Book Title: in the context of Love by Linda K. Sienkiewicz
Category: Adult fiction, 270 pages
Genre: Women's fiction
Publisher: Buddhapuss Ink LLC
Release date: September 2015
Available for review in: Print, ebook, gifted Kindle copy, (PDF)
Will send print books: USA & Canada
Tour dates: March 28 to April 1, 2016
Content Rating: PG-13 + M ( may contain profanity, violence, non-explicit sex scenes and mature themes)
Book Description:
What makes us step back to examine the events and people that have shaped our lives? And what happens when what we discover leads to more questions?
Angelica Schirrick wonders how her life could have gotten so far off-track. With two children in tow, she begins a journey of self-discovery that leads her back home to Ohio. It pains her to remember the promise her future once held and the shattering revelations that derailed her life.
Can she face the failures and secrets of her past and move forward? Somehow she must learn to accept the violence of her beginning before she can be open to life, and a second chance at love.
Praise for In the Context of Love
“Linda K. Sienkiewicz’s powerful and richly detailed debut novel is at once a love story, a cautionary tale, and an inspirational journey. In the Context of Love should be required reading for all wayward teenage girls—and their mothers, too.” ~Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage, and critically acclaimed, Mothers, Tell Your Daughters.
“With tenderness, but without blinking, Linda K. Sienkiewicz turns her eye on the predator-prey savannah of the young and still somehow hopeful.” ~ Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of the #1 NY Times Bestseller, Deep End of the Ocean
“Absorbing, heartbreaking, compulsively-readable and insightful, Linda Sienkiewicz’s In the Context of Love casts a hypnotic spell. This is storytelling at its best.” ~ Lewis Robinson, author of the critically acclaimed, Officer Friendly: and Other Stories, and Water Dogs
Meet the author:
Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a published poet and fiction writer, cynical optimist, fan of corgis, tea drinker, and wine lover from Michigan. Her poetry, short stories, and art have been published in more than fifty literary journals, including Prairie Schooner, Clackamas Literary Review, Spoon River, and Permafrost.
She received a poetry chapbook award from Bottom Dog Press, and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine. Linda lives with her husband in southeast Michigan, where they spoil their grandchildren and then send them back home.
1. What makes a good story?
You need some kind of conflict to keep the reader asking
“how will ever this be resolved?” You also need characters that the reader
cares about, even if they’re flawed or do bad things. I think everyone enjoys
stories of redemption. We want to believe everyone can be healed and redeemed.
2. Do you have any particular writing habits?
I just installed a standing desk conversion kit, so I write
standing up. It’s bad for your heart to sit all day long. Now, when I need a
break, I sit down. Music is my fuel. Milky Chance and Spoon are my newest
favorite bands. This also means I can dance a little while I write. Lastly, I
reward myself with chocolate when I’m done for the day. Sounds like fun,
doesn’t it!
3. Are any of the characters in In the Context of Love mirrored after real life people?
I guess they’re all a conglomeration of people I’ve known.
Much of Joe’s coolness is based on a boy I once knew. There’s a little of my
mother, who could be controlling and opinionated, in Angelica’s mother and
grandmother. My father was a great dad, but he could also be unemotional, like
her father. They both told impossibly corny jokes.
4. In The Context of
Love is about family and the lies we tell ourselves. Where did this come
from?
The myth of the perfect family. We look at others and wonder
how their lives can be so perfect, when, reality, they aren’t. There’s some
level of dysfunction in every family. Also, some people go through a stage
where they don’t think they belong in their family. They feel like misfits.
After Angelica accidentally discovers a life-altering family secret, she can’t
reconcile reality with the fantasy she was raised believing, and has to leave
home to find her own truth.
5. Do you believe in love at first sight?
I think it can happen darned fast! I think love at first
sight is actually immediate intense attraction. Angelica has a crush on Joe
before she actually knows him, and he’s instantly attracted to her. From across
the room, they play the “I look at you and you look at me” game. Both of them
are true romantics.
6. What is a romantic?
I think romantics have strong aesthetic sensibilities. They
seek out what is noble, truthful and beautiful in life. They form deep and
lasting bonds with other people, and easily pick up on other’s emotions. They
also tend to project their emotions onto others, which leads them to idealize
people. They are always looking for meaning in life. As Joe said to Angelica,
“We belong together. We always did, and it will be this way no matter where our
lives take us.” Angelica wants to believe this, but she needs a little convincing.
I guess it’s up to the reader to believe if they will always be together!
Prizes:
Win a $10 Amazon gift card (International)
