THE SILVER BOAT BY LUANNE RICE: A GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
THE SILVER BOAT

BY LUANNE RICE

ABOUT THE BOOK:

From the beloved New York Times bestselling Luanne Rice comes a heartwarming yet heart-wrenching portrait of three far-flung sisters who come home to Martha's Vineyard one last time. Their mother's beach house is the only place any of them ever found true happiness and they need to begin the difficult process of letting go. Memories of their grandmother, mother, and their Irish father, who sailed away the year Dar turned twelve, rise up and expose the fine cracks in their family myth-especially when a cache of old letters reveals enough truth to send them back to their ancestral homeland.

Transplanted into the unfamiliar, each sister sees life, her heart, and her relationship to home in a new way. But how do they let go of a place that contains the complicated love of their imperfect family? Without the house, where will they be together?

The novel is a season on Martha's Vineyard; a mission to Ireland; a cast of friends, including one wildly off-the-grid Zen genius; passionate love in the surf; and three very different sisters with lives filled with beauty, sorrow, and deep love they'd never been quite sure they could trust. The Silver Boat is Luanne Rice at her very best, complete with her singular talent for capturing a family in all its flawed complexity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

With twenty-eight novels that have been translated into twenty-four languages, New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice has earned the devotion of readers throughout the world.

Described by critics as "a beautiful blend of love and humor, with a little bit of magic thrown in," and "a rare combination of realism and romance," Rice's books often center on love, family, nature and the sea. Her latest novel THE SILVER BOAT will be released April 5, 2011 and her monologue "My Almost Family" is part of the upcoming play IN MOTHER WORDS scheduled to open at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse on February 23, 2011 and New York's Primary Stages in fall of 2011.

INTERVIEW WITH LUANNE RICE:

You made your writing debut in 1985 with Angels All over Town. The Silver Boat is your twenty-ninth novel. How—if at all—has your writing process changed over time? Have the Internet and other technological advances affected your writing experience?

In many ways my process has changed very little. My novels always begin with a character. I wait for her to tell me who she is; often she inhabits my dreams. Once I know her name, I'm ready to start writing. Although I now work on a MacBookPro 15, I still like to write the earliest scenes on a yellow legal pad with a fountain pen. The Internet makes research go faster, but something is lost. It's too easy to search for information, take what I need, and move on. I prefer to do research from books, getting lost in the background and immersed in the realm of whatever I'm trying to learn.

The importance of family is a recurring theme in your novels. How did your own upbringing influence your decision to become a writer?

My family was loving but complicated. Our house was filled with secrets and bass notes. As a child I was a detective, listening at walls and going through drawers, looking for answers to what was wrong. My writing has been my lifelong solution to figuring things out, finding the love I know was there, learning everything I can about the way families work, ways of loving and trying to be happy.

This interview is taken from Penguin Publishing and you can read the rest of it HERE.

AN EXCERPT FROM SILVER BOAT:

Dar McCarthy sat on the granite step to her mother’s rambling, gray-shingled farmhouse, listening to surf break beyond the pond.  There had been a gale last night, driving in wild ocean waves, and through the salt pond’s wide bight she could see gray-green seawater tower and crash, the foam bright white in the first morning light.

Last night’s high wind had blown out all the clouds, and the dawn sky was turning what Delia used to call “happy blue.”  The sun hadn’t yet melted the frost, glimmering on the old stonewalls and spiky brown grass, the lilac branches and the stone Buddha in the herb garden.  Her mother’s ancient cats skulked home from a night of hiding under the barn, looking tufty and tiny and old.

“What did you catch?” she asked.  They ignored her as usual, rubbing at the screen door to be let in, leaving snags of gray fur in the wire mesh.  Dar obliged them, reaching up to twist the brass knob behind her head.  As the five cats ran in, Scup, her mother’s black Lab, ambled out.  He made a quick round of the yard, padding paw prints in the frost, then came to sit beside her on the step.  They leaned into each other. 

To finish reading this excerpt from THE SILVER BOAT, go HERE to Luanne Rice's website.

GIVEAWAY

I HAVE ONE BRAND NEW, HARD

BACK COPY OF THIS WONDERFUL
  LUANNE RICE BOOK TO GIVE AWAY!

    
--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY

--NO P. O. BOXES, PLEASE
--INCLUDE EMAIL ADDRESS IN COMMENT
--ALL ENTRIES/COMMENTS MUST BE
SEPARATE IN ORDER TO COUNT
AS MORE THAN ONE ENTRY

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT THE SILVER BOAT ABOVE THAT WOULD MAKE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS BOOK

 

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND LEAVE A LINK I CAN FOLLOW IN THE ENTRY

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON A FAVORITE SUMMER MEMORY THAT YOU MAY HAVE FROM WAY BACK IN YOUR LIFE OR MORE RECENTLY

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE CURRENT GIVEAWAY OF MINE THAT YOU HAVE ENTERED. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU CAN COMMENT ON EACH SEPARATELY FOR EXTRA ENTRIES. 

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, AUGUST 7

GOOD LUCK!