LAUNCHING "AWAKENING AVERY"

The stage is set for the national launch of

"Readers will love the journey that
Avery takes them on and will find
themselves transformed in the
process."
—Martha Adams

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

from 10 a.m until 5 p.m. at

THIS IS THE PLACE BOOKSTORE

In Kensington, Maryland

(Click the logo for store locations and map)

Meet Laurie Lewis and have your copy personalized.

You should see what we're giving away!!!

A drawing every hour for wonderful prizes, including recently-released novels, including copies of "AWAKENING AVERY."

Free favors and bookmarks, and enter to win a beautifully-designed, hand-crafted silver necklace from Sterling Obsession, designed especially for the launch of "AWAKENING AVERY."

AND. . .

Click and pre-order an autographed copy at the launch discount price!

Copies of "Awakening Avery" are being shipped this week to LDS store shelves in your area.

Very shortly, we'll have the first chapter posted here, but mark your calendars if you live in the DC area, and come to the launch.

FROM THE BACK COVER . .

“You’re depressed,” the doctor declared.

“Ya think?” is author Avery Elkins Thompson’s sarcastic response to the astute diagnosis for the malaise that set in following her husband’s untimely death. Avery’s carefully controlled world is imploding, and her adult children fear they are losing her too.

“You’re just a shadow of the person you used to be . . . We’d gladly give you up for a while if it meant getting you back.”

Avery can’t write, and questions about their father’s death leave the family mired in pain. “We need a healing place,” her oldest son tells her, suggesting she find it on Anna Maria Island, Florida, a former family vacation spot.

When Avery returns to Baltimore to sell the family’s waterfront condo, she meets rodeo-ers-turned-real-estate-brokers Teddie and Rider Davis, and Avery’s quiet life will never be the same again.

The Davises help arrange a short-term house swap with widower Gabriel Carson from Anna Maria, whose overprotective parenting has resulted in two self-centered, twenty-something daughters. Avery and Gabriel are in for the summer of their lives as they step into one another’s messy, complicated worlds.

Still, venturing out on her own again is challenging for Avery, whose experiences at the Ringling’s magnificent Cá d’Zan mansion, and with the quirky characters she meets there, eventually awaken her to truths she has long forgotten—that as crazy as life can be, it is possible to laugh and love again.