Book Spotlight Giveaway! The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo

I have sooooo many books! The Book Spotlight Giveaway feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to clear my shelves and to share some of the many books I have. This feature is a way for my to cull my collection and to give someone else the opportunity to enjoy these treasures.

This is a book I read when it came out in 2015. You can read my thoughts here. I really enjoyed and I have my ARC to give away to one lucky person. 

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Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

The Art of Crash Landing

The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo

ARC, 416 pages
Published September 8th 2015 by Harper Paperbacks

From a bright new talent comes this debut novel about a young woman who travels for the first time to her mother’s hometown, and gets sucked into the mystery that changed her family forever.

Mattie Wallace has really screwed up this time. Broke and knocked up, she’s got all her worldly possessions crammed into six giant trash bags, and nowhere to go. Try as she might, Mattie can no longer deny that she really is turning into her mother, a broken alcoholic who never met a bad choice she didn’t make.

When Mattie gets news of a possible inheritance left by a grandmother she’s never met, she jumps at this one last chance to turn things around. Leaving the Florida Panhandle, she drives eight hundred miles to her mother’s birthplace—the tiny town of Gandy, Oklahoma. There, she soon learns that her mother remains a local mystery—a happy, talented teenager who inexplicably skipped town thirty-five years ago with nothing but the clothes on her back. But the girl they describe bears little resemblance to the damaged woman Mattie knew, and before long it becomes clear that something terrible happened to her mother, and it happened here. The harder Mattie digs for answers, the more obstacles she encounters. Giving up, however, isn’t an option. Uncovering what started her mother’s downward spiral might be the only way to stop her own.

Hilarious, gripping, and unexpectedly wise, The Art of Crash Landing is a poignant novel from an assured new voice. 

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About the author

Melissa DeCarlo was born and raised in Oklahoma City, and has worked as an artist, graphic designer, grant writer, and even (back when computers were the size of refrigerators) a computer programmer. The Art of Crash Landing is her first novel. Melissa now lives in East Texas with her husband and a motley crew of rescue animals. ~ Amazon

Connect with Melissa

Website | Facebook | Twitter

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On Tour: The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo #TheArtOfCrashLanding #TLCBookTours

The Art of Crash Landing

The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo

Paperback, 432 pages
Published September 8, 2015 by Harper Paperbacks

Broke and knocked up, Mattie Wallace has got all her worldly possessions crammed into six giant trash bags and nowhere to go. Try as she might, she really is turning into her late mother, a broken alcoholic who never met a bad choice she didn’t make.

When Mattie gets news of a possible inheritance left by a grandmother she’s never met, she jumps at this one last chance to turn things around. Leaving the Florida Panhandle, she drives eight hundred miles to her mother’s birthplace—the tiny town of Gandy, Oklahoma. There, she soon learns that her mother remains a local mystery—a happy, talented teenager who inexplicably skipped town thirty-five years ago with nothing but the clothes on her back.

But the girl they describe bears little resemblance to the damaged woman Mattie knew, and before long it becomes clear that something terrible happened to her mother. The deeper Mattie digs for answers, the more precarious her situation becomes. Giving up, however, isn’t an option. Uncovering what started her mother’s downward spiral might be the only way to stop her own.

My thoughts about The Art of Crash Landing ~~

'Twenty-seven minutes is, if anyone ever asks, exactly how long it takes to cram everything I own into six giant trash bags.'

That is the first line of The Art of Crash Landing. Isn't it great? It totally drew me in and I was hooked. I had to find out more about this character and what she was running away from. Mattie is running away from her life and running to find some answers. She heads back to her mother's hometown to collect her inheritance and to maybe learn why her mother was the way she was. 

'The cool darkness presses on my skin like water, and when I think of Queeg's bad feeling, a heaviness that is more than mere exhaustion settles on my chest. Is it the weight of not knowing anything about my mother's past, or the weight of knowing everything about my own? They say you can't take it with you when you go, but we all know that is not entirely true. You can carry your secrets to the grave.'

When she arrives in Gandy, Oklahoma, she uncovers more questions than answers. The mother she knew growing up is not the same person she is hearing stories about. Her mother was a completely different person in her youth. What cause her to change and start her downward spiral in life?  

'I don't believe in ghosts, but I want to. I want to hear my mother's voice whispering to me, telling me what happened to her and why and when. I want to know. I need to know.'

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and especially liked the relationship she formed with Tawny, the 'bad' girl who worked at the library. I loved their bantering back and forth that eventually led to friendship. 

'Apparently we've gone from breaking and entering all the way to reasonably friendly in just one night.'

Okay, and then there was the library, a librarian, the mention of Nebraska and the Cornhuskers. These are all things near and dear to my heart, so that clinched it for me! Love this writer! 

But seriously, this was a great story that kept me guessing.  I enjoyed watching Mattie unravel her mother's past and come to a better understanding of how her mother came to be the way she was. This is Melissa's first novel and I will be watching and waiting for her next one. 

'It's pretty clear that for my mother there was a before and an after, and in between something happened to her. I really wanted to know what that was.'

Purchase Links

Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

About the author

Melissa DeCarlo was born and raised in Oklahoma City, and has worked as an artist, graphic designer, grant writer, and even (back when computers were the size of refrigerators) a computer programmer. The Art of Crash Landing is her first novel. Melissa now lives in East Texas with her husband and a motley crew of rescue animals.

Connect with Melissa

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Visit other stops on the tour here.

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? September 7, 2015

Hello! Welcome to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? This weekly meme, hosted by Book Journey, is where we share what we have read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week. It’s a great way to see what others are reading and to discover books to add to your own To Be Read list. You never know where that next great read may come from!

Click on the book image to read more on Goodreads. 

What I'm currently reading/listening to

 

A Healing Heart (Riverview Series #1)

A Healing Spirit (Riverview Series #2)

by Melissa A. Hanson

Book # 2 in this series just came out. I read book #1 in 2012 and I just received book #2. I decided to go back and reread A Healing Heart. What a great series! 

Read my thoughts about A Healing Heart here. 

The Seacrest
by Aaron Paul Lazar (audio-book)

What I recently finished reading

The Art of Crash Landing 

by Melissa DiCarlo

Wonderful story! My stop on it's tour is September 10th.

The Middle of Somewhere
by Sonja Yoerg
Loved this one! Read my thoughts here. And there's a giveaway for a copy! Check it out!

What I am going to read next

Moonlight on Butternut Lake: A Novel (The Butternut Lake Trilogy #3)
by Mary McNear 
I have been wanting to read this series. I've heard they can be read as stand alones so why not jump in and read the last one first.

I love my reading life!

What's going on in your reading world this week?

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? August 31, 2015

Hello! Welcome to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? This weekly meme, hosted by Book Journey, is where we share what we have read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week. It’s a great way to see what others are reading and to discover books to add to your own To Be Read list. You never know where that next great read may come from!

Click on the book image to read more on Goodreads. 

What I'm currently reading/listening to

The Middle of Somewhere
by Sonja Yoerg
I loved Sonja's first novel, House Broken, and am so excited to be reading this one.


The Seacrest
by Aaron Paul Lazar (audio-book)

I have read and loved Aaron's other books and have been wanting to dive into another one of his.

What I recently finished reading

Dead Case in Deadwood (Deadwood #3)

by Ann Charles (audio book)
Taking a short break from Violet but can't wait to finish the series!

Laguna Nights (Laguna Beach #1)

by Kaira Rouda

My thoughts will be posted September 3rd.

The Loft: Memory House Collection (Memory House Collection #2)

by Bette Lee Crosby
Love, love, love Bette's stories. My thoughts will be posted later today. 

Previously Loved Treasures (Serendipity #2)

by Bette Lee Crosby

Love, love, love Bette's stories. Read my thoughts here. 

What I am going to read next

The Art of Crash Landing 

by Melissa DiCarlo

This is a new to me author. My stop on it's tour is September 10th.

I love my reading life!

What's going on in your reading world this week?

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!