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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18619686-flawless
Nobody's perfect. Except Lia Copeland. She's flawless. And worshipped. And hated. From her perfectly proportioned figure and enviable bone structure to her instinctual talent for clothing design and cavalier attitude, Lia's the woman every other woman wants to be and every man wants to have. Catapulted from sigh-maker in the high-school halls to superstardom in the fashion world, she makes it look easy. A girl like that has everything; every reason to be happy. Then why does Lia Copeland just want everyone to leave her the hell alone?
Behind the dazzling light of Lia's successes is a dark tale of fear, betrayal and confusion, leaving her with unfathomable anger--and so many questions. Chief among them: why is apathy threatening to take over her life? She forces herself to look to both inside and outside sources of the problem, leading her through a maze of emotions and relationships as she carries out her quest.
From the friends of Lia's youth--her best friend, Maddie, her tragic kinship with Doug, the tangled love triangle between her, Doug's cousin, Chad, and her pal, Wilson--to her later-day bond with her mentor, Jade, and therapist Ruth, Lia discovers the necessity of friendship and forgiveness in order to reach a life-affirming resolution.
A story about the choices made in the wake of travail and tragedy, it explores relationships with all their messy and marvelous moments and magnifies the beauty, wonder and endurance of first love.
Fiction Dreams: I asked Jennifer what inspired her to write Flawless, as well as what the idea was behind the gorgeous cover. Here's what she said...
I often hear fiction writers brag about being frauds. I'm sure you've read the interviews highlighting writers who love to write fiction because it gives them a chance to playact. That may work for some writers but not for me. To me, writing is about getting to the essence of what I find to be true and then expressing it. What inspired FLAWLESS was an observation that I (and I suppose every high-school girl) made when glancing around the school hallways: perceived perfection amid a sea of flawed teen faces. I mean, who among us hasn't gazed at the girl with the perfectly proportioned features and not-a-hair-out-of-place kind of perfection without wondering--even fleetingly-- what it would be like to live her life?
That thought got me pondering. I figured a girl like that, with nary a pound to lose nor a pimple marring her porcelain complexion, must surely be immune to the troubles that plague us everyday folk. Yet I know problems arrive on everyone's doorstep in one form or another and good looks can't ward them off. So then I started to have some fun with the idea. What if I dumped a world of woes onto this seemingly FLAWLESS person? How would she react? How much could she take and still survive? What would it take to move her forward and into the arena of "happy?" The result is my novel, FLAWLESS, about a young woman who appears to have it all but actually has so little that her queen bitch attitude at first is actually off-putting but (I hope) oddly intriguing. As the story progresses, so does main character, Lia Copeland. This is where I attempt to get to the truth of relationships: family ties, friendships and, of course, romantic connections. How they all work for and against us. And how these interactions help us learn things about ourselves in order to grow into the kinds of adults others can admire (or at least tolerate--ha, ha).
The cover of my book was in my mind from the moment I started writing and never wavered during the two-year process of getting the story written, edited, etc. The closeup is actually my daughter who was blessed with the most gorgeous eyes the color of a blue summer sky. The connection is important to the book's message because we can all gaze up into a cloudless sky and feel as though we can see everything with no clouds obscuring our view. Yet in reality what do we see? Fathomless blue. Beautiful but not revealing. That's also why I only revealed one eye and I turned her face so it's off-kilter. It's not a perfect likeness of her or a perfect picture, which makes a mockery, of sorts, of the book's title. I like to think it works.
Anyway, I hope this is helpful and inspires people to want to read FLAWLESS. I wrote the book for myself. As a writer (I have been on the staffs of both Redbook and Woman's World magazines as well as having a freelance career when my kids were little), I find it easiest to connect ideas and people through words and I can't speak nearly as coherently as I write (though my husband will tell you that never stops me from yacking, lol). It was only at the urging of friends that I decided to publish and I'm thrilled that I did it. I'm loving meeting bloggers and writers in the Indie writing community and now I only read Indie books. I find myself drawn to them and the awesome people involved in this field. Please contact me if you have questions or you'd just like to stay in touch!
Behind the dazzling light of Lia's successes is a dark tale of fear, betrayal and confusion, leaving her with unfathomable anger--and so many questions. Chief among them: why is apathy threatening to take over her life? She forces herself to look to both inside and outside sources of the problem, leading her through a maze of emotions and relationships as she carries out her quest.
From the friends of Lia's youth--her best friend, Maddie, her tragic kinship with Doug, the tangled love triangle between her, Doug's cousin, Chad, and her pal, Wilson--to her later-day bond with her mentor, Jade, and therapist Ruth, Lia discovers the necessity of friendship and forgiveness in order to reach a life-affirming resolution.
A story about the choices made in the wake of travail and tragedy, it explores relationships with all their messy and marvelous moments and magnifies the beauty, wonder and endurance of first love.
Fiction Dreams: I asked Jennifer what inspired her to write Flawless, as well as what the idea was behind the gorgeous cover. Here's what she said...
I often hear fiction writers brag about being frauds. I'm sure you've read the interviews highlighting writers who love to write fiction because it gives them a chance to playact. That may work for some writers but not for me. To me, writing is about getting to the essence of what I find to be true and then expressing it. What inspired FLAWLESS was an observation that I (and I suppose every high-school girl) made when glancing around the school hallways: perceived perfection amid a sea of flawed teen faces. I mean, who among us hasn't gazed at the girl with the perfectly proportioned features and not-a-hair-out-of-place kind of perfection without wondering--even fleetingly-- what it would be like to live her life?
That thought got me pondering. I figured a girl like that, with nary a pound to lose nor a pimple marring her porcelain complexion, must surely be immune to the troubles that plague us everyday folk. Yet I know problems arrive on everyone's doorstep in one form or another and good looks can't ward them off. So then I started to have some fun with the idea. What if I dumped a world of woes onto this seemingly FLAWLESS person? How would she react? How much could she take and still survive? What would it take to move her forward and into the arena of "happy?" The result is my novel, FLAWLESS, about a young woman who appears to have it all but actually has so little that her queen bitch attitude at first is actually off-putting but (I hope) oddly intriguing. As the story progresses, so does main character, Lia Copeland. This is where I attempt to get to the truth of relationships: family ties, friendships and, of course, romantic connections. How they all work for and against us. And how these interactions help us learn things about ourselves in order to grow into the kinds of adults others can admire (or at least tolerate--ha, ha).
The cover of my book was in my mind from the moment I started writing and never wavered during the two-year process of getting the story written, edited, etc. The closeup is actually my daughter who was blessed with the most gorgeous eyes the color of a blue summer sky. The connection is important to the book's message because we can all gaze up into a cloudless sky and feel as though we can see everything with no clouds obscuring our view. Yet in reality what do we see? Fathomless blue. Beautiful but not revealing. That's also why I only revealed one eye and I turned her face so it's off-kilter. It's not a perfect likeness of her or a perfect picture, which makes a mockery, of sorts, of the book's title. I like to think it works.
Anyway, I hope this is helpful and inspires people to want to read FLAWLESS. I wrote the book for myself. As a writer (I have been on the staffs of both Redbook and Woman's World magazines as well as having a freelance career when my kids were little), I find it easiest to connect ideas and people through words and I can't speak nearly as coherently as I write (though my husband will tell you that never stops me from yacking, lol). It was only at the urging of friends that I decided to publish and I'm thrilled that I did it. I'm loving meeting bloggers and writers in the Indie writing community and now I only read Indie books. I find myself drawn to them and the awesome people involved in this field. Please contact me if you have questions or you'd just like to stay in touch!
Jennifer Sadera is happiest when she's writing, reading, garden-designing or spending time with family and friends. Flawless is her debut novel.
twitter.com/jennifersadera
twitter.com/jennifersadera
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Nice guest post. Thanks for participating :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing my book and my thoughts, Suzy; you are the best!
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