Guest Post: Bookmarked

It is such great fun to discover new authors and today I welcome first-time novelist Joanne DeMaio to Colloquium.

Joanne’s first book, Whole Latte Life, is the story of Sara Beth Riley, a woman who never dreamt she’d walk straight out of her life. In fact, she could never have imagined many of the things that have transpired recently could actually happen to her. She’s been kidnapped by her own best friend, thrown her wedding rings into the Hudson River, called an old love in France, gotten a tattoo with that same best friend . . . all events set in motion by the unexpected death of her mother and her her subsequent grief.

The story is a look at “friends we never forget, at decisions we linger with, at our attempts to live the lives we love.”

Bookmarked

by
Joanne DeMaio

We all have favorite passages we enjoy as readers when we’re immersed in a novel. I actually keep a book journal in which I write details about books that move me, and I enjoy thumbing through that journal, re-reading significant passages.

But as a writer, I also have favorite passages I’ve written for the page. They might be lines that evoke a certain mood, or a reflection of my own heart, or a turn of a phrase that inspires a sweet memory. So from Whole Latte Life, I’ve Bookmarked passages that are favorites of mine, as the book’s author. I’d like to share one of those here with you.

Years ago, his artsy ways and open thinking took her on one long magic carpet ride through France and Italy, through ancient cities and untamed countryside.

But for her whole life, to have that kind of wanderlust? Maybe it was more a freeing journey delivering her here. More a wanderlust to remember, to brush the dust off of sometimes, to know she’d once had it. In a piece of art, the stress of light or dark is the accent. Her time with Claude was her accent, necessary, but nothing more.

Though my novel’s character, Sara Beth, remembers this time wistfully, she finally sees those days clearly for their evanescence. I sometimes wonder how many of the beautiful moments in life are meant to be only that, moments. A heartfelt conversation held over a cup of hot coffee in a softly lit kitchen. Maybe it’s the Christmas tinged with sadness, but imbued with more meaning than any other. Or the colors of a sunset leaving you watching the sky still, long after the sun has gone down. Moments. They speak the loudest to our hearts because of their fleeting nature, their whispers as they play out quickly in the scope of a life, their shadow that has us look closely at them. Accenting our lives with wisdom.

Meet Joanne

Joanne DeMaio is an author of contemporary women’s fiction in which she blends family, coffee and friendship on the printed page. Her music essays have appeared in literary journals, celebrating her passion for song through the written word and she has contributed inspirational essays to More.com.

Whole Latte Life is an Amazon best seller in the category of Women’s Fiction/Friendship. Joanne lives with her family in Connecticut.

Connect with Joanne at her website, or on Facebook, Twitter or Goodreads.

Thank you, Joanne!