Tag Archives: Contemporary Women’s Fiction

The Corpsman’s Wife Virtual Book Tour

The Corpsman's Wife banner

The Corpsman's Wife cover

Contemporary Women’s Fiction

Date Published: June 23, 2020

Publisher: Hellgate Press

 

photo add-to-goodreads-button_zpsc7b3c634.png

 

Getting away from her abusive, soon-to-be-ex-husband, Susi Jury accepts the
invitation of her lifelong best friend, Tracy, to attend the Navy Boot Camp
graduation of her younger brother at Naval Station Great Lakes near Chicago.
At a celebration for the graduates at a local bar, she accidentally spills
red wine on a young, handsome sailor—Lance Wells. Love at first sight?
Absolutely.

The next morning, as they lay in bed confessing their love for one another,
she realizes that her life has just changed forever—and so far, for
the better. Lance returns to the base and Susi to her home in Arizona. Soon
comes the first hurdle in their relationship: Susi is pregnant.

What follows is a romance for the ages that spans more than twenty years.
From a long distance courtship, followed by the birth of a daughter, then
through marriage, overseas deployment, loss, loneliness, and eventually
coming to terms with the effect that PTSD can have on a relationship.

As the years pass, Susi witnesses how Lance’s Navy experience as a
Fleet Marine Force Corpsman changes him. A short deployment during Desert
Storm, a horrific plane crash on Guam, the horrors of 9/11, and the Battle
of Fallujah—all seem to drain the spirit out of a once vibrant and
devoted husband, leading to an act of desperation that finds Susi in a
situation she could never have imagined.

The Corpsman's Wife  tablet

About the Author

Sabine Chennault

Sabine Chennault (1961), born in Ewersbach, Germany, came to America in
1981. She worked as a waitress and later as an Optician before becoming the
office manager and later a licensed Optician. From 2002 until 2003 she
attended Scottsdale Culinary Institute where she graduated with honors;
several years later she obtained a Bachelors’s degree in English
literature and went on to pursue her MA in family counseling. She quit
school to dedicate herself full time to writing.  She lives with her
husband Lance and their three dogs in Daaden Germany.

Contact Link

Website

Purchase Link

Amazon

RABT Book Tours & PR

2 Comments

Filed under BOOKS

The Corpsman’s Wife Blitz

 

The Corpsman's Wife  banner

The Corpsman's Wife cover

Contemporary Women’s Fiction

Date Published: June 23, 2020

Publisher: Hellgate Press

 

photo add-to-goodreads-button_zpsc7b3c634.png

 

Getting away from her abusive, soon-to-be-ex-husband, Susi Jury accepts the
invitation of her lifelong best friend, Tracy, to attend the Navy Boot Camp
graduation of her younger brother at Naval Station Great Lakes near Chicago.
At a celebration for the graduates at a local bar, she accidentally spills
red wine on a young, handsome sailor—Lance Wells. Love at first sight?
Absolutely.

The next morning, as they lay in bed confessing their love for one another,
she realizes that her life has just changed forever—and so far, for
the better. Lance returns to the base and Susi to her home in Arizona. Soon
comes the first hurdle in their relationship: Susi is pregnant.

What follows is a romance for the ages that spans more than twenty years.
From a long distance courtship, followed by the birth of a daughter, then
through marriage, overseas deployment, loss, loneliness, and eventually
coming to terms with the effect that PTSD can have on a relationship.

As the years pass, Susi witnesses how Lance’s Navy experience as a
Fleet Marine Force Corpsman changes him. A short deployment during Desert
Storm, a horrific plane crash on Guam, the horrors of 9/11, and the Battle
of Fallujah—all seem to drain the spirit out of a once vibrant and
devoted husband, leading to an act of desperation that finds Susi in a
situation she could never have imagined.

About the Author

Sabine Chennault

Sabine Chennault (1961), born in Ewersbach, Germany, came to America in
1981. She worked as a waitress and later as an Optician before becoming the
office manager and later a licensed Optician. From 2002 until 2003 she
attended Scottsdale Culinary Institute where she graduated with honors;
several years later she obtained a Bachelors’s degree in English
literature and went on to pursue her MA in family counseling. She quit
school to dedicate herself full time to writing.  She lives with her
husband Lance and their three dogs in Daaden Germany.

Contact Link

Website

Purchase Link

Amazon

RABT Book Tours & PR

Comments Off on The Corpsman’s Wife Blitz

Filed under BOOKS

Shifting to Freedom Blitz

 

Shifting to Freedom cover

 

Literary Fiction, Autofiction, Contemporary Women’s Fiction

 

 

Published: July 2021

In the literary, auto fiction about contemporary women, Shifting to Freedom, Tess, a medical doctor, to escape from fear, pain, horrendous manic depressive mood swings, and hallucinations, dissociates, crossing invisible barriers to become ‘alter’nate personalities.

Her life, heartrending in sadness, constantly threatens to become unraveled.

Her tenuous hope for recovery is as fragile as her emotions.

Shattering” is her constant fear.

We hear her cry from the darkness, tears we cannot stop, but we hold on to what we can—hope.

 

What people are saying about Shifting to Freedom:

Marlene writes with great facility. Her writing is intelligent; her prose is poetic. In my practice, I’ve treated patients with Multiple-Personality Disorder. It would be unprofessional of me to give a definitive diagnosis without interviewing Tess and the “alters.” However, there is no doubt that Tess has dissociative episodes. To survive the horrific traumas of childhood, she would have had to develop an escape mechanism, and dissociating was probably, the only way.”— Dr. David Yeung MBBS, FRCPC.

I can’t help but think, because of the explicit detail, that this story is, at least in part, autofiction. Or else, the author must have known Tess, intimately. Her story is painfully acute, deeply sad, riveting, and all engrossing. It brings awareness to Multiple-Personality Disorder that I could never have imagined. To help rid the stigma that surrounds mental illness, Tess’s story needs to reach a broad audience.”—ML from Vancouver, BC., a beta reader and severe critic during the early throes of Tess’s story becoming a book.

Shifting to Freedom paperback
 


About the Author

I ran barefoot on the Canadian prairies in the dust that settled after the 2nd World War. That makes me an octogenarian, an oldie.

Thrust from the infinity of wheat fields into the warp of the Rockies, Selkirk and Purcell mountains, the light that defined a frightful, but interesting, high school life challenged me.

Our neighbours were all Italian—migrants to Canadian mining towns. With his Welsh-born farmers’ busyness, my father found strange their art of dolce far niente—that is, the sweetness of doing nothing. They practised it, “Come in. Come in. Sit down. Taste my homemade vino.” My father adapted. The family adapted.

And the flames of railway trestles burning and women parading nude colored life. Doukhobors (a sect that had fled persecution in Russia) settled in the Kootenays. They protested having to send their children to public schools.

Wearing a babushka and twirling spaghetti, not only did I survive those years, but I thrived.

Vancouver, the big city, where I discovered traffic lights and city buses, claimed me for medical lab training, and I worked the night shift in the blood bank to put myself through university.

I’ve worked in cancer research, taught at tech schools, become a registered massage therapist, taken up energy schooling in NY., married and raised two kids, and, at 73, published A Many Layered Skirt, a biography about a young Chinese girl trying to keep one frightening step ahead of the soldiers, during the Japanese occupation.

My husband, of 56 years, was Chinese. Our mixed marriage was intriguing, and happiness was ours. Interests in people, cultures and places took us around the world. Many of those adventures find their way into my writing. He passed away, throwing my life into chaos. Now, I’ve picked up the pen, again. I wonder what it will write.

Contact Links

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

GoodReads

BookBuzz

Purchase Links

Amazon US

Amazon Canada

RABT Book Tours & PR

Comments Off on Shifting to Freedom Blitz

Filed under BOOKS

Dance with Me Blitz

 

Dance with Me cover

 

Big Sky Dreamers, Book 3

 

Contemporary Romance, Contemporary Women’s Fiction

Release Date: June 29, 2021

 

A journey of healing, hope and love.

SEAN

He loves running his family pub and the expansion into brewing is his contribution to the family legacy. But he hates seeing sad women in his pub, so he flirts, charms smiles out of the unhappy ones, and his Irish accent might be a little stronger as he teaches them a jig. Sad women remind of the terrible mistake he made. When Nicole walks in, pain radiates off her. He tries to coax a smile and even gets her to dance.

NICOLE

Eight months ago her world went up in flames. Once she was a dancer and a mother. Then her husband and daughter died in a fiery crash. Now she’s a mother without a child and a ballerina who cannot dance. Grief and guilt crush her. She retraces her daughter’s and philandering husband’s last day. Her final stop—O’Dair’s Pub. Her husband had been drinking with another woman before Nicole called and begged him to pick up their daughter.

Sean makes her smile. Makes her feel alive again. Maybe there is hope…

Other books in the Big Sky Dreamers series:

 

 

Invest In Me

 

Big Sky Dreamers, Book One

Sienna D’Amico took the biggest risk of her life and slept with Tanner, a guy she barely knew. Then he ghosts her. No last name. No phone number.

An enemies to lovers tale that will keep you turning the pages!

Stained Glass Hearts

Big Sky Dreamers, Book Two

Both homes and hearts can be restored.

This story is an emotional rollercoaster ride to healing and love.

Amazon

Dance with Me tablet


About the Author

Nan Dixon

Award winning author of the BIG SKY DREAMERS and FITZGERALD HOUSE series, Nan Dixon spent her formative years as an actress, singer, dancer and competitive golfer. But the need to eat had her studying accounting in college. Unfortunately, being a successful financial executive didn’t feed her passion to perform. When the pharmaceutical company she worked for was purchased, Nan got the chance of a lifetime—the opportunity to pursue a writing career. She’s a five-time Golden Heart® finalist and lives in the Midwest. She has five children, three sons-in-law, three granddaughters, two grandsons and one neurotic cat.

 

 

Contact Links

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

BookBub

Goodreads

Newsletter

Promo Link

Purchase Links

Amazon

RABT Book Tours & PR

Comments Off on Dance with Me Blitz

Filed under BOOKS

Please… Tell Me More Blitz

 

Please... Tell Me More banner

 

Please... Tell Me More cover

 

Contemporary Women’s Fiction

 

Date Published: November 20, 2020

Publisher: Blue Fortune Enterprises, Lavender Press

This heartfelt story about sisters, family and the tenuous connections we forge in life will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

Rose was a child when the worst possible thing happened-her sister Lily drowned. While Rose was supposed to be watching her. From that moment, Rose knew it was all her fault. After all, that’s what her mother told her. But life must go on, no matter what, and Rose and her sister, Ivy, grow up in a family without their little sister. In a family where alcoholism and arguing defines their parents. In a family that personifies dysfunction. In a family where anger forces their brother away. Was it any wonder that Rose was so excited to get to college? Was it any wonder she sometimes had a date with Mr. Merlot, the wine bottle she hid to help her get through life’s tougher moments?

At times whimsical, always genuine, this story looks at the bonds of sisters and how family can become our foundation even when we don’t expect it.

Excerpt

I am a fraud.

My sister thinks I’m brilliant. My patients, since they keep coming back, must think I am at least minimally competent.

I listen to my patients, day in and day out, year in and year out, until I want to scream, “What the hell is the matter with you? What is the point of coming to see me if you won’t take any of my advice and try to change? I have said to you a million times: let go, move on! The past is the past, and you can’t change it. No matter how many times you talk about it, nothing is going to change. You have vented. Now get over it. You have to learn from your mistakes, live what’s left of your life, and hope you don’t make the same mistakes again.”

But I don’t scream at them. I don’t even tell them what to do. I make suggestions. I nod and make comforting sounds and occasionally say, “Tell me more.” Or I ask, “And how did that make you feel?” and nod again while they answer.

They are not fixable. Maybe none of us are fixable. I laugh, because I can’t even take my own advice.

Let go.

Move on.

The past is the past.

I say these words each day, still I’m unable to apply them to myself. I am stuck just as much as they are. I studied psychology with some hope of helping myself. It hasn’t worked. I have accepted I will never be “fixed.”

I’m not sure why no one in my family has ever noticed how messed up I am. I guess because, like all of us, they have their own problems and I seem so “together” in comparison. Also, they are totally self-absorbed and call me to talk about themselves and their problems, not to ask about mine.

When I say they, I am really only talking about my sister Ivy. She’s the only family member I really talk to. Other than my Mom, the rest of the family is gone now. I call my Mom weekly out of a sense of duty, which is crap because she never seemed to feel a sense of duty to me. And we talk about the weather or Ivy. She doesn’t seem to think there is anything interesting in my life to talk about. Which is true.

Unlike Ivy, with her numerous relationships, I haven’t had any apparent emotional upheavals in my life. I haven’t had any breakdowns or screaming fits or even numerous failed relationships. Did they not ever wonder why there were no failed relationships? Actually, no relationships at all? Does my lack of a love life not raise any questions?

I assume it’s because they think I am married to my work. I am not married to my work. As I said, I became a therapist for the sole purpose of fixing myself, which has not worked as planned. I haven’t been able to take my own basic advice, which is move on. The past is the past. It can’t be changed. Let it go.

My life pretty much ended, or at least failed to progress, when I was six years old. That was when my little baby sister, Lily, drowned. She drowned because none of us were paying any attention to her.

About the Author

Patti is a former army brat who lived all over the world before settling in the rural community of Gloucester, Virginia with her husband, Greg. There they raised three daughters and numerous cats and dogs.

After retiring from working at two area history museums Patti finally had time to do the things she always wanted to, including writing. Moving constantly made it difficult to make friends and form lasting relationships. Her writing is about emotional connections, friendship and family.

In addition to writing, Patti fills her days with rescuing raptors and other birds, and researching her family’s past on Ancestry. She and Greg also love to travel and have been busy checking off their bucket list.

Contact Links

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

Purchase Links

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Comments Off on Please… Tell Me More Blitz

Filed under BOOKS