Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Divorce Fiction

  • PAUSE by Sara Stamey – Contemporary Women’s Fiction, Family Fiction, Literary Fiction

    Blue and Gold Somerset First Place Winner Badge for Best in Category

     

    Sara Stamey’s Pause features a hero who defies gravity, a scintillating setting, and a lovely backdrop for this riveting story.

    This story is about women: strong, weak, abused, cherished, divorced, cancer survivors, mothers, sisters, friends, frenemies. It is a book about survival and hope, about getting back to self to reemerge into a life worth living. 

    Meet Lindsey, a fifty-two-year-old divorced woman going through menopause, living alone with her two cats, and worrying about her 1 and ¾ breasts. Readers will be hooked from the very beginning with the first of many poignant and funny journal entries. Here is Lindsey’s reality: a middle-aged woman suffering hot flashes that sear her skin and cause spells of nausea, who suffers PTSD from an abusive spouse. 

    Lindsey never thought of herself as a victim, though.

    The fact that she walked on eggshells around Nick becomes a reflection of Lindsey’s parents’ relationship. Her father’s abuse of the mother and the mother’s frailty combined with her refusal to accept help and get out of the situation leave Lindsey feeling helpless and trigger her PTSD. 

    A certifiable mess, Lindsey seeks out an old flame, Newman. And at least for her, the flame ignites, and Lindsey finds herself falling in love. Newman, however, never opens up to her or becomes more available than a part-time lover. When she meets Damon, she is torn between being treated like a queen by a man ten years younger than her or as a booty-call by Newman. 

    Stamey weaves these issues and more into her novel, giving her protagonist a chance to try on life again after surviving cancer and divorce. 

    Lindsey’s spiritual awakening occurs as she works as a medical transcriber at a local hospital. While typing up a rush job on an emergency case, she discovers that a friend’s son was admitted with head trauma. The doctor who did the neurosurgery regularly botches the surgery, either killing his patients or leaving them vegetables. She informs the parents of her fears about this doctor while launching a full-scale lawsuit against the hospital that knowingly kept this doctor on staff and destroyed their son’s chances for recovery. 

    She gets fired for breach of confidentiality and finds herself unemployed, but her original plan to pursue environmental writing, essays, articles, and books after graduating from college beckons. She finds her first topic while riding through a park slated to become a hospital parking lot. She submits her essay about endangered owls living in the trees there; the piece is published and becomes instrumental in saving the space. The paper’s editor recognizes her talent and approaches her with another project with an environmental theme, and Lindsey agrees. A new career blossoms for her, which builds her up instead of tearing her apart. 

    Stamey develops Lindsey as a woman who won’t succeed until she takes charge and stands up for herself and her dreams. 

    Lindsey must learn to heal and move beyond cancer, the divorce, and the PTSD of the abuse. Readers will adore Lindsey for all of it. Powerfully written with melodic imagery, Stamey draws her readers in. Be prepared to cry, laugh, and cheer for Linsey as she finally takes the leap of faith necessary to begin believing in herself.

    Stamey’s Pacific Northwest backdrop is captured in her skillfully crafted narrative. Readers are with Lindsey on the rapids, riding bikes through a maple forest, or walking beside a salmon-filled stream. We sit with her looking out over the Pacific Ocean at sunset and watching eagles as they hunt along the shore. Stamey’s brush strokes are deft, and her palette is rich as she creates this story’s world.

    Stamey’s Pause is a riveting tale of one woman’s exploration to discover herself in a world where she has been dominated and controlled. She learns to take back control and finds herself whole and healed. 

    Pause is beautiful and thought-provoking and comes highly recommended.  This title won 1st Place in the 2020 CIBA Somerset Book Awards for Contemporary and Literary Fiction.

     

    Somerset Literary and Contemporary Chanticleer International Book Awards 1st Place Winner oval Gold Foil sticker

      5 Stars! Best Book Chanticleer Book Reviews

       

    • FIND ME in FLORENCE by Jule Selbo – Women’s Divorce Fiction, Romantic Fiction, Literary

      Chatelaine 1st Place Best in Category Blue and Gold BadgeThirty-five-year-old Lyn Bennett explores the life of her late mother before she was married, in Jule Selbo’s romance novel, Find Me in Florence.

      In 1966, Jenny, a Mud Angel, dropped everything to fly to Florence, Italy, in search of treasures buried in mud and water after the Arno flooded. She worked tirelessly alongside her fellow Mud Angels to rescue these priceless works of art and ancient books.

      For all of Lyn’s life, she heard her mother’s stories until they became mundane and commonplace. But before Jenny passed away, she gave Lyn instructions on where to find her precious journal from her time in Italy. She left the cryptic message “Find me in Florence,” so when Lyn, an up-and-coming writer, has a chance to teach at a writer’s retreat in the city her mother loved, she jumps at the opportunity. Three years later, she still journeys there yearly for one month to explore Florence. With her latest book under her belt, Lyn decides to tell her mother’s story.

      Lyn’s life shifts dramatically, and she soon searches for more than her mother’s history.

      When she arrives in Florence, Lyn’s life seems on the upward swing. She put her writing back on track after the death of both of her parents, married a successful lawyer, and hopes to begin a family soon. However, all of that vanishes when Stan, her husband, surprises her not long after her seminar in Florence begins. Stan and Susie, Lyn’s best friend since junior high school, had an affair. The two followed Lyn to Florence to deliver the news in person, thinking her love of the city might lessen the blow of utter betrayal. Lyn’s true journey begins with this revelation. Suddenly, Lyn loses her hope as the people of Florence must have lost when her mother volunteered fifty years ago. But like the city, Lyn must endure.

      Soon following the bombshell announcement, Lyn struggles between what she “should” do and what she “wants” to do.

      She should accept this betrayal like an adult, negotiate reasonably with her cheating husband, forgive her BFF, and move past all of her pain. But surrounded by Florence, a city that called to her mother to leave her normal life, Lyn learns not to follow “the should” but to chase after “the want.” The vitality and passion of the Florentines give Lyn the strength she needs to “shed [her] skin.” Lyn rids herself of a life lived in fear of taking chances. Her mother’s own rash decision to become a Mud Angel and experience the adventure of a lifetime propels Lyn to stop accepting the expectations of everyone else. Perhaps Jenny meant for her daughter to learn this very lesson. As Lyn explores her fledgling confidence, she begins to realize all her mother gave up by returning to the US to fulfill her promise to marry Lyn’s father. She feels the life her mother could’ve lived if she had followed the “want” rather than the “should.”

      This clash of responsibility and desire extends beyond Lyn’s story. Matteo, a man Lyn grows to care for over the course of the novel, wrestles with his wants as well. His responsibilities weigh on him, coming from a proud Italian family with a lineage and family home dating back four hundred years. They hope–expect–him to marry a woman closely connected to the family business. But after a chance meeting, he draws closer to the American with the broken heart. He should stay away, give her time to mourn the loss of her marriage and best friend, but he wants more from her. Though Matteo should pursue the woman his family has chosen, he wants the woman he shouldn’t, and like Lyn, he will have to decide whether to follow his heart or his head.

      This novel celebrates Florence, its people, and its customs.

      Any lover of Italy will enjoy the history included in Lyn’s story. With the detailed descriptions, readers come along on the journey to this beautiful city, eating at its most celebrated restaurants, and walking its ancient streets. Florence shows Lyn her innermost feelings and surrounds her with passion and acceptance. Embracing and appreciating Florence makes Jenny’s story alive, rather than just a dusty story from half a century ago.

      Jule Selbo’s Find Me in Florence won 1st Place in the 2019 CIBA Chatelaine Book Awards for Romance and Romantic Fiction Novels.

       

      Chanticleer Book Reviews 4 star silver foil book sticker