July 24, 2012

Guest Post: Lee Fullbright, author of The Angry Woman Suite

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.

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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."

 

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