Almost anyone who has ever read one of my novels will agree that there is a thread of lighthearted humor running throughout even the most dire situation. Why? Well, for one reason I had a Southern Mama who taught me to laugh at myself. She showed me how to step back from the agony of a lost love and see the man who broke my heart as simply someone with a wad of gum stuck to his shoe. She also taught me that it’s okay to cry, but only for so long. Once you’ve licked your wounds it’s time to get up and tackle life all over again. This is the life lesson my mother gave to me and I in turn try to pass it along to my characters.
In The Twelfth Child, don’t expect to read about the typical ‘I am woman hear me roar’ person. My characters are not like that. Abigail Ann Lannigan is rather like my mother. She’s funny and yet wise. She makes mistakes, bad choices, and wrong turns, but when all else fails, she reaches down inside of herself and finds a way to go on. The same is true of Destiny Fairchild. Although they are generations apart, these two women have held onto the capacity to love—each other and the men in their lives. On a New Year’s Eve that by all rights should be tragic, they head to Miami Beach where they’ll drink champagne, paint their toenails pink and talk of skinny-dipping in the Atlantic Ocean.
We can’t always control the pathway that our life takes, but we can decide whether or not we’ll whistle as we walk that path. At least that’s what Mama said, and Mama’s almost always right.
Title: The Twelfth Child by Bette Lee Crosby
Publisher: Bent Pine Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Women’s Fiction
Length: 259 pages
Summary:
Be prepared to be swept away into the life of a girl who will tug at your emotions while never leaving your heart. Crosby has crafted a story that will enchant readers.
Steena Holmes, bestselling author of Finding Emma
Trust, love and friendship—Abigail Anne Lannigan searched for these things all her life. Now, when she is at the tail end of her years, she teams up with a free-spirited young woman. A nobody from nowhere, who suddenly moves in across the street. This unlikely friendship comes under suspicion when a million dollars goes missing and a distant relative, claims embezzlement. Abigail knows the truth of what happened, but she’ll never get the chance to tell..
Reminiscent of Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes, the unlikely friendship of these two women is sure to settle in the soft spot of your heart.
Reviews:
“Strong Female Characters without the “I am woman hear me roar” mentality. Crosby writes in a way that puts readers within the story so that they can visualize themselves experiencing the hurts and joys of the protagonist.” A Book and A Review
“I rarely give 5 stars for a book, but this book definitely deserves 5 stars! Crosby deals with timely issues such as caring for the elderly, greed, forgiveness, isolation, love, selfishness, and selflessness. If you like novels about strong women and relationships, you would probably enjoy this book. I have already lined up my next Bette Lee Crosby novel.” Amazon Review
“Bette Lee Crosby is a storyteller extraordinaire. She has honed her craft, and shares it in this well told novel.” McGuffy’s Reader – Blogspot
“A deeply moving story that touches the core of your heart…” Layered Pages
“Characters with an emotional depth that compels the reader to care about their challenges, to root for their success and to appreciate their bravery.” Goodreads Review.
Excerpt:
Born – August, 1912
I was barely thirteen years old when Mama died and left me and Will in the care of Papa, a man who’d think nothing of shoving a dose of castor oil down my throat just so he could watch my face turn inside out. “It’s good for what ails you,” he’d say; yet, I noticed he never gave Will the same big dose. Papa didn’t say it in precise words, but he made it clear enough he wouldn’t give two hoots if all the girl babies in Chestnut Ridge, Virginia, were in the graveyard along with Mama. Of course with him being a staunch Methodist, I don’t believe Papa was capable of taking a butcher knife and slicing off heads or anything; but he surely knew how to destroy people from the inside—a sliver of spirit, a piece of pride, a chunk of heart—until one day there’s nothing left but a walking around shell to do the cooking and laundry.
It’s a roundabout story, but Papa’s blind-sightedness is the very reason Destiny Fairchild may end up in the Women’s Correctional Facility—which is a fancy way of saying penitentiary. Everybody’s life could have been a whole lot different if Mama hadn’t died before she got a chance to set things right. She was the one to tell Papa there were two sides to every story and he should have the fairness of mind to hear them all the way through. Will, bless his heart, wasn’t the least bit like Papa; nonetheless, we’d get to scrapping over something—who was smarter, who slacked on their chores, who said what and who didn’t—and that’s when Mama stepped in. She’d make us sit at the kitchen table and tell both versions of how the tussle got started. After everything was all explained, she’d generally say we should be ashamed of ourselves, fussing over such a bit of nonsense when here we were twins, born of the same seed, a brother and sister, linked together for life. More often than not, she’d dole out a punishment that involved standing in opposite corners of the room and thinking things over for a while.
Unfortunately, Destiny didn’t have Mama to see to the fairness of things before they got out of hand; besides, in her case there were three sides, hers, Elliott’s and mine. Problem is, no one’s ever heard mine—not even Judge Kensington.
Author Bio:
Award-winning novelist Bette Lee Crosby brings the wit and wisdom of her Southern Mama to works of fiction—the result is a delightful blend of humor, mystery and romance along with a cast of quirky charters who will steal your heart away.
Born in Detroit and raised in a plethora of states scattered across the South and Northeast, Crosby originally studied art and began her career as a packaging designer. When asked to write a few lines of copy for the back of a pantyhose package, she discovered a love for words that was irrepressible. After years of writing for business, she turned to works of fiction and never looked back. “Storytelling is in my blood,” Crosby laughingly admits, “My mom was not a writer, but she was a captivating storyteller, so I find myself using bits and pieces of her voice in most everything I write.”
Crosby’s work was first recognized in 2006 when she received The National League of American Pen Women Award for a then unpublished manuscript. Since that, she has gone on to win several more awards, including another NLAPW award, three Royal Palm Literary Awards, the FPA President’s Book Award Gold Medal and most recently the 2011 Reviewer’s Choice Award and Reader’s View Southeast Fiction Literary Award.
Her published works to date are: Cracks in the Sidewalk (2009), Spare Change (2011), The Twelfth Child (2012), and Life in the Land of IS (2012). Life in the Land of IS is a memoir written for Lani Deauville, a woman the Guinness Book of Records lists as the world’s longest living quadriplegic.
Crosby newest novel Cupid’s Christmas is scheduled for release in early October and following that, What Matters Most will be released in early 2013.
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