Book Spotlight and a Giveaway! Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos

Belong to Me

Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos
Paperback, 398 pages
Published March 31st 2009 (first published January 1st 2008)
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

"On a recent rainy Monday, I'd tried imagining the last month and a half of my life as a feature film, a game I play, secretly, fairly often, and that I'm convinced other people play, secretly too," confesses Cornelia Brown, whose witty observations and small epiphanies in the pages of Marisa de los Santos' Belong to Me surround readers like the warm embrace of an old friend. Cornelia and her impossibly handsome husband, Teo Sandoval, made their debut in the author's Love Walked In.

As this book begins, the couple is settling into their first house on an idyllic street in a picturesque Philadelphia suburb. Cornelia is inexplicably drawn to "this unsurprising place" that she yearns to call home, but her neighbors are less sure of how these transplanted, apparently childless urbanites will fare in their midst. Especially Piper Truitt. The epitome of blonde cool, this demanding mother of two has created her own version of perfection within the walls of a home that sits across the street from Cornelia's. From their early encounter at a dinner party, the two are at odds, a situation that Cornelia, adrift from her familiar surroundings, cannot conceive how to navigate.

As the novel progresses, new characters emerge. We meet Elizabeth, Piper's best friend, who's battling cancer, as well as Toby, Cornelia's brother, and Clare, the bright and compassionate teen familiar to readers of Love Walked In. Then there's Lake, a single mother working at a local Italian restaurant, who throws Cornelia a timely lifeline in the form of a dish of spaghetti alla puttanesca. Lake's son Dev, a preternaturally gifted 13-year-old, becomes Cornelia's unexpected kindred spirit. Deftly blending several tales at once, de los Santos' narrative is richly embroidered with intertwined lives and loves. As present circumstances are threatened by the revelation of past secrets, the friends forge a circle of strength and forgiveness that the reader, too, belongs to -- and will hate to leave when the last page is turned. A triumphant testimony to the power of love, Belong to Me hums with the hope that pulls friends through the ups and downs that the years hold in store for everyone.

About the author

Marisa de los Santos was a poet for a very long time, with an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a Ph.D. from the University of Houston. Her first book, From the Bones Out, a collection of poems, was published in 2000.

She and her husband, writer David Teague, lived in Center City, Philadelphia for a number of years before moving to Wilmington, Delaware in spring of 2003. That summer, Marisa began writing what would become her first novel Love Walked In (Dutton, 2006). Love Walked In was translated into fourteen languages, was optioned by Paramount pictures, and was a trade paperback bestseller. William Morrow published her second novel Belong to Me in April 2008, and it was an instant New York Times Bestseller.

Marisa, David, and their two children, Charles and Annabel, live in Wilmington, where Marisa takes as many ballet classes as she can, volunteers at her kids' school, and is working on her third novel.

Connect with Marisa

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