Victoria at Sea by M. Kate Quinn (VBT, guest post, excerpt, and GIVEAWAY) GFT

It is my pleasure to have a guest post by author M. Kate Quinn, who shares...

A Writer’s Dilemma:  Balancing Life and Writing
by M. Kate Quinn

            Many authors face their days with the challenge of fitting writing time into their lives.  It’s especially tough when there’s a day job and/or young children in the mix.

            I have been writing all my life, but I had a full-time job and three small kids and it was years before I could get the balance my life needed.  It was until I retired early from academia that I was able to devote myself to my craft. 

            For me now as an empty nester you’d think time was my oyster.  Not so much.  My husband owns a business in which I have a part, I have an aging mother that I’m lucky enough to spend time with every week, three grandkids that grace our lives. And, because my husband and I are a second marriage, our combined total of kids is six, with spouses and grandkids our clan totals thirteen.  That’s a lot of people!  Although our kids are grown-ups with their own busy lives, my husband and I do our best to spend time with them.  We’ll go see the youngest of our brood where he lives in Philly and spend the day or we’ll head to the southern tip of New Jersey to spend time with the oldest and his family.  We’ll go to dinner on the waterfront in Jersey City with one of the boys or go to a Mets game with whoever is available on a given day.  We do our best to engage with our kids, it’s important to all of us. 

            They say writers can be a reclusive group, and, believe me, there are times when I’m just that, especially if I’m on a deadline or if it's dead of winter and it’s brutal out there beyond my doors. But, for the most part I’m a social kind of girl.  I love my friends and, like with all relationships, they need time.  So, I do my best to reach out, get together, have a cup of coffee, do lunch now and then.  I need it.

            And, then there’s the husband.  Ours is a second marriage that began when two divorced forty-somethings decided to give Match.com a try.  We’ve been married over a dozen years and the gratitude factor of having found each other hasn’t and will never wear off.  We’re partners in this life.  Partnership requires, yup, you got it, time.  So, there are plenty of times when I could be writing but I am sitting on the sofa in the evening watching a favorite show with my husband, or we’re out to dinner together, taking a walk, going to our community pool on a Saturday.  We like it that way.

            Neatness is my middle name.  If you met my mother you’d know why.  There are times when I should be writing but I just can’t help it, I have to do the laundry or vacuum or clean the bathrooms. 

            So, just like the old days when my kids were little and I had the day job, I juggle life. My new norm is that I keep writing in the forefront of my to-do list, keep it a priority.  There are times when the hamper bulges, there are times when my husband is watching some cop show alone, and there are times when I tell a friend I can’t go to lunch.  But, I make it work to the best of my ability.  And that’s the best we can do.

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Victoria at Sea
by M. Kate Quinn

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GENRE: Contemporary Romance

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BLURB:

Why has no place in what the heart knows for sure.

On the eve of their wedding Victoria Gliden and fiancé Owen Walker call it quits. He accuses her of not being able to get over her deadbeat father’s vanishing act when she was a child and she and her cold feet run and don’t look back.

An interior designer, Victoria, has an important meeting on Cancun that could garner her a promotion and the plan was to incorporate her presentation with the honeymoon cruise that’s journeying to the island. Since she’s sure Owen is on his way to Portland to escape the aftermath of their ruined wedding, Victoria takes the honeymoon cruise anyway. Only Owen has the same idea and they’re stuck with each other for six days, five nights.

Tony Gliden, Victoria’s father, dies in a freak accident and is sent back to earth disguised as a crotchety old man with the mission to convince his daughter to believe in love. So, he, too boards the ship.

At sea, destiny takes a detour when Victoria befriends the quirky old man with kind eyes and together they join forces with a quartet of unabashed women in their fifties who drink pink martinis and flirt with the wait staff but are wiser than they look. While trying to dodge Owen, Victoria’s new acquaintances help her face old wounds and confront new fears.

Most of all, Victoria and Owen both realize it all boils down to one word—why?

By journey’s end will two broken hearts get their answer?

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EXCERPT

Words spilled from Owen’s lips before he had the chance to think. “I don’t know, Vic, maybe on some level I was meant to be here on this ship.”

She didn’t respond, kept her tooth locked down on that lip. But, her eyes were windows to some distant place he longed for. So, he and his glass of vodka let more words tumble free. “Sometimes I still can’t believe you really did this.” He gulped his drink in an effort to shut himself up, but it was fuel to his fire. “That you did this to us.”

“Don’t.” Victoria grabbed the fancy clutch that she’d squeezed into a misshapen blob of sparkly fabric.

“You know what?” He couldn’t stop and suddenly he didn’t want to. “It’s just too bad you’re so ridiculously afraid of veering off that rigid path you’ve carved out for yourself. That’s got to be a tough trek, Victoria. You must be exhausted.”

She stood up from the bar stool, chin held high, eyes swimming.

“You’re leaving.” It wasn’t a question. Owen knew the answer too well.

“Um, yes, I uh, promised my friends that I’d meet them.”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you back at the suite then, huh?” Pent-up energy raced around in him banishing every urge he had to stroke her hair, pull her to him, make them right again. His tone was caustic and it felt good and lousy both.

For each millisecond that he held her gaze, Victoria squirmed, her hands wringing that now pretty ugly evening bag, that tooth all but drawing blood as it pressed the pink flesh of her lower lip. She broke the stare and darted away as though she were being chased.

Owen’s heart squeezed like a fist had wrapped itself around the muscle. A tear pricked his eye. Victoria could run all she wanted, but for the first time in almost two days something finally made sense. She loves me.

Amazon

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Born to a feisty Italian mother and a gentle blue-eyed Irishman, I was given the name “Marykate,” inspired by Maureen O’Hara’s character in the movie, The Quiet Man, an old-time favorite love story that co-starred John Wayne. With a grandmother Catherine and an Aunt Mary the name was an obvious choice.

    

I've been writing stories all my life. There's an old Macy’s box in my attic filled with my writings from childhood, now smudgy-looking pages produced on my portable Olivetti Underwood typewriter, an eighth-grade gift from my Grandmother Catherine.

    

I am a recent First Place winner of a short story contest sponsored by Reader’s Digest Magazine and write a column entitled “Boomer Humor” that appears monthly in my neighborhood newspaper.

    

My husband and I are our own love story. We have a slap-happy middle-aged second marriage with a combined total of six grown children, one delightful granddaughter, another precious little baby on the way and one ridiculously spoiled, amazingly handsome cat named Sammy.

Website

Twitter:   @mkatequinn

Facebook: Fans of M. Kate Quinn

Amazon Author Page

Goodreads Author Page

Blog

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