#ThursdayThoughts: #EggcerptExchange with Linda K. Sienkiewicz

Good Morning and Welcome to the first Thursday Thoughts of March!

Today is another Eggcerpt Exchange post and a new-to-me author so I'll just hop right in and introduce her to you....

Author Linda K. Sienkiewicz attributes her creative drive to her artistic mother, who taught her to sew, and her father, who let her monkey around with the gadgets in his workshop. Her short stories and poetry have been published in more than fifty literary journals in print and online. She has a poetry chapbook award from Bottom Dog Press, a Pushcart Prize nomination, and an MFA from The University of Southern Maine.

Website http://lindaksienkiewicz.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/LindaKSienkwicz
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/lindaksienkwicz/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lindaksienkiewicz/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/linda.k.sienkiewicz 

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? In the Context of Love revolves around the journey of Angelica Schirrick as she reevaluates her life, and its direction.

Returning with her children from their first visit with her now imprisoned husband, she tries to figure out where it all went so wrong. Can she face the failures and secrets of her past and move forward? Can she find love and purpose again? Her future, which once held so much promise, crumbled like dust after the mysterious disappearance of her first love, and the shattering revelation that derailed her life, and divided her parents. Only when she finally learns to accept the violence of her beginning can she be open to life again, and maybe to a second chance at love.

Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of #1 NYTimes Bestseller, DEEP END OF THE OCEAN, says: “With humor and tenderness, but without blinking, Linda K. Sienkiewicz turns her eye on the predator-prey savannah of the young and still somehow hopeful.”

Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Michigan Notable Book MOTHERS TELL YOUR DAUGHTERS, says “Sienkiewicz’s powerful and richly detailed debut novel is at once a love story, a cautionary tale, and an inspirational journey. It should be required reading for all wayward daughters, and their mothers, too.”

Excerpt from In the Context of Love:

I lay, stomach down, on my bed with my head hanging off the edge. I was an analytical person, a conscientious honor roll student, a quick learner. I’d studied literature, ancient history, read Shakespeare and Salinger, yet none of it, nothing, had given me the skills or words to make sense of this.

The following morning, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had opened my curtains to an ash-filled sky, charred houses, trees burnt to stubs, the ground still smoking. Instead, the sun had risen like a relentless machine, and the sky wafted like a freshly-washed blue sheet above us. My house was the same house, with the same eggshell white ceilings, dark wooden floors and braided rugs. The only difference: I understood reality was a dark beast, capable of shifting under my feet.

I fingered the silk edge of my blanket, trying to reframe my past in light of what I now understood to be the truth. Everything I’d thought about myself had been a falsehood. In many ways, our family operated like any other family. Dad paid the bills, fertilized the lawn, and kept us free from foot pain. Mom knitted and purled, chased after flesh-eating germs, and smothered me until the sound of my own name made me cringe. We played Uncle Wiggly and Chutes and Ladders. I went trick-or-treating on Halloween. I had a sandbox. I pushed my plastic baby doll in her flimsy buggy back and forth along the sidewalk while squirrels scolded me from the trees. We had two cars, one and a half baths, and a color television. Hot and cold water. Electricity. We ate pot roast on Sunday, spaghetti on Wednesday, and tuna casserole every Friday and we weren’t even Catholic.

My friend Becca was terrified to stay in the house alone with her addled grandfather because he would forget who she was and try to kick her out. Lizzy was ashamed to be seen with her mother, who was so obese she couldn’t walk to their mailbox without wheezing. Jessica’s father owned a motel where a man was found shot in the head in room thirty-six. Paige suspected her parents were swingers who went to sex parties. Skip seemed to have been deserted by his folks…

 Yet, I was certain no one’s family had a secret as hideous as mine.

In the Context of Love won an Honorable Mention in the Great Midwest Book Festival. The book can be purchased in paperback or ebook on Amazon in Print and for Kindle. Also at Barnes and Noble http://bit.ly/1QFs340 

Here’s an interview with Angelica Schirrick, the heroine from In the Context of Love:

1. Do you have a nickname?
I’ve been called troublemaker, short stuff, hot stuff, cupcake, angel, and hure (by my German grandmother — don’t ask why), but most people call me Angie.

2. What do you do for a living?
I’m pleased to say I’m the marketing and community service director for Safe Harbor, a non-profit women’s domestic violence shelter in Cleveland, Ohio. I love the work I do.

3. What’s your most important goal?
To see my two children grow up to be happy and well-adjusted, despite having an activist for a mother and a felon for a father. 

4. What’s your worst fear or nightmare?
That my two children do not grow up to be happy and well-adjusted.

5. What’s your most embarrassing moment?
When I was a teen, I was furious with my parents and had this need to get away from them, so I snatched the keys to my dad’s Lincoln and took off. I don’t know what I was thinking because I didn’t have a license or much driving experience. I lost control and drove the car into a fir tree in the Brecksville Metropark. I was okay but the Lincoln was not.

Wow...sounds like an interesting book! Thanks for sharing with us Linda! 

Remember Friends, the Eggcerpt Exchange blog hop ends March 31st and there are a bunch of authors participating. You can check out each book on my Pinterest board.  Also, if you're new to this blog, check back each week for Tuesday Treasures, Thursday Thoughts and Saturday Spotlight.

Until next time, take care and God Bless.

PamT