Welcome to Literary Marie's Precision Reviews. Today we have a special guest post from Lee Fullbright, author of The Angry Woman Suite.
Book Synopsis:
When overbearing former big band star Francis Grayson mentions the
"murdering bitches" who supposedly ruined his life, his resentful
stepdaughter Elyse—always on the lookout for simple dirt on
Francis—takes note. Intertwining narrative with Francis, Elyse stumbles
across glimmers of big murder instead of simple dirt, while Francis
moves perspective of his "bitches" back to the 1930s, to his childhood
in Pennsylvania. His coming-of-age story centers on a mysterious
painting and search for the artist who he believes can fix his feuding
family. Aiding him in his quest is his mother's lover, Aidan Madsen, who
not only mentors Francis' music career, but knows everything about two
murders implicating the women in Francis' family. The three narrators of
The Angry Woman Suite—Elyse, Francis, and Aidan—weave together
a picture of two disturbed families who meet their match in the young,
determined to survive Elyse Grayson, and human to a fault hero, Aidan
Madsen.
Guest Post:
“Superb, exemplary, and eloquent” are now my three favorite
words (supplanting—for now—“pay raise and vacation”).
And that’s because “superb, exemplary, and eloquent” are the
magic words ascribed to my just released novel, The Angry Woman Suite, by Kirkus Reviews (The World’s Toughest Book
Critics)—and talented artist Laurie Fuller, who designed the cover for The Angry Woman Suite, ran with them. Those
lovely words now headline a brilliant cover that is practically staring me in
the face 7/24 as I introduce The Angry
Woman Suite around.
Oh so easy on my
eyes.
The Angry Woman Suite
is “modern” historical fiction with elements of coming-of-age, mystery, and of
course a love story at its core; it’s also been labeled “labyrinthine” (love
that word, too) by a Montreal Books Examiner reviewer. It’s about a celebrity
double murder in Pennsylvania at the turn of the 20th century and subsequent
fallout on three generations of two families.
Which means I not only had fun plotting a
“keep-‘em-guessing,” (where that lovely “labyrinthine” comes in), but I played
“pretend” in different time periods, from the early 1900s to the 1940s first,
and then through to 1968, too. Double fun.
However, when it came time to pin a genre on the The Angry Woman Suite, historical
fiction didn’t feel completely right, probably because it’s not medieval, like Philippa Gregory, and I
just couldn’t seem to get Gregory out of my head as poster child for a genre.
But I’ve seen the light, and here’s the gist: According to
the Historical Novel Society, to be classified “historical,” a novel must be written
50 years after the events described—and, according to another source, “modern
historical” is fiction set up to about 1940, currently—and so there you have it,
we’ve got a winner: it’s a fit.
~~~
The Angry Woman Suite is available on Amazon.com ($9.99 for paperback; $0.99 for Kindle edition) and at Barnes & Noble ($9.99 for paperback; $2.99 for NOOKbook). Check back here Friday for a feature of the book's first line.
Lee Fullbright has her own blogging "suite" at "Rooms of Our Own."
