Straight Browsing from the Library: Scattered Ashes and Unraveling the Pieces

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The authors will be awarding digital copies of the books on tour to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

READ THE BLURBS

Sometimes facing the future means saying goodbye to the past.

A remarkable story of love and loss, Dona Sarkar’s latest novel explores the timely subject of cultural diversity and the timeless matters of trust, faith, and grief through the eyes of one extraordinary young woman.

Mars Alexander is the girl who has everything—the right clothes, the perfect boyfriend, the best grades. But when her military father is declared dead, Mars refuses to believe it—and refuses to say goodbye. With no body to bury, she’s convinced her father will return from Afghanistan, and she’s determined to make him proud. But when she meets the young Middle Eastern instructor of her essay prep class, a door to a whole new world opens.

Zayed Anwar has lived a life Mars can barely imagine, or understand. But as he challenges both her intellect and her emotions, she finds herself making bold new choices, and looking at everything through a new lens. Falling in love is as frightening as it is exciting, until she realizes that Zayed is keeping painful secrets from her—secrets that could shatter her all over again.

New York Times bestselling author Terri DuLong casts on her newest tale of heartbreak and hope in Ormond Beach, Florida, a sun-dappled haven where one woman finds the comfort she’s always needed…

Petra Garfield has no real attachments tying her down to one place. She’s ready for an adventure, so what could be better than an extended stay at Koi House with new friends and old in enchanting Ormond Beach. Having recently lost her mother, Petra is riddled with questions about the father she never knew. She certainly never thought she’d begin to find the answers in a tiny town in Florida…

As much as she wants to search for the truth, Petra knows she can’t spend all her time wallowing in the past, and her friends at the Dreamweaver yarn shop aren’t about to let her. The ladies encourage her to volunteer at a local animal shelter, where she hits it off with a young boy—and his handsome father. Tangled in secrets she didn’t even know she had, Petra must learn to stitch her life back together even as she unravels lifelong mysteries—and perhaps she’ll find unexpected happiness along the way…


READ AN EXCERPT “What’s happened out there?” I asked. “There’s so much chaos.” The woman did an eye-roll. “Some war protesters. They set fire to a garbage can or something around the corner.”

“Thanks.”

As I ran across the street to avoid the smoky air, I saw a slight movement, like the fluttering of a giant bird’s wing, in the window alcove of my favorite coffee shop.

I stopped. It wasn’t a bird. There was a guy sitting in my usual spot, flipping rapidly through the pages of a book.

The guy in the window seemed completely unaffected by everything going on outside. He was nineteen, twenty at the most, with hurricane-colored eyes, the most incredible I had ever seen. His knife-like cheekbone ridges were even more distinct.

He was a stranger to me, yet I couldn’t stop staring at him. I stood paralyzed on the sidewalk. The crossing signal flickered, and I couldn’t persuade my feet to move.

He was reading a book with a familiar-looking burgundy cover but must have sensed someone staring and looked up. Saying that our gazes met was an understatement. In one incredible, heart-stopping second, he seemed to commit to memory every aspect of my face. His abundantly large eyes, too wide-set, seemed out of place in his sharp, tawny-colored features.

The sidewalk activity seemed to dull into the background as we stared at each other. Without a smile or any other expression, he returned to his book, as if the exchange had taken place only in my mind.

I felt the ridiculous desire to knock on the window to get his attention. I wanted to see the color of those eyes again. This was insane. Snapping to my senses, I crossed 45th Street and headed to my car, not daring to look back at the coffee shop. . . .

MEET THE AUTHORS

Dona Sarkar wishes she’d been born as a cat so she could have had 9 lives. Since that didn’t work out, she decided to live 9 lives in this one. She spends her days making holograms at Microsoft, celebrates diversity in STEM fields as a fashion blogger at Fibonacci Sequins and is launching her first fashion line called Prima Dona Style this year.

She is also the published author of three novels and one non-fiction book.

Dona lives in Seattle with her really patient husband and her muse, a very bossy tabby cat named Ash.

WEBSITE: http://www.donasarkar.com
TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/donasarkar
FACEBOOK: http://facebook.com/donasarkarbooks

Buy the book at Kensington Books

Born and raised north of Boston, Terri DuLong was a previous resident of Cedar Key, Florida. She now resides on the east coast of the state in Ormond Beach with her husband, three dogs and two cats. A retired Registered Nurse, she began her writing career as a contributing writer for Bonjour Paris, where she shared her travel experiences to France in over forty articles with a fictional canine narrator. Terri’s love of knitting provides quiet time to develop her characters and plots as she works on her new Ormond Beach novels.

WEBSITE: http://terridulong.com
FACEBOOK: http://facebook.com/TerriDuLongAuthor

Buy the book at Kensington Books.

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