LEESA CROSS-SMITH
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leesa Cross-Smith is a homemaker and writer from Kentucky. She is the author of HALF-BLOWN ROSE, THIS CLOSE TO OKAY, SO WE CAN GLOW, WHISKEY & RIBBONS, EVERY KISS A WAR, and the forthcoming GOODBYE EARL. HALF-BLOWN ROSE was the Amazon Editors’ Spotlight for June 2022 and the inaugural pick for Amazon’s Editorial Director Sarah Gelman’s Book Club Sarah Selects. THIS CLOSE TO OKAY was a Goodreads Choice 2021 Nominee for Best Fiction, a Book of the Month Book of the Year 2021 Nominee, a Book of the Month Early Release Pick for December 2020, the Good Housekeeping Book Club Pick for February 2021, and the Marie Claire Book Club Pick for March 2021. THIS CLOSE TO OKAY was also longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. SO WE CAN GLOW was listed as one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020 and was longlisted for the 2021 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. WHISKEY & RIBBONS won the 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) Gold Medal in Literary Fiction, was longlisted for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was one of O Magazine's 2018 Top Books of Summer. EVERY KISS A WAR was nominated for the PEN Open Book Award (2014) and was a finalist for both the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction (2012) and the Iowa Short Fiction Award (2012).
Website: www.leesacrosssmith.com
Amazon link: www.amazon.com/Half-Blown-Rose-Novel-Leesa-Cross-Smith
Leesa Cross-Smith is a homemaker and writer from Kentucky. She is the author of HALF-BLOWN ROSE, THIS CLOSE TO OKAY, SO WE CAN GLOW, WHISKEY & RIBBONS, EVERY KISS A WAR, and the forthcoming GOODBYE EARL. HALF-BLOWN ROSE was the Amazon Editors’ Spotlight for June 2022 and the inaugural pick for Amazon’s Editorial Director Sarah Gelman’s Book Club Sarah Selects. THIS CLOSE TO OKAY was a Goodreads Choice 2021 Nominee for Best Fiction, a Book of the Month Book of the Year 2021 Nominee, a Book of the Month Early Release Pick for December 2020, the Good Housekeeping Book Club Pick for February 2021, and the Marie Claire Book Club Pick for March 2021. THIS CLOSE TO OKAY was also longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. SO WE CAN GLOW was listed as one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020 and was longlisted for the 2021 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. WHISKEY & RIBBONS won the 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) Gold Medal in Literary Fiction, was longlisted for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was one of O Magazine's 2018 Top Books of Summer. EVERY KISS A WAR was nominated for the PEN Open Book Award (2014) and was a finalist for both the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction (2012) and the Iowa Short Fiction Award (2012).
Website: www.leesacrosssmith.com
Amazon link: www.amazon.com/Half-Blown-Rose-Novel-Leesa-Cross-Smith
BOOK BY LEESA CROSS-SMITH
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An irresistible story of a woman remaking her life after her husband’s betrayal leads to a year of travel, art, and passion in Paris, from the award-winning author of This Close to Okay.
Vincent, having grown up as the privileged daughter of artists, has a lovely life in many ways. At forty-four, she enjoys strolling the streets of Paris and teaching at the modern art museum; she has a vibrant group of friends; and she’s even caught the eye of a young, charismatic man named Loup. But Vincent is also in Paris to escape a painful betrayal: her husband, Cillian, has published a bestselling book divulging secrets about their marriage and his own past, hinting that when he was a teenager, he may have had a child with a young woman back in Dublin—before he moved to California and never returned. Now estranged from her husband, Vincent has agreed to see Cillian again at their son’s wedding the following summer, but Loup introduces new complications. Soon they begin an intense affair, and somewhere between dinners made together, cigarettes smoked in the moonlight, hazy evenings in nightclubs, and long, starry walks along the Seine, Vincent feels herself loosening and blossoming. In a journey that is both transportive and intimate, Half-Blown Rose traverses Paris, art, travel, liminal spaces, and the messy complexities of relationships and romance, with excerpts from Cillian’s novel, playlists, and journal entries woven throughout. As Cillian does all he can to win her back, Vincent must decide what she wants . . . and who she will be. |