meet Melody as a young woman. Then we meet Winch, her husband, and then the rest of her family that includes her parents, his parents, his brother, Jamie, and her brother Michael. How all of their lives and personalities intertwine and impact each other is the meat of the story, as they deal with the joys and tragedies that touch any family.

What happens to the characters in this book could happen to anyone, and that is one of the most engaging elements. None of us are above the petty jealousies, the resentments, the human frailty, the fears and the pains that these people experience. And there are things that have happened to our families that we would rather not talk about. Fraser does that for us with this interesting study of character and human behavior.

While I am not normally a fan of paranormal, I couldn't help but like Renee and Jamie as ghosts, and I especially liked Renee's description of the other world. "Renee doesn't know how to explain it. In the ghost world, time is a strand. It's fluid like a river and elastic like a rubber band."

This is a book best read in one or two or three long reading sessions as opposed to reading a chapter or two at a time. It is not a linear story, so one must stay with it for several chapters to follow the back and forth in time. If you can do that, you will be pulled along on a journey that is not always pleasant, but it always a good read. Fraser balances the good and the bad quite well, and offers touches of humor just at the right time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nicole Eva Fraser received her MFA in creative writing from the NEOMFA consortium in northeast Ohio and graduated summa cum laude from Baldwin-Wallace College with a double major in English and communications. She is an adult-literacy advocate in Cleveland, Tanzania and Malawi. She runs 10ks (slowly), used to speak French, and often can be found putting her foot in her mouth. You can find Nicole on Pinterest and Goodreads

The New Yorker

Before we grab our coffee's and visit with my guest today, I want to mention that my young adult novel, Friends Forever, is free for the next three days. This is what one reviewer had to say about the story, "Ms. Miller captures the trails and tribulations of 13 year-olds very easily. She talks their lingo and keeps the book interesting with enough twists and surprises to keep younger readers turning the pages to the very end."

Now, help me welcome Elaine Walsh as today's Wednesday's Guest, as she shares some amusing thoughts on the difference between etiquette in the North and in the South. Enjoy....

My daughter shudders when we pass a certain McDonald’s in town.  “I can never go back in there,” she laments, remembering the trauma she suffered there when she was ten after a visit with her New Yorker aunt.

 “New Yorkers are so misunderstood,” I’ve told her many times, not wanting her to overlook the content of their character since she can’t get past the directness of their approach.

I’ve been a stealth New Yorker, living undercover in Florida’s Tampa Bay area for over half my life. Because I grew up north of the five boroughs, I didn’t pick of the Bronx accent that gives away the origin of the upbringing of my father and his siblings whenever they open their mouths. A co-worker once told me, surprised to learn about my northern background, “You don’t seem like you’re from New York.”

It was his nice way of saying, “You’re not loud and obnoxious.” Sorry my fellow New Yorkers but that is how many in the south see us.

Southerners say things that at first glance seem more socially acceptable. Think about it. Doesn’t "hush" sound nicer than “shut up” or even better than the cleaned up version, “be quiet”. But is it effective? Can you imagine saying “hush” in New York? How long could you survive in New York on southern charm?  Maybe a nanosecond? Just  turn around in your seat in Yankee Stadium and say that to the loud-mouth from Boston who just yelled “you can’t hit what you can’t see Jeter.”. Hush? Really? The people around you would think you were throwing up a hair ball. Hush. Hush. Hush. They might even level a Heimlich maneuver on you to help you extricate it.

I’m an ambassador of sorts for my southern and mid-western raised friends. I have to translate at times.  I tell them, don’t confuse  a New Yorker’s directness with manners. While the southerner might have developed the ancient Irish trait of telling someone to go to the devil in such a way that they look forward to the trip, the New Yorker isn’t going to mince words. You know where you stand with them. There’s no confusing the point of what they’re trying to say.

So back to the calamity that unfolded at McDonald’s. My Bronx-born aunt relocated south a few years ago and now lives near me. She took my daughter out for a Happy Meal one afternoon. My daughter waited in the dining room while her aunt ordered their food. She heard a commotion coming from the front of the restaurant. A few minutes later her aunt showed up and plunked down in the seat across from her. Moments later a man walked up to her aunt and told her, “They don’t make enough money to put up with people like you.”

Her aunt turned in her seat, mouth gaping open, and flung her hands and arms open as if she was just shot in chest. “What,” she bellowed back at him, dropping her ‘r’ in typical New York fashion, “I’m the custa-mah.”

And the customer is always right.

My daughter wanted to crawl under the table. Instead, she vowed never to show her face in that McDonald’s again.

Fast forward to this summer where I’m with my daughter on a tour boat taking us around the New York City skyline. The guide narrating the tour had my aunt’s familiar accent. As he educated us on the history of New York and pointed out various sites, tourists on the boat would rush the rails to snap their pictures. Many lingered too long. Our guide minced no words telling them to take their picture and sit down so others could partake in the photo op. I didn’t know how my daughter would react to his direct approach. After one sharp scolding, I glanced at her and she said “What? He’s being nice. He wants everyone to have the same chance to get pictures.”

And I thought, ahhh, she finally understands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elaine's novel, Restoration, chronicles Tess Olsen’s challenge to restore her life, relationships, and dreams back to the promise they held before her mother abandoned the family to marry a convict, Randall Wright.

Elaine grew up in upstate New York against the backdrop of the flowering women’s rights movement with different ideas from her mother as to what life as a woman should be.  In college, she majored in psychology with the intent of being a “death & dying” counselor. Instead, she moved to Florida and became a  successful business executive by day and women’s fiction writer by night. She says, "Being a daughter, mother, friend, and soul mate is the most powerful influence in my life and my stories."
  
Visit Elaine at Goodreads, or her website. And you can follow her on Facebook and Twitter. 

Book Review - March by Sunni Oveend

March
Sunni Overend
File Size: 461 KB
Print Length: 244 pages
Publisher: Sunni Overend; 1 edition (May 31, 2013)
Pages: 300 (approx 70,000 words)
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9875667-0-6
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9875667-1-3


The opening of this story reminded me of The Devil Wears Prada. Apple March, working at a retail clothing store, is under the thumg of her overbearing boss, and the dialogue between Apple and Jackson is so reminiscent of that between Andrea and Miranda. Miranda and Jackson are rude, snobbish and quite demeaning in so many ways.

Apple planned for a career in fashion design and the reasons for why she is working retail and not following that dream are the mystery that is pulled through the story. The reader does not find out until the end what happened at the Emmaline Grey Academy that kept Apple from finishing her education.

I liked the snappy dialogue and enjoyed the many varied characters and settings that were brought to life through the story. It was a glimpse into the fashion industry in Australia and the social elite in Melbourne. One of the reasons I like to read is the opportunity to learn about a country that I may never see and get a real feel for the people and the settings.


Charlie, Apple's love interest, was a great character, and the resolution of their story is well done and very satisfying. We do want the happy ending with this kind of book that is part reality and part romantic fantasy.

If I had not been sent the book for review, I might not have picked it up based on the title or the cover. Neither gave me a hint of what the book was about, and I like titles that give some suggestion of the story concept. While the cover is an interesting and well-done graphic image, it, too, does not  reveal anything about the story.


However, those are minor points that do not take away from a well-done story, and may not bother other readers. If you like Chick-Lit, you will enjoy this book.

Book Review: One Big Beautiful Thing by Marie Flanigan

One Big Beautiful Thing
Marie Flanigan
File Size: 499 KB
Print Length: 359 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1484972600
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00CM9K0PC

The central character in this story is an artist, Kate Abernethy, who is trying to adjust to a new kind of life following the sudden death of her boyfriend. She moves in with her mother and that seems like a good way to sort out her finances and re-evaluate her life, but her mother does not allow Kate to be the adult she truly is. Kate must find her own way through the minefield of grief and figure out how to make a living and provide for herself. She has worked in graphic design, but her heart and soul are in her painting. Can she hope to be successful at it? 

There is a chance for Kate to have a new love in her life, too, if she can accept the fact that it would be okay. She does her deceased boyfriend no dishonor if she chooses to love again, but she has to believe that to accept someone new.

I really enjoyed this book on a lot of levels. The author really did a first-rate job in showing the ups and downs of the grieving process without getting maudlin or too sentimental. It was one of the best handling of grief that I have read in a long time. At one point in the story, Kate is angry with Robert, the man she loved who died a year ago. She has a pattern of going running whenever the emotional turmoil gets overwhelming, so this day she is running and trips and falls. She slides down an embankment and gets cut and gouged by branches and roots, and this is how the scene ends:

 "Kate blew out a frustrated breath and tried not to cry. What a crap, crap day. Robert had done this to her. He'd marked her and made her angry, and now he wasn't even here to help her. Kneeling there in the woods, she just wanted to scream at him, to pummel him with her fists and scream at him and hold him and touch him just one more time. There was nothing to do, but walk home."

This is Marie Flanigan's first novel, and I hope it is not her last. She will be my Wednesday's Guest this week to share a bit about the writing of this story, plus a few fun things about her. Please try to come by and say "hello."