Announcing Woman of Valor
My first novel debuts September 26th - are you on the early-bird list?
So I’ve mentioned my first novel, Woman of Valor, in previous emails, but I haven’t made the official announcement here and it’s time. Woman of Valor will be published September 26th, and pre-orders are now available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
Even better, plan to attend my virtual launch party on September 26th or let me know if you’re in Michigan and would like to come to the in-person book party on October 1st. You can also add your name to the early release list here and get first dibs at all the things.
So, cover reveal!!!! Thanks to Patrick McEntaggart and Susan Jones for creating a gorgeous cover for this book.
This book has been a long time coming. I started writing it in 2011, got 60 pages done and then abandoned the project. Then I picked it back up a decade later and didn’t love the premise of the story. So I started over.
The Synopsis
After a devastating breakup with her college sweetheart John Hogan, budding journalist Sally Sterling dives into her work at Chicago Magazine to escape her sorrows. When her editor assigns a series of feature stories on local ethnic communities, starting with the Orthodox Jewish enclave of Skokie, Sally stumbles into a world she never knew she needed. Although her mother is Jewish, Sally was raised in a wealthy Christian suburb of Detroit as the daughter of one of Michigan’s prominent senators. Religion was the furthest thing from her mind.
But as the women welcome her into a world that feels more like home than anything she’s known, Sally is hooked. A year later, she meets Barry Lieberman on a blind date and falls fast. Over the next eight years, Barry and Sally build a happy life full of passion, partnership and parenthood. She even reconnects with her Jewish grandparents, who move to Chicago to be closer to her. While so much about her changes, Sally retains her passion for running along the shores of Lake Michigan.
And then, Sally’s life takes an unexpected turn. John Hogan finds her online. While Sally’s reconnected with friends from her past, this feels like crossing a line. Still, she’s curious about why John reached out. At the same time, Sally learns that her eldest son, Donny, has been physically abused at school. While Barry is equally angered, they have different ideas about what to do, putting them at odds for the first time in their marriage.
Lonely in the rift with her husband and exhausted from battling the community grapevine, Sally seeks distraction in John’s apologies. When she realizes her mistake, Sally tells John to leave - but he won’t. What happens next throws everything into a tailspin.
Will Sally lose the happiness she so carefully constructed? Or could this shakeup be just what she needs to finally define her life for herself?
Pre-order Woman of Valor here or here. RSVP for the virtual launch party here.
And, if you’re a runner, like Sally, or just like to exercise to great music, like me, download Sally’s Running Playlist here and picture yourself trodding along the shores of Lake Michigan.
Book Giveaway Winner
Congratulations to Allen Brenneman, this month’s book giveaway winner! Allen is a paid subscriber who will be receiving Ian Rankin’s Black & Blue. Become a paid subscriber before the May book giveaway for your chance to win!
Reader Comments
Thank you to Lila, a paid subscriber, for sharing her thoughts after my April 10th email about the themes inspired by the Passover holiday. I’d like to share an excerpt from Lila’s comments (with her permission):
“I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be free? For me, freedom means freedom from abusive and codependent relationships. It means freedom from a painful past. I've been re-examining Beloved by Toni Morrison, which I started working on at your retreat (my March nonfiction writers retreat in Michigan), and watched the movie. I think of how Sethe carried the inherited trauma of slavery, her own trauma, and then her choice to kill her child, and how at the end, she is set free from the demon of false guilt that haunts her…I like the [Passover] song Chad Gadya, because it reminds me of the ways in which life is like one thing after another. One bad relationship takes the place of another, one addiction replaces another, until you find yourself at the feet of the Holy One, begging for mercy. The song is supposed to represent how Israel is tossed to and fro amongst the nations. One world superpower subsumes another, until God puts an end to it all. It can be a metaphor for our own lives.”
Thank you so much, Lila, for engaging with the content and providing such wisdom and insight!!
(If you’d like to be a part of the conversation, please become a paid subscriber!)
See you next week! Thanks for reading.
Love, Lynne
I am encouraged by this. I have a novel (and many other projects) that I started in 2018, but never finished. Glad to hear that it's not to late to pick up the pen and vision again.