Emelle will award a signed paperback of MOLLY HARPER with bonus novella DUETS included (US ONLY) to THREE randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour. Please click the tour banner at the top to see other stops on this tour.
Movie star Molly Harper has it all, beauty, success in her field, and a loving family and marriage to actor Ben Delmonico. Norma Wintz, Molly’s mother, has it all, a lovely life style and two children who adore her, and a respite from the battle against cancer she’s been fighting. Anne Sullivan, at age fifty, is optimistic that her move to sunny Santa Barbara, California, will allow her to be closer to her youngest son and his family, and help her start her life anew after the death of her beloved husband.
But all three of these women, despite their considerable blessings, are plunged into turmoil when the most intimate of secrets that ties their lives together is revealed. At this same time, Molly Harper is confronted with the news that her marriage to actor Ben Delmonico is over. As she navigates this heartbreak and tries to keep the personal details of the drama off the front pages of the newspapers, Molly must also find a way to once and forever negotiate a way forward with her ex- lover and best friend, the volatile and compelling Cruz Morales.
How each of these characters handles the resulting upheaval in their own life, and in their relationships with one another, forms the compelling story of family, secrets and trust in the romantic women’s fiction novel, Molly Harper.
DUETS offers alternating looks into the lives of two women who would seem to have little or nothing in common.
Screen star Molly Harper has it all…beauty, success in her profession, a loving family and an upcoming marriage to actor Ben Delmonico. But as Molly is on the verge of marrying the man who has swept her off her feet, she still wonders if he hasn’t swept all her feelings for her first love away, Cruz Morales.
A handsome and cerebral college professor, Molly and Cruz have an on-again, off-again history stretching back to Molly’s early teen years. He’s not a man who a girl can ever forget about, and his feelings for Molly are equally conflicted.
Anne Sullivan, happily married for twenty-five years, is fighting to hold onto the man she loves, and hold off a confrontation that could shatter her family’s image of what they are. It involves the beautiful screen star and her mother, upper crust matron Norma Wintz, who Anne has traveled to California to meet under the most dramatic of circumstances.
Duets confronts the most intimate type of family secret that ties these two women’s lives together, just as chance events turn Molly and Anne’s worlds upside down.
Enjoy an excerpt from DUETS:
Anne Sullivan looked down at her watch.
One twenty-one p.m. Norma Wintz was twenty minutes late.
Anne leaned back against the banquette and avoided making eye contact with the hovering waitress. She folded her hands together and wondered if her face looked tight as cellophane stretched over a bowl of tuna salad. That’s how it felt.
I shouldn’t have come. She glanced around the unfamiliar restaurant. It was all glass and mirrors; chock full of shockingly glamorous Californians surely leading shockingly exciting lives. People who wouldn’t understand why a widow from Potomac, Maryland was breaking into sobs and intruding on their lunch experience.
Which is probably what I’m going to do once Norma arrives, she thought. She had tried to prepare herself for meeting the woman, face-to-face, who had adopted her baby thirty-five years ago, but Anne wasn’t sure she was going to be able to handle it as she hoped.
Calmly. Dispassionately. In control.
Anne’s chest suddenly ached, as if all the emotion she’d suppressed for decades gathered into a knot under her ribs.
I should call the number for Norma Wintz and tell her not to come. Which was a great idea, except she’d left her cell phone in the car. And if she went to her car to get it, she might not have the emotional courage to come back.
To say nothing of the fact that if she walked the two long blocks to where she was parked, there was a good chance she would miss Norma Wintz altogether, and the woman would probably think she was a crack pot.
Anne took another peek at her watch.
One twenty-two.
That’s impossible. It felt as if an hour had passed since she’d last looked at the time.
“Excuse me, are you Mrs. Sullivan?” A waiter, his eyes jade green against his tan skin, smiled at Anne. His name tag read ‘Taj’.
“Yes, I’m Anne Sullivan."
“There’s a call for you.” Taj held out a phone.
Anne pressed it against her head. “This is Anne Sullivan.”
Taj clasped his hands behind his back and smiled at her as if she was a small child on the first day of school.
“Hello, this is Norma Wintz calling,” a voice said in Anne’s ear. “I’m on my way but there was an accident and traffic is wretched. I got no answer on the number you gave me, but I wanted to let you know I wasn’t standing you up.”
“Oh, that’s no problem.” Anne nodded at Taj and repositioned the phone an inch higher on her ear. “I don’t have other plans for this afternoon.”
“Fine. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.” The phone went dead.
“Okay. Thank you!” Anne met the waiter’s eyes and wondered how Taj had known to bring it to her.
Norma Wintz must have described me to him. But what could she have said, since we’ve never met? Look for a woman who seems the sort to give up her first-born child for adoption?
Emelle Gamble was a writer at an early age, bursting with the requisite childhood stories of introspection. These evolved into bad teen poetry and worse short stories. She took her first stab at full length fiction in an adult education writing class when her kids were in bed. As M.L. Gamble, she published several romantic suspense novels with Harlequin. She contracted with Soul Mate Publishing for Secret Sister, published in the summer of 2013, and Dating Cary Grant, an April 2014 release.
Once and Forever, an anthology which includes the novella Duets, came out on November 1st. Molly Harper, a full length novel starring the characters from Duets 3 years later was released by Posh Publishing in January, 2014. Duets is now available as a standalone novella. Emelle lives in suburban Washington D.C. with her husband, ‘Phil-the-fist’, her hero of thirty years, and two orange cats, Lucy and Bella. These girls, like all good villains, have their reasons for misbehaving.
Her daughter, Olivia, and son, Allen, are happily launched on their own and contributing great things to society, their mother’s fondest wish.
Review Quotes:
Praise for SECRET SISTER…
“Along with being a very unique and captivating plot, SECRET SISTER offers a shocking turn of the paranormal kind… This is a story of friendship, family, and most of all, true love and what those things can mean. I cannot recommend SECRET SISTER strongly enough… “ Fresh Fiction, Fresh Reviews
DUETS…
"I'll admit I grabbed this book for review more because Emelle Gamble had a story in there - I've loved her significant touch brought to family relationships in a previous book of hers that I've read, and I wanted to confirm if this sort of embroiled-relationships type of tale is really her niche or not. Turns out, it is!" Zee Monodee's Author's Corner reviews
MOLLY HARPER…
"MOLLY HARPER ...is the first book I've read by this author, but it won't be my last! Ms. Gamble does a wonderful job of drawing these characters and making them just leap off the page." Long and Short Reviews
DATING CARY GRANT…
"Fantasy and reality blend together in this mesmerizing tale from Emelle Gamble…It's not your typical romance, making it a breath of fresh air in a market currently inundated with new adult contemporary romances (which I do love, but need a break once in a while!). I continue to be a fan of this author..." Andi's Book Reviews
Links:
Email: emellegamble@aol.com
Emelle Gamble BOOKS:
DATING CARY GRANT book of the month at Long & Short Reviews. eBook exclusively at Amazon.com
SECRET SISTER… RONE Award Honorable Mention for BEST CONTEMPORARY NOVEL of 2013
