HEAR OUR INTERVIEW WITH NOVELIST MOLLIE MOON, AUTHOR OF FIVE WISHES 4.3K
Total Views: 79 By Miriam Raftery, East County Magazine May 20, 2017 (San Diego) – Mollie Moon, author of the novel Five Wishes, sat down for an exclusive interview with Reina Menasche, host of the Bookshelf segment on East County Magazine’s Show on KNSJ radio. Hear the full interview by clicking the audio link eand read highlights below. Her novel tracks the journey of a teen girl escaping a shanty town in Honduras in hopes of finding a better life in America . Her journey includes living on city streets and falling prey to a human trafficker, nightmares that befall far too many immigrants coming to America. A German immigrant, Moon has empathy with immigrants around the world in today’s political climate. “I came from a country that had finished a war. Everything was destroyed,” she recalls. “Later in the ‘60s, the Soviet Union built a wall segregating East Germany from the rest of the country with wired fences and a minefield…As a child I saw the towers and the guards with machine guns and it was very frightening to me.” Living in Germany, Moon met people from neighboring countries and throughout her life, has experienced a variety of cultures. “When you get to know people from a different culture, you open your heart, “ she says. “You learn compassion.” Moon attained her own dream of obtaining a college education in America, but faced her own set of challenges in life. She’s also traveled to Brazil, where she saw third world conditions and people eating food from garbage cans, sights that increased her empathy with the plight of impoverished people. “ I read a lot about Syrian immigrants going to German and African immigrants going to France,” she says. “Everybody wants to live in happiness and peace, not in poverty.” That universal dream, and the efforts to attain it, is a global problem today. Since writing her novel, she has become involved in efforts to combat human trafficking locally, where it has become prevalent in some San Diego neighborhoods. She is now writing a sequel to Five Wishes that will be titled Seaside Daisies that will show the future or her protagonist, Maria Elena Garcia. Like many immigrants, the fictional Maria’s dreams of a brighter future began as a teenager, when her family refused to let her finish high school in order to go to college – a theme that resonates with Moon. Moon’s advice to immigrants everywhere? “Don’t ever give up.” Printer-friendly version
4.3K viewsTWICE BEGUN: IT ALL BEGINS IN THE CLOSET 5.9K
Total Views: 42 Twice Begun, by Reina Lisa Menasche Book review by Miriam Raftery March 17, 2013 (San Diego)–Paris Jablonski has a seemingly idyllic life in San Diego with her charming French husband and young daughter. But that illusion is shattered on her seventh anniversary, when she finds love letters in her husband’s closet from a woman in France. Twice Begun, a novel by San Diego author Reina Menasche, opens with this line: “Before I stepped into the closet, my life felt like an Impressionist masterpiece—filled with elusive light yet made of simple dabs of color that even a child could paint.” But Paris is given no opportunity to absorb the shock, caught in the moment not by her philandering husband, Serge, but by the family dog tailed closely by Paris’ 7-year-old daughter, who asks innocently, “Mommy, why are you in the closet?” Paris, a social worker, somehow manages to maintain a veneer of calm as she drifts through an anniversary party in an emotional fog. Before she can confront Serge, however, she receives a call that her aged aunt has fallen and rushes off to offer aid. Menasche has a knack for creating memorable characters, capturing their essence in prose etched with wry humor. Take her description of her strong but aggravating great-aunt, Tanta. Meinasche introduces her as follows: “A World War II refugee who was smuggled out of a small Polish town in the back of hay wagon, my great-aunt survived only because the soldier who was checking the wagon stabbed his pitchfork into the wrong patch of hay. He missed her by inches, and she managed not to scream, gasp or whimper—though she has been making up for it ever since.” Paris returns home to find a note from Serge, her husband, informing her that he has left her and gone to France to be with his childhood sweetheart, Madeline. Stooping to a new low in caddish behavior, however, Serge also absconds with the family dog, Pumpernickel. So Paris dries her tears and packs her bags, taking a plane to France to confront Serge, face the in-laws she’s never seen–and most importantly, snatch back the purloined pooch. She arrives in a village that “looks like a medieval jigsaw puzzle with a few too many pieces missing.” Little did she suspect that her father-in-law is the town’s mayor—or that the entire family along with Serge’s mistress would be onstage at a festival in the town square. All heads turn “like dominoes tipping” as Paris leaps onto the stage, spotting Pumpernickel in”full rhapsodic wiggle of recognition…struggling to get the hell away from Madeline, who looks like she wants to disinfect her hands.” Suffice to say the end result is satisfying, as Paris attains some measure of triumph, albeit tinged with humiliation. Arriving back home, Paris find her life becomes even more chaotic as San Diego is gripped by a raging wildfire and evacuations. Amid the crisis she starts a new job helping recovering addicts and breaks the cardinal rule for a social worker—falling in love with a client, Dean. After doing everything right in life, she resolves, why not try something wrong? The chemistry is irresistible as Paris starts life anew. An aspiring author, Paris also signs up for a writers’ critique group. This is a scene I could strongly relate to, having once been in a writing critique group with Reina. I always found her work original and spiced with humor, so I was delighted but not surprised to learn that she is now a published author whose fiction has been recognized by the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild, the San Diego Book and Writing Awards, and the Southern California Writers Conference. I chuckled as I read the diverse comments offered up by fictional critique group members in her novel, which ranged from the offbeat (“Why don’t you make your heroine a black belt?”) to a cringe-worthy remark. (“I liked the ex-husband personally…Why don’t you write the book about him, make him the protagonist, and his love affair the main plot of the book? Then it could take place in France instead of boring old San Diego.”) There are autobiographical elements to Reina’s work. Menasche is a masters-level social worker who teaches university classes in counseling and human services. She has provided services to clients struggling with addiction and life transitions, specializing in helping young children adjust to life after divorce. Currently she lives with her family in San Diego. If you’re looking for an entertaining read that strikes a strong emotional chord, I highly recommend Twice Begun. For more information, visit the author’s website: http://www.reinamenasche.com/ To buy the book, visit http://www.reinamenasche.com/ . Printer-friendly version
5.9K viewsSINGLE IN SAN DIEGO: BETWEEN BOYFRIENDS OFFERS AN ESCAPIST ROMP FOR READERS 20.4K
Total Views: 42 Between Boyfriends, by Sárka-Jonae Miller, San Diego Review by Miriam Raftery February 18, 2013 (San Diego)—Between Boyfriends hit three Amazon best-seller lists the week after Valentine’s Day, ranking #9 for humor books, #11 for humor e-books and #54 for women’s fiction. Written by San Diego-area resident Sárka Jonae Miller, this book is the ultimate chick-lit read—a light-hearted romp focused on the travails of Jan, a college student dumped by her boyfriend, an SDSU student. The moment proves an epiphany, as Jan resolves to stop dating and find fulfillment as a single woman. Raised in pampered privilege, Jan’s problems soon get worse when she loses her parents’ financial support and must learn to be a self-sufficient. After two days spent wallowing in a a self-pitying stupor following the breakup with her boyfriend, Jan awakens in her apartment. Appalled upon looking in the mirror, she whacks her hair with manicure scissors. Then she clears out the medicine cabinet of souvenirs from losers she has dated, determined to rid herself of ghosts of boyfriends past. Her friend, Lisa, can relate. Not a cat person, Lisa is none-the-less stuck with Reminder, a plump orange tabby given to her by her ex-boyfriend. The author observes wryly, ”Apparently cats weren’t returnable without a receipt. The Tabby was supposed to be a reminder of her boyfriend’s affections, but instead had reminded Lisa how much she preferred being single.” Nichole, another friend, insists that Jan is just between boyfriends. But Jan insists she has given up on dating—though maybe not on sex. After a night of boozing with friends, Jan concludes that drinking is not a suitable substitute for dating. She decides to take massage therapy classes. But here’s the rub: upon finding out that Jan is not attending classes at SDSU, her mother cuts off Jan’s college funding—forcing her for the first time in her life to find a job. Jan’s efforts to be self-sufficient careen from angst to hilarity. Every woman who has ever entertained a secret fantasy to make an ex-beau sorry for dumping her by looking drop-dead gorgeous when next they meet will relate to this anecdote. Forced to take work at a dog grooming parlor, Jan wrestles with Princess, a nippy and irascible Pomeranian. After nearly suffocating the pampered pooch by accident, Jan brushes the dog to shining perfection, adding trimmed, pink-painted toenails and a pink bow atop its head. “She looked ready to win a dog show,” Miller writes of Princess. “Jan, on the other hand, looked like she’d gotten into a fight with a hurricane…. Her hair was everywhere. Much of it was wet and stuck flat on her head. Several pieces were sticking up like plants reaching for the sun. Her face was red from exertion, her smock was wet and covered in dog hair, and several fingers were accessorized with Band-Aids.” Just imagine Jan’s chagrin when Princess is claimed by her owner’s son: Mike, Jan’s former boyfriend. Fortunately life goes on and Jan’s outlook brightens. The book takes us through San Diego’s steamy clubbing scene as well as glimpses into the tony country club set . Through it all,Jan adapts , gaining confidence as she moves closer to fulfilling her dreams. The novel has an element of autobiography, Miller is a former massage therapist and personal fitness trainer. She is a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and now writes novels as well as health articles for major websites. To find out how long Jan holds out on dating, whether she reconciles with her perfectly appalling parents, or how she escapes the dog grooming malaise, you’ll have to buy a copy of this entertaining chick-lit romp, Between Boyfriends. To buy the book on Amazon, click here. For more information see the author’s website:SarkaJonae.com and the Between Boyfriends blog at BetweenBoyfriendsBlog.com. Miller also writes a natural health and fitness blog, NaturalHealingTipsBlog.com. You can also visit her fan page on Facebook and follow her on Twitter, @boyfriendsnovel. Her Wattpad profile is here. Two of Miller’s stories set in San Diegio were selected for Wattpad’s launch of its new chicklit category Feb. 11 to March 11. Wattpad was started in 2006 and is often called the “YouTube for e-books.” Stories will be hosted at WeLoveChickLit.com for the month, and then moved permanently to Wattpad.com/chicklit. The launch will include work by Marian Keyes, plus 70 additional stories from top Wattpad writers. Included in the bunch will be Miller’s Blood is Thinner Than Cashmere and the first two chapters of Between Boyfriends. Printer-friendly version
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