Showing posts with label Romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romance. Show all posts

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Welcome Mona Sedrak & Her New Release Gravity

Please welcome author Mona Sedrak. She’s going to tell us about her new novel, Gravity, a heartwarming romance.


Gravity is a heartwarming story of two individuals from remarkably different backgrounds who are inexplicably drawn to one another, forming a strong friendship and falling in love, despite the odds against them. The story depicts the beautiful Middle Eastern culture I was raised in and its many traditions as well as some of its challenges. Readers will identify with this story, no matter their background because it speaks to and awakens the human heart.

Gravity is about tolerance, acceptance, understanding, and forgiveness. Finally, it is a story of love and hope. When I started writing Gravity several years ago, I couldn’t have predicted how relevant it would be today. At the end of the day, I want readers to understand that although we may be different, as members of the human race, our similarities out-weigh our differences and love is the universal language that binds us. 

Gravity: A force pulling together people and hearts.

After being shunned by her Middle Eastern family, medical assistant Leila Solomon struggles to build a life for herself and her child. Landscape photographer Aiden Stone built a career seeing what others miss, and the second he meets Leila, he is drawn to her unassuming beauty and fragile strength.

Leila cannot defy the gravitational forces pulling her toward Aiden and to the family who cast her out. To build a future with Aiden, she must face the past but is she strong enough to resist being pulled back into the family fold?

Excerpt: Aiden

He smiled, took a step back, and met her gaze. "I'm a fairly easy going guy, but I have my quirks. One of them is my persistence. When I see something I desire, I go after it with relentless tunnel vision and focus. I chase the elusive. Often, others can't see what I do, or they're simply not brave enough to take risks, defy gravity, and uncover and unleash what's hidden. But do you know what I find each and every time I trust my gut, put in the time, and do the work?"
"What?" she whispered, entranced by his voice and his molten eyes.
"Heart stopping, raw, wild, and unimaginable beauty.” Aiden grinned. “I'm a landscape photographer. Photography is not only what I do. Photography is also who I am. Through the lens of my camera, I see what others think only exists in dreams and movies. I believe. I commit. If you decide to come inside, I'll show you what I'm talking about." He spun and strode the door.
Aiden said his piece and issued a challenge. Leila could walk away or cross the threshold and take a chance, praying this time her heart wasn’t trampled. She chewed on her lower lip. Even if she walked away, Aiden wouldn’t. The man would track her down.
Standing, Leila paced. She was out of her element––stuck between two worlds. Too Americanized, she didn’t fit into the Egyptian culture. Yet, she wasn’t American enough.



Mona Sedrak
The Wild Rose Press,  July 15, 2020
Women’s Fiction, Sweet Romance
287 pages

Buy Links

About the Author

Mona Sedrak lives in Cincinnati, Ohio and works as a university administrator and professor. Although she has co-published two academic books, she is now writing mainstream fiction and women's fiction. She is an avid reader and is probably Audible's best customer.
Writing and reading fiction is her escape from reality.
Mona lives with her husband of 30+ years, a geriatric maltipoo, and an Amazon Parrot named Pretzel. She binge watches too many shows to count and she loves fine brandy.

She’d love to have you contact her here:


Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Leap Year Blues

Welcome to the World’s First Leap Year Blog Hop (oh there are so many word play possibilities I can’t begin to count…). To the commenter who can name the origin of Sadie Hawkins Day I am giving away a pdf copy of your choice of my four romantic suspense novels. Please make sure you leave your email address in your comment so I can contact the lucky winner.  And now for the main attraction:


Leap Year Blues
There is a tradition in England that if a woman wears a red slip on Leap Year Day the man she proposes to will accept her, love and cherish her for the rest of her life. I’m not from the UK, but I am an anthropologist and therefore willing to play by Roman rules where it suits me.
You know where this is leading. Yes, Leap Year. And this little Wile E. Coyote light bulb  went off in my head.  Ooh, ooh. I’ll propose to him. He won’t be able to deny me—after all, it’s Leap year (this is known in psychiatric circles as Denial). But, how to do it? In the words of another equally successful romantic figure, the wicked witch of the west, “These things must be done delicately.”
So, I Googled. And discovered the above tradition about red slips.  I hauled myself to Victoria’s Secret. No dice. Red lingerie is sold only at Christmas and Valentine’s day. Today we have your black, your teal, your hot pink… No? Off to Nordstroms. “My dear, scarlet niceties? I don’t think so.”
And so it went.
Around about twilight on Leap Year Eve I sauntered…well crawled…into Sears.
I love Sears. After all, Sears gave me my very first credit card, with which I bought my very first TV (a little black and white number with snazzy push buttons and a real antenna). I renewed my vows when I found the one and only red slip in the entire Washington metropolitan area.   Lacy, carmine, slinky and it fit. Sold, to the desperate little lady in bunny slippers.
I wended my way back home and booted up the laptop. Since the love of my life only communicated via email (he did not insist on my actual presence at our R-rated exchanges—a clue perhaps?) I wrote him. “I have the requisite red slip.”
He wrote back, “Huh?”
Me: “Now it’s okay for me to propose.”
Him: “Huh?” (I said he was gorgeous, not quick).
Me: “So?”
Pause. “Wait a minute, are you proposing?”
I refrained from the non-articulate and possibly insulting “Duh,” and answered with simple clarity: “Yes.”
Wait for it.
A little longer.
Okay, one looooong minute.
“Aren’t you sweet.”
“…”
For a more cheerful romance, try my latest, Triptych, in which legend, history and romance intertwine in a triptych of suspense. Click on the cover to your left for more information.

Please visit the next great blog on our hop: Juliette Springs at www.darkersideofromance.com  for more Leap Year leaps of faith…