click on the title:
The Girls of Tonsil Lake
is free on Amazon from March 4-8
Stop by and pick it up. I hope it gives you a few hours of pleasure.
Four women whose differences only deepen the friendship
forged in a needy childhood…
They were four little girls
living in ramshackle trailers beside a lake in rural Indiana. They shared
everything from dreams to measles to boyfriends to more dreams. As they grew
up, everything in their lives changed—except their friendship. Through weddings
and divorces, births and deaths, one terrible secret has kept them close
despite all the anger, betrayal, and pain.
Now, forty years later, facing
illness, divorce, career challenges, and even addiction, the women come
together once again for a bittersweet month on an island in Maine. Staring down
their fifties, they must consider the choices life is offering them now and
face the pain of what happened long ago.
Secrets are revealed and truths
uncovered, but will their time together cement their lifelong friendship—or
drive them apart forever?
Excerpt:
I
wanted Andie to come to New York, but she didn’t feel up to it. I felt a little shudder go
through me when she said that. Andie’s always been so strong, and she’s
cancer-free, so I found it startling and frightening when she admitted to
feeling less than wonderful. But, as Let There Be Hope shows, cancer
changes one in sometimes indefinable ways. Maybe this is one of those changes.
Mark and
I visited some islands off the Maine coast once, in our early days. I was so
enthralled that he bought me a house on one of them, a little strip of green called,
appropriately enough, Hope Island. It reminds me of Bennett’s Island, the
fictitious utopia of Elisabeth Ogilvie’s books, except that Hope has all the mod
cons.
I love
to go there. It’s a place I can be myself with little regard to what anyone
else thinks. I sit in my bathrobe on the wraparound porch of the Victorian
horror that is my house and drink coffee with Lucas Bishop, our neighbor. I
read Jean’s books without worrying that someone will see the covers.
I’ve
never taken anyone else—it was Mark’s and my private getaway—but I wouldn’t
mind if it was Andie who was there. Or Jean and even Suzanne. Andie and I could
work on her book. Jean could cook and keep house since she’s so crazy about
doing that, and maybe even spin out one of her romances placed on an island.
And Suzanne could...do our hair or something.
We would
all be together as we are that single night every year when we drive to the
lake and pretend we’re facing down our ghosts. I am a little afraid that the
day will come that we’ll have to face them down for real.
I wonder if they’d come.
The Girls of Tonsil Lake is Liz Flaherty’s eighth book, and it is no less thrilling than the first
one was. Retired from the post office, she spends non-writing time sewing,
quilting, and doing whatever else feels good at the moment (like drinking wine
on Nan’s boat). She and Duane live in the old farmhouse in Indiana they moved
to in 1977. They’ve talked about moving, but really…30-some years’ worth of
stuff? It’s not happening!
She’d love to hear from you at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or please come and see her at:
Thank you, Cheryl!
ReplyDeleteNo, no, thank you! The book looks great, Liz!
ReplyDelete