I am beyond thrilled to have my dear friend Holly Robinson back on my blog to talk about her gorgeous new novel, Haven Lake. A tremendously talented writer, Holly manages, in all her work, to weave a powerful, emotionally gripping tale that engages, entertains, and connects us through story, while capturing the love and beauty in the human spirit. She’s also a beautiful, loving, generous woman and friend. I hope you enjoy our time with her!
On Monday, Holly answered some interview questions about her writing and publishing life. On Tuesday, she shared an excerpt from her beautifully written new book, Haven Lake. Yesterday Holly shared a wonderful guest post – On the Pleasures of Being a Late Bloomer. Holly concludes her visit today by sharing some gorgeous quotes from her beautiful novel.
Read on to enjoy Holly’s insights and a glimpse of Haven Lake, plus a giveaway below. You could win a $25 Amazon gift card, plus a signed copy of Holly’s previous book, Beach Plum Island!
Hannah wished there were some way she could pour all of her life lessons into a glass and make her daughter drink them down, in one long gulp of wisdom.
Memories crowded her head like children who refuse to stay outside and play: some were sweet enough, but others were demanding and exhausting.
The other hikers were cheerful professionals in smartly cut shorts, floppy-brimmed hats, and expensive lightweight walking shoes with bright woolen socks. They looked so much like a bunch of Swiss children hiking the Alps that she kept expecting them to yodel.
Lucy wore her vulnerability like a damp overcoat, so that people wanted to take it from her, help her dry off and get warm.
The motto on the farm was that any natural act that made you feel good must be good for you, even sex. Maybe especially sex, judging from the way the so-called “adults” of Haven Lake swapped partners.
She had to squint; her mother’s back was to the sun, creating a halo of silver around her wild black hair. “Which part wasn’t your fault, Mom? The part where you let Dad keep on being depressed and crazy? Or the part where you invited all of those wanderers and potheads and free love dropouts to live here and buy into Dad as their leader, doing drugs and having sex with him, like he was some kind of feudal lord?”
Dope, sex, music blasting from windows and cars and boom boxes: that was the early seventies. That small window of time when sex wouldn’t kill you and most of her friends happily hallucinated on mushrooms, sped around on cocaine, or tripped on acid without worrying about dying.
Hannah took another bite of sandwich and chewed too fast, biting the inside of her cheek in her hurry to banish this surprising surge of mother worry, something she’d never expected to experience again after Sydney reached adulthood. But motherhood was a chronic illness, like arthritis or Lyme disease: it could flare up and debilitate you when you least expected.
Novelist, journalist and celebrity ghost writer Holly Robinson is the author of several books, including The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter: A Memoir and the novels The Wishing Hill, Beach Plum Island and Haven Lake. Her articles and essays appear frequently in publications such as Cognoscenti, The Huffington Post, More, Parents, Redbook and dozens of other newspapers and magazines. She and her husband have five children and a stubborn Pekingese. They divide their time between Massachusetts and Prince Edward Island, and are crazy enough to be fixing up old houses one shingle at a time in both places.
Website Facebook TwitterRelease Date: April 7, 2015
New American Library/Penguin Random House
Sydney Bishop hasn’t returned to Haven Lake, her idyllic childhood home, since a pair of shocking deaths shattered her family when she was only sixteen. Now engaged to marry a successful surgeon, Sydney has worked hard to build a relationship with Dylan, her fiance’s teenage son, so she feels nothing but empathy when he runs away–until she discovers that his hitchhiking journey has led him to Haven Lake and her mother’s sheep farm. Now, as Sydney returns to Haven Lake for the first time in twenty years to coax the boy home, she must confront the devastating events that tore her family apart and answer the questions that still haunt their family about what really caused two people to die so tragically on the farm.
Tensely paced and deeply emotional, Haven Lake is a gripping story about grief, anger, and the healing power of love.
Amazon B&N Google Books PowellsThese are the last cryptic words that Ava Barrett’s father says before he dies. But Ava doesn’t have a brother, as far as she knows, so how can she tell him the truth? She dismisses the conversation and dedicates herself to bringing her family together for her father’s funeral. This is no easy task, since her sister, Elaine, has been estranged from the family and still harbors resentment against their stepmother and half-sister, Gigi. Ava, on the other hand, is a single mother who sees Gigi as a troubled teen in need of love and connection.
Ava, too, could use more love in her life and finds it where she least expects it. But the biggest surprise of all is that Gigi holds the key to the mystery surrounding her father’s dying words, and joins Ava in uncovering a secret that rapidly unravels the very fabric of their entire family…
One night Catherine gets a call from Zoe’s terrified daughter, Willow, saying her mother has abandoned her in a bus station and disappeared. Eve blames herself, while Catherine, unable to have children, is delighted to raise Willow as her own.
Now, five years later, Eve is grieving her husband’s death and making reluctant plans to sell the family’s beloved summer home on Prince Edward Island. But a series of unexpected revelations will upend the family and rock three generations of women.
Years ago, Juliet Clark gave up her life in California to follow the man she loved to Mexico and pursue her dream of being an artist. Now her marriage is over, and she’s alone, selling watercolors to tourists on the Puerto Vallarta boardwalk.
When her brother asks her to come home to wintery New England and care for their ailing mother, a flamboyant actress with a storied past, Juliet goes reluctantly. She and her self-absorbed mother have always clashed. Plus, nobody back home knows about her divorce—or the fact that she’s pregnant and her ex-husband is not the father.
Juliet intends to get her mother back on her feet and return to Mexico fast, but nothing goes as planned. Instead she meets a man who makes her question every choice and reawakens her spirit, even as she is being drawn into a long-running feud between her mother and a reclusive neighbor. Little does she know that these relationships hold the key to shocking secrets about her family and herself that have been hiding in plain sight…
I'd love to hear your thoughts!