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Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Love for Two Lifetimes by Martina Boone




About the Book
Title: Love for Two Lifetimes
Author: Martina Boone
Genre: Coming of Age / Young Adult

Two generations, two great loves, one devastating lie . . . 

When Izzy unexpectedly loses her mother in a car accident, her world shatters. Their relationship has always been so close that Izzy can't imagine life without her. Nor can she begin to understand when she finds a secret box of love letters that her mother wrote but never sent. The idea of her mother hiding such intense feelings for more than twenty years without so much as a hint makes Izzy question everything she thought she knew--including the identity of her father.

Following a trail of clues overseas, Izzy steps into a world of glamour and English royalty, one which years ago forced her mother to choose between her obligation to her musical gift and her lover's obligations to his family, title, and estate. It's a world of secrets and masquerades, of heartache and betrayal. And in the midst of this world, Izzy finds a young man who feels as broken as she does herself. The two are drawn to each other--only to find that their parents' lies may present an insurmountable obstacle between them.

Thrown together on a coming of age journey of discovery that spans two lifetimes and takes them from a grand estate in the Cotswolds to a hospital bedside in India and ultimately to the Taj Mahal, Izzy and Malcolm try desperately not to fall in love. But some things are impossible...

And some loves are worth any sacrifice... 

Uplifting, funny, tragic, and unforgettably, luminously romantic, Love for Two Lifetimes is a tale of two generations of love, a lifetime of friendship, a history of sacrifice, and one last, heartbreaking and hopeful choice revealed in prose, texts, and love letters. Written for young adults and grown-up romantics, if you love the romance of the royal weddings or any story by Nicholas Sparks, Love for Two Lifetimes will have you turning pages late into the night.

“Heartwarming, lyrical, soulful, and with just the right amount of humor: this book sparkles with authentic, layered characters and beautiful, thoughtful prose.” — Jodi Meadows, NYT bestselling co-author of My Lady Jane and My Plain Jane

Excerpt Four:

I think of Ian collecting reminders of the honeymoon he and my mother never had, and my chest hurts as if every tear I’ve cried since Mom died has been pumped back into my lungs. At the same time, I want to run to her and bury my face in my mother’s shoulder.


Sitting in his chair reading, Malcolm looks so much more together than I am. But living with this collection, all these Taj Mahals, knowing what they represented, had to have been hard for him. Especially knowing that his mother knew.


The black hole of missingness Mom left in my life hasn’t gotten any smaller in the months since she died. Was it like that for Malcolm, too? It had to have been worse. He was so little. And all these years, he’s been stuck here watching Ian grieve the loss of my mother instead of his own.


The truth is, he has every right to hate my mother. If I hadn’t known the magical, flawed, struggling, human Marcella Cavalera, how would I be seeing her now? I suppose genius always requires selfishness, sacrifice, and collateral damage to the people around you, but that doesn’t make it any easier to live with.


And Ian? Do I hate him?


I’m not sure I can hate someone who loved Mom that much.


To keep from staring at Malcolm while he reads, I wander over to a desk that’s filled with photos in silver frames. The pictures are all of Malcolm at various ages. When he’s very small, there’s a little girl with him, and they look a lot alike. Sometimes, there’s the two of them with their mother, who was very elegant. In other photos, Malcolm’s older, wearing a school tie and blazer and looking rebellious and lost. There are shots of him with other boys playing soccer and graduating in a cap and gown. But there isn’t a single photo of Malcolm with his father. No photos of Ian at all.


I turn to one of the bookshelves, running my fingers idly along the spines as I circumnavigate the room. Almost immediately, I find old friends: Shakespeare, Dickens, Homer, Goethe, Keats, Byron. Then I discover an ancient edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray and an even older copy of some of Oscar Wilde’s correspondence. It’s like finding a box of my favorite chocolates—I don’t know which to sample first. I plop back down on the sofa, but instead of reading, I find myself watching Malcolm. Two envelopes lie on the table beside him and he holds a third in one hand while he reads the corresponding letter.


His eyes are the clearest I’ve ever seen, so clear it feels like I can see right into him. Reactions chase each other through them as he reads. Anger. Rejection. Surprise.


I wonder if reading the letters will change anything for him, alter the narrative of his childhood the way they’ve turned the wheel on the kaleidoscope of mine. Every new fact makes me see my mother and my life a little differently.


But the letters aren’t proof in themselves. They’re only twenty years of Mom thinking on paper. Talking to herself and pretending to talk to Ian.
Author Bio
Martina Boone is the award-winning author of Love for Two Lifetimes and the romantic
Southern Gothic Heirs of Watson Island series, including Compulsion, Persuasion, and 
Illusion for young adults from Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse as well as romantic fiction
for adult readers in the Celtic Legends Collection starting with Lake of Destiny. She’s also the
founder of AdventuresInYAPublishing.com, a three-time Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for
Writers Site. She’s dedicated to encouraging literacy and reader engagement through a
celebration of literature, and she’s on the Board of the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia 
and runs the CompulsionForReading.com program to distribute books to underfunded schools
and libraries.

She lives in Virginia with her husband, children, Shetland Sheepdog, and a lopsided cat, and
she enjoys writing contemporary fantasy set in the kinds of magical places she loves to visit.
When she isn’t writing, she’s addicted to travel, horses, skiing, chocolate-flavored tea, and
anything with Nutella on it.



Links
Love for Two Lifetimes is available now in hardcover, trade paperback, and digital. There's a special
early order campaign with exclusive goodies for anyone who orders the book before
November 1st. Additional incentives are available if you order from One More Page Books.


Or order from your favorite retailer:



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