Maggie Finds Her Muse


Book Description

A sparkling romantic comedy starring a bestselling author who goes to Paris to overcome writer's block and rediscovers family, independence, and love along the way. All Maggie Bliss needs to do is write. Forty-eight years old and newly single (again!), she ventures to Paris in a last-ditch effort to finish her manuscript. With a marvelous apartment at her fingertips and an elegant housekeeper to meet her every need, a finished book—and her dream of finally taking her career over the top—is surely within her grasp. After all, how could she find anything except inspiration in Paris, with its sophistication, food, and romance in the air? But the clock is running out, and between her charming ex-husband arriving in France for vacation and a handsome Frenchman appearing one morning in her bathtub, Maggie’s previously undisturbed peace goes by the wayside. Charming and heartfelt, Dee Ernst's Maggie Finds Her Muse is a delightful and feel-good novel about finding love, confidence, and inspiration in all the best places.




Muse


Book Description

Readers are saying, “Holy hotness!” … “the sexiest thing I have ever read” … “5 stars are not enough!” One wealthy heir. One new college grad. A roommate who can best be described as sex on a stick. A job that entails researching Regency era brothels and, um, “acting.” What could possibly go wrong? (Damn near everything.) My name is Sim. This book is about Alaric White—my best friend, college roommate, partner in literary crime. Alaric writes kissing books. And by “kissing,” I mean … well, you know what I mean. He writes each book with a muse. (If the IRS asks, tell them she’s a “research assistant.”) Yeah, I’ve told him this reflects a certain lack of imagination on his part. But I help out with his books so far be it from me to complain too much. Usually it doesn’t take him long to find a “research assistant” for a new book. Women send him their “resumes.” Call. Email. Turn up at every stop on his book tours. (I know, it’s a rough life but someone has to live it.) But his current work-in-progress? Well, it’s different. So he needs a different muse. Someone innocent and untouched … but also brave enough to embark on a journey into her deepest, darkest desires. After a year, he’s still searching. His agent is getting antsy. (Okay, she’s on the verge of full-blown panic that he won’t finish the book on time.) Then he sees her, looking like an angel just arisen from a leisurely afternoon of amour. (His exact words.) She’s sitting in a suburban coffee shop … and being threatened by a goon with a pistol in his waistband. (Dear reader, he rescues her.) Then a plot twist no one saw coming. He knows he should let her go. But he’s a selfish bastard. (I am too, but that’s a different story.) He just needs to keep her long enough to finish the book … Muse is a melt-your-clothes-off scorching hot standalone billionaire (well, Alaric's not technically a billionaire but he acts like one half the time) boss romance with a sweet happy ever after. (If I might say so myself.) Find out why readers are saying, “Holy hotness!” … “the sexiest thing I have ever read” … “5 stars are not enough!” (Well, I’m one of the reasons why they say that.) Of course, everyone wants my story now, too. We’ll see. My story makes Alaric’s look like a damn fairy tale. A twisted sort of fairy tale, but … well, just read it. (Trust me, it’s worth it.)




Farewell to the Muse: Love, War and the Women of Surrealism


Book Description

A fascinating examination of the ambitions and friendships of a talented group of midcentury women artists Farewell to the Muse documents what it meant to be young, ambitious, and female in the context of an avant-garde movement defined by celebrated men whose backgrounds were often quite different from those of their younger lovers and companions. Focusing on the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, Whitney Chadwick charts five female friendships among the Surrealists to show how Surrealism, female friendship, and the experiences of war, loss, and trauma shaped individual women’s transitions from someone else’s muse to mature artists in their own right. Her vivid account includes the fascinating story of Claude Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe in occupied Jersey, as well as the experiences of Lee Miller and Valentine Penrose at the front line. Chadwick draws on personal correspondence between women, including the extraordinary letters between Leonora Carrington and Leonor Fini during the months following the arrest and imprisonment of Carrington’s lover Max Ernst and the letter Frida Kahlo shared with her friend and lover Jacqueline Lamba years after it was written in the late 1930s. This history brings a new perspective to the political context of Surrealism as well as fresh insights on the vital importance of female friendship to its progress.




From Where You Dream


Book Description

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author “shares his insights into—and passion for—the creation and experience of fiction with total openness” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Robert Olen Butler, author of Perfume River, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and A Small Hotel, teaches graduate fiction at Florida State University—his version of literary boot camp. In From Where You Dream, Butler reimagines the process of writing as emotional rather than intellectual, and tells writers how to achieve the dreamspace necessary for composing honest, inspired fiction. Proposing that fiction is the exploration of the human condition with yearning as its compass, Butler reinterprets the traditional tools of the craft using the dynamics of desire. Offering a direct view into the mind and craft of a literary master, From Where You Dream is an invaluable tool for the novice and experienced writer alike. “Incisive and provocative, Butler’s tutorials are a must for anyone even thinking about writing fiction, and readers, too, will benefit from his passionate exhortations.” —Booklist




John Singer Sargent and His Muse


Book Description

This sensitive and compelling biography sheds new light on John Singer Sargent’s art through an intimate history of his family. Karen Corsano and Daniel Williman focus especially on his niece and muse, Rose-Marie Ormond, telling her story for the first time. In a score of paintings created between 1906 and 1912, John Singer Sargent documented the idyllic teenage summers of Rose-Marie and his own deepening affection for her serene beauty and good-hearted, candid charm. Rose-Marie married Robert, the only son of André Michel, the foremost art historian of his day, who had known Sargent and reviewed his paintings in the Paris Salons of the 1880s. Robert was a promising historian as well, until the Great War claimed him first as an infantry sergeant, then a victim, in 1914. His widow Rose-Marie served as a nurse in a rehabilitation hospital for blinded French soldiers until she too was killed, crushed under a bombed church vault, in 1918. Sargent expressed his grief, as he expressed all his emotions, on canvas: He painted ruined French churches and, in Gassed, blinded soldiers; he made his last murals for the Boston Public Library a cryptic memorial to Rose-Marie and her beloved Robert. Braiding together the lives and families of Rose-Marie, Robert, and John Sargent, the book spans their many worlds—Paris, the Alps, London, the Soissons front, and Boston. Drawing on a rich trove of letters, diaries, and journals, this beautifully illustrated history brings Sargent and his times to vivid life.




To My Muse


Book Description

I’m in a fake relationship with my celebrity crush. How did I wind up in a real-life romance trope? When too much tequila and an enabling BFF put my newest and oh-so-spicy romance novel into the hands of its inspiration, sexy British actor Tom Morrison, I’m horrified (because hello complete stranger, I thought of you while writing these smexy scenes, now excuse me while I spontaneously combust from embarrassment). I need to get the book back before Tom takes out a restraining order on me—or worse, reads the book out loud on social media. Except that’s not what happens. Thanks to a strategic lie and an Oscar-winning knight I’m now pretending to be Tom’s girlfriend while we get his dream project made. Somehow, my screwball plan landed me in the middle of my very own Cinderella story, Hollywood style. Even better, I have a shot at a real life HEA with a gorgeous, hilarious man who thinks I’m amazing… …so why do I get the feeling that disaster is about to strike?




Bettyville


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD “A beautifully crafted memoir, rich with humor and wisdom.” —Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club “The idea of a cultured gay man leaving New York City to care for his aging mother in Paris, Missouri, is already funny, and George Hodgman reaps that humor with great charm. But then he plunges deep, examining the warm yet fraught relationship between mother and son with profound insight and understanding.” —Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself—an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook—in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can’t bring himself to force her from the home both treasure—the place where his father’s voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict: Betty, who speaks her mind but cannot quite reveal her heart, has never really accepted the fact that her son is gay. As these two unforgettable characters try to bring their different worlds together, Hodgman reveals the challenges of Betty’s life and his own struggle for self-respect, moving readers from their small town—crumbling but still colorful—to the star-studded corridors of Vanity Fair. Evocative of The End of Your Life Book Club and The Tender Bar, Hodgman’s New York Times bestselling debut is both an indelible portrait of a family and an exquisitely told tale of a prodigal son’s return.




His Muse


Book Description

A mysterious email with a link to her mother's memoir has found its way into Kari's inbox at a time when she needs her mother most. Unfortunately, Kari pushed her away over two decades ago. Now, finding herself in eerily similar shoes as her mother at 44, Kari is finally ready to hear her side... Mid-Life Crisis or Mid-Life Awakening? I am a 44-year-old divorced mother, starting a new life in the South of France. He's a 29-year-old, sexy French artist with the soul of a poet. And he's set his eyes on me, of all people. I can't deny my overwhelming attraction to him. Nor his touch that sets me on fire. But can I really risk it all to blossom under his skilled, paint-stained hands? Can he give up his dreams of raising a family to stay with me? Or can I selflessly give him up so that he can? Find out in the sensual, heartbreaking, and bittersweet story with an HEA guaranteed to tug at your heartstrings in...His Muse. Adult Content: 18+ Only




For Love of Evil


Book Description

The Man Who Would Be Satan Parry was a gifted musician and an apprentice in the arts of White Magic. But his life of sweet promise went disastrously awry following the sudden, violent death of his beloved Jolie. Led down the twisted path of wickedness and depravity by Lilah the harlot demoness, Parry thrived -- first as a sorceror, then as a monk, and finally as a feared inquisitor. But it wasn't until his mortal flame was extinguished that Parry found his true calling -- as the Incarnation of Evil. And, at the gates of Hell, he prepared to wage war on the master himself -- Lucifer, the dark lord -- with dominion over the infernal realms the ultimate prize!




Writing the Australian Crawl


Book Description

Stafford's advice to beginning poets has become a favorite text in writing programs