Mother's Day Special

As I have done in past years, I am offering my memoir, Motherless Child - stories from a life for 99 cents from May 1 through May 14, 2013 Kindle version only Click here.  

And my latest book, Tell Them I Died will also be available for 99 cents during that same period, May 1 through May 14, 2013 Kindle version only. Click here.

About Motherless Child -  stories from a life:
Imagine you gave a baby up for adoption forty years ago, and after years of trying to find her, she finds you. Now come the hard questions. She's healthy, beautiful, and successful, but she wants to know why you gave her away and why you didn't marry her father. And there is also the unspoken question of "What kind of black woman gives her baby away?" How do you explain to her that giving her away was the best gift you could offer? This is Sarah Weathersby's first published work, a coming-of-age-in-the-sixties-single-black-pregnant and on the way to Germany, memoir.
Click here.

About Tell Them I Died
TELL THEM I DIED  is a romance, but it is different from the standard romance novel in that the protagonists are all over fifty years of age, retired, and with discretionary time and funds to do whatever they want, and online friends to share every minute.  And unlike other romances, much of the action takes place on the internet on social networking sites. We baby-boomers sometimes have the idea that we're grown, we know it all, and the rules that may apply to teenagers don't apply to us anymore.  WRONG!  The world of dating has changed a lot since we were teenagers, and even grown-a$$ adults can be surprised by STDs and domestic violence.


When it comes to long-distance internet romances, Sixty is the new seventeen.
Click here.

For Those Who Remember "That Woman"

Welcome to the Friday BoomerLit Blog Hop. 
http://boomerlitfriday.blogspot.com/ 

Check out this week's snippet.  For those of you who remember "that woman" in Las Vegas, she's back, as Jackson is about to check out of a rehab facility.

At mid-morning, the sun was shining in Jackson’s room. Bonita walked in, ready to take him to her house.
“I know you’re ready to get out of here and get back to Memphis. They told me you would be ready this morning,” she said.

Jackson looked at her with a scowl. “I appreciate all your help, but I called Carlton. He said he would come this afternoon to get me. It took me days before I could talk. I don’t think I’ll look at a bowl of gumbo ever again.”

“I told you I misunderstood. I thought you were asking about shells. I took all the shells out.”

“Yeah, anyway. I’m glad you got me to the ER, came to visit me and all, but Carlton said he would help me get my strength back so I can go home. Besides I need to talk with him about things.”

“If you’re sure you don’t need anything from me, you have your wallet and suitcase,” Bonita said. “The hotel was kind enough to take a day off your bill and check you out since you were in the hospital. The car rental wasn’t as nice...I’ll be going then. You have my number if you need anything. I hope we can stay in touch.” She kissed Jackson on the cheek, turned on her heel and left.

TELL THEM I DIED is available as an ebook or in print from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and others. You can find direct links on my website:

http://www.sarahweathersby.com/books 

Ghana Must Go

Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Kweku dies barefoot on a Sunday before sunrise, his slippers by the doorway to the bedroom like dogs." The first line of the novel. Kweku Sai, a Ghanaian physician educated in the US, father of four children born in the US, dies of a heart attack in Ghana, leaving his slippers so as not to disturb his second wife.

And so it begins with the ending, a circuitous tale telling of the medical career of Kweku, the growing of his family with his beautiful wife, Fola, and the raising of their children in Boston. Until it all falls apart. Kweku leaves his family. Fola does what she can to provide the best education for her children, all brilliant young minds. But somehow the parenting gets lost in the fracture of the family.

When they learn of Kweku's death(after puzzling how a surgeon could not have saved himself before the final beat of his heart, and how could he leave his slippers behind, in an intentionally long parenthetical expression) the family comes back together revealing years of secrets in attempt to heal their relationships.

I puzzled over the title until "Ghana Must Go" was explained on page 237 as the expulsion of two million Ghanaians from Nigeria in 1983. Click here

I loved this book. It took me a few pages to get into the rhythm of the stream of consciousness, and then it all clicked. I was reading into the night, worrying about those beautiful "shiny" twins, Kehinde and Taiwo, the brilliant surgeon Olu, and baby Sadie who does not know her beauty.

I hate having to take it back to the library. I may even have to buy the book for myself.

View all my reviews

Sao Paolo to Raleigh by way of Dallas

Welcome to the Friday BoomerLit Blog Hop. 
http://boomerlitfriday.blogspot.com/

Check out this week's snippet.  Angela and Bodine are on their way home with a stopover in the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport.

Angela turned on her phone with the intention of checking voicemail at home. Before she could make a call, her cell phone beeped with two messages. One from Jackson asking her to call him, and another from QTEE saying she would call again later. Angela was too tired to think about talking to anybody, and instead checked her messages on their home answering machine.

There were a few calls from friends and family who said in their message they didn’t know if Angela was on another cruise. In addition, there was a call from Rev. Carolyn saying Isaiah, her “Little Man” had passed away. The funeral would be on Monday. Angela would have a day to unwind from the trip and still be able to go to the funeral. She reflected for a few minutes on Isaiah. He was such a gentle man. She never knew how he contracted AIDS, and didn’t much care. 

TELL THEM I DIED is available as an ebook or in print from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and others. You can find direct links on my website:

http://www.sarahweathersby.com/books

Cruising During Spring Break - Good New and Bad News

Hubby LUUURVES to cruise.  When he isn't cruising, he's trolling the cruise websites looking for a good deal.  He can usually find a bargain around the holidays, and he doesn't always associate a date with the corresponding holiday.  Especially Spring Break.

Our last cruise was on the Independence of the Seas, the western Caribbean, March 31 - April 7.  We don't pay much attention to the port stops unless there is one we haven't visited before.  This time the new port was St. Kitts.  Different island, same...umm..shirt.

The big plus for the cruise was that we got a free upgrade for the first time in all our years of cruising. We could hang out in the cabin, and not be bothered by all the school kids on board.  Royal Caribbean has a program called Adventure Ocean, designed to keep the kids busy, especially on those days at sea.  The group for babies includes the parents, and there is a Kids Club for 3 - 11 year olds.  The trouble comes with the teens, because they are old enough to check themselves out of the club when they get bored.  And they do love hanging out together...especially in the elevators...pushing all the buttons...sitting on the floor.  They weren't really being bad, but there were a lot of them, everywhere.  And some parents gave their kids a lot of latitude with a separate cabin for the kids.  And even with the ship's curfew for people under 18, the kids may have been out of sight, but not necessarily under parental supervision late at night.

Hence the 2 AM announcement from the bridge (broadcast in all staterooms), "Will Shelby (last-name) please dial guest services by pressing zero from any phone."  Then repeated at 3 AM.

And, alas, it was not just the kids.  The woman in the cabin next door came in at 2 AM another night and "discovered" that her cellphone worked at sea, and talked loudly until 5 AM.  She will get her due when she sees her bill, $4.95 per minute for international roaming using the ship's satellite.

But we had fun.  We met a lot of nice people, and had a tour of the bridge and the galley.

We'll do it again next month on another ship.

We're Still in Rio

Welcome to the Friday BoomerLit Blog Hop. 
http://boomerlitfriday.blogspot.com/

I'm running out of snippets, and I don't want to spoil the whole book. The scene this week is the American Consulate in Rio.

“Ms. Murchison, my name is Henry Ogleby, what can we do for you?”
“I need help getting home,” Laura said. “My purse was stolen with all my identification and credit cards. Before I left the States, I made a copy of my travel documents and the contents of my wallet, and it’s on this memory card.”

“Did you report it to the police?”
“No, I came here first.”
“Where are you staying?” Mr. Ogleby asked.
“That’s another problem. I just got here from Sao Paulo and I don’t have a hotel.”
“Where is your luggage?”

By this time, Laura started to cry. She dabbed at her eyes under her sunglasses. She knew she couldn’t keep up the lie. “It’s complicated.”

TELL THEM I DIED is available as an ebook or in print from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and others. You can find direct links on my website:

http://www.sarahweathersby.com/books

We're Still Doing the Boomer Blog Hop

Welcome to the Friday BoomerLit Blog Hop. 
http://boomerlitfriday.blogspot.com/

Check out this week's snippet.  Angela and Bodine are still in Rio.

Lucky for Angela, a cable car was ready to leave for the trip down the mountain or she might have missed the bus. Bodine and the tour guide were standing outside when Angela arrived. She was fifteen minutes late. If Bodine had not been holding the bus, the group might have left her. Bodine frowned, but he knew it had to be something about QTEE.  
“Well, did she show up?”

Angela apologized to the guide and to the people on the bus as she got in. It was all she could do to keep from breaking out into a big smile. When she and Bodine arrived at the last seats on the back of the bus, Angela pulled the photo out from the manila envelope. It was QTEE standing in front of the Christ the Redeemer, with a man.

Bodine had to laugh, “So you talked to her.”
“No, she wasn’t there, but she left the photo for me. Like she said, I would see her.”
“Who is the guy with her?”


TELL THEM I DIED is available as an ebook or in print from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and others. You can find direct links on my website:

http://www.sarahweathersby.com/books