Featured New Book: Peace by Piece by Carol Fragale Brill

Whenever I finish editing something, I offer a day in the Featured New Book spotlight to my clients. And I love it when they take me up on it; it gets to show off how nicely they shine after I’m done with them.

Carol Brill is one of those cool folk. And here she is today to tell us about Peace by Piece, a book that’s achingly beautiful, and not just because I had a small hand in shaping it.

I am excited to visit Susan’s Author Interview and look forward to your comments and a chance to chat.

Susan’s question “What song makes me think of your book?” is simple—“Seeing you Again,” by Dan Fogelberg.

Peace by Piece is about love in all its many forms—unshakable first love, friendship, family, and the tender love between Maggie, a reserved woman, and Izzie, a motherless little girl. Although there’s no magic or thrill of romance with Izzie’s father, Maggie fools herself into believing loving Izzie and becoming her mother will be enough to finally lock her first love, Thomas, out of her heart.

Fast forward. Maggie has been married for eight years when she and Thomas see each other again at a teacher’s conference a handful of miles from the college town where her heart first came alive, and where it was irrevocably broken.

I’ll turn it over to Maggie for an excerpt from Peace by Piece to help you see why “Seeing You Again, is her song.”

The familiar titles jump out at me, Lonely in Love and A Love Like This and Seeing You Again. There’s no mystery to what Thomas is saying. I know the words to all of these songs by heart.

I close my eyes and rest my head on the steering wheel, full of memories of the Fogelberg concert Thomas took me to as a birthday surprise. My heart aches remembering that night and a love so tender it’s clear to me now nothing else can fill the void losing it left in my heart.

Memories of my first time with Thomas engulf me, how he surprised me on my birthday with tickets to the Dan Fogelberg concert, how after the drive back from Philly, we walked barefoot, hand-in-hand on the moonlit beach, snuggling in the moist sand beside the jetty, the way his thumb traced my bottom lip. Every place our bodies touched was on high volume, his hands on the sides of my face and neck, the muscles in his legs against mine, the boney part of his elbow pressed against my ribs. We seemed to fit together the way no two people ever fit together before.

After seeing Thomas again, can Maggie return to her secure but loveless marriage to Donald? Will she jeopardize her treasured life as Izzie’s mother, the child who has become her own?
What do you think? This time around, should she trust Thomas and follow her heart?

Having read the book, I can attest: this is THE perfect song for this book. Pick up a copy and see why.

Here’s the blurb, if you really need it. You don’t. You want to read this.

PEACE BY PIECE traces the push and pull of a young woman’s life from her coming of age in her college years and through her early thirties. Dealing with unshakable first love, family, relationships, and the difficulties of being a stepparent—all shadowed by the curse of anorexia/bulimia—PEACE BY PIECE is ultimately about complicated second chances and hope.

How about some links?
Carol Fragale Brill’s novel, Peace by Piece is available at:
Createspace
Amazon

Visit Carol at:
Blog/Website
Facebook
Goodreads author profile
the book at Goodreads
Other
Email