This month’s blog is a shameless (forgive me) request for you to buy, perhaps multiple copies, of my recently published novel, Geraniums.
Read it and perhaps review it, and submit it to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or The Book Guild. Maybe all three. It’s a good and speedy read, I’m told.
Here are a few of the reviews:
LINDA’S BOOK BAG
Lily’s life is a struggle.
Geraniums is a beautifully written and compelling literary fiction that I thoroughly enjoyed. Marlene Hauser has a style that ensnares the reader because of her ability to step inside the minds of her characters and enable the reader to experience, through them, the events of the novel. There’s a painterly writing style too, with descriptions that place the reader at the heart of the narrative…
Continue reading on Linda’s Book Bag website…
THE BOOK GUILD
“A well structured and quick read, this novel pulsates with family drama and enough significantly terrifying events that you’ll find yourself rooting for Lily and her siblings to make it to adulthood. With an underlying faith in education, a stalwart high school sweetheart and through the kindness of strangers, Lily navigates the weak and narcissistic personalities of her father and grandmother and fights for sanity. The reader will rejoice in Lily’s achingly unconditional love for her absent mother and imagine no finer ending than the satisfying one offered. A good reminder to treat others with kindness for you never know what the person standing next to you had to endure before breakfast.”
~ Michael Macauly
“Geraniums” is a poignant, heart-wrenching tale of an American family’s travails through the 1960s. Initially the three children, narrated through middle child Lily, are blissfully happy living in Europe while their GI father Jack is posted a road. When they Jack sent back to mid-West America his psychological and physical abuse of each member of the family becomes intolerable, precipitating his loving wife’s nervous breakdown. Jack’s violence is exacerbated by alcoholism and PTSD. Anyone reading this with a similar background will recognise the stunning accuracy of this form of domestic abuse. Punctuated with moments of reprieve, a mother’s tender love and initial joy, this novel is impossible to put down and a quick read. Highly recommended.
~ Ann Lucien Nasiri
A masterpiece of storytelling
“A harrowing account of multi-generational trauma, this novel gives the reader a crash course in how easily male privilege and power can destroy a woman’s life. In Geraniums, what begins as romance quickly turns sour for Jack and Lauren Rose, the couple at the heart of this family drama. Supported by his mother, who has unexamined scars of her own, Jack becomes increasingly abusive of his gentle wife, driving her to alcoholism and a mental breakdown…
Read this one and others on Amazon.com
~ Rose Salari
Book club – put this title at the top of your list!
“I purchased this book at the urging of a friend. Within the first pages it captivated my attention and directed my hours until I turned the last page–thank you, friend, for such a worthwhile recommendation! Marlene Hauser has “opened the window and thrown back the sash” into young Lily’s life in such a way that her mental, emotional and physical survival became of paramount importance to me. Prepare to have your emotions engaged in full! I will be recommending this book to my book club with gusto, just as I am recommending it all review-readers here.
~ Ky Prevette
Read this one and others on Amazon.co.uk
Love,