Shameless Book Plug

Here's a shameless plug for a new book by one of my favorite new authors, coming out this month. I am entering a contest by posting this, and I might win a signed copy of this wonderful book, OR possibly an AUDIO book (my favorite kind). I guess it's not totally shameless, though. I mean, yes, I might win something, BUT I'm also helping spread the word to my two or three readers (one of which already knows about Joshilyn, but I digress) about this wonderful author who, by the way, writes the funniest blog ever. I just got done laughing out loud to her latest post about the non-dessert banana bread. See a link to her blog, Faster than Kudzu, to the left. So, BUY THIS BOOK when it comes out. You will be glad you did!




Laurel Gray Hawthorne needs to make things pretty, whether she's helping her mother make sure the very literal family skeleton stays buried or turning scraps of fabric into nationally acclaimed art quilts. Her estranged sister Thalia, an impoverished Actress with a capital A, is her polar opposite, priding herself on exposing the lurid truth lurking behind middle class niceties. While Laurel's life seems neat and on track--a passionate marriage, a treasured daughter, and a lovely home in suburban Victorianna--everything she holds dear is suddenly thrown into question the night she is visited by the ghost of a her 14-year old neighbor Molly Dufresne.

The ghost leads Laurel to the real Molly floating lifelessly in the Hawthorne's backyard pool. Molly's death is inexplicable--an unseemly mystery Laurel knows no one in her whitewashed neighborhood is up to solving. Only her wayward, unpredictable sister is right for the task, but calling in a favor from Thalia is like walking straight into a frying pan protected only by Crisco. Enlisting Thalia's help, Laurel sets out on a life-altering journey that triggers startling revelations about her family's guarded past, the true state of her marriage, and the girl who stopped swimming.