New Fiction Novel For Review: Twelve Months by Steven Manchester

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Steven Manchester will be touring August 13 – October 11,2012 with his fiction novel, Twelve Months.

Don DiMarco has a very good life – a family  he loves, a comfortable lifestyle, passions and interests that keep him amused. He also thought he had time, but that turned out not to be the case. Faced with news that might have immediately felled most, Don now wonders if he has time enough. Time enough to show his wife the romance he didn’t always lavish on her. Time enough to live out his most ambitious fantasies. Time enough to close the circle on some of his most aching unresolved relationships. Summoning an inner strength he barely realized he possessed, Don sets off to prove that twelve months is time enough to live a life in full.

A glorious celebration of each and every moment that we’re given here on Earth, as well as the eternal bonds that we all share, Twelve Months is a stirring testament to the power of the human spirit.

326 pages

You can visit Steven at www.stevenmanchester.com.

Book Excerpt:

A few short weeks later, the wedding ceremony was held outdoors in the presence of family and a handful of close friends. As the Justice of the Peace recited his spiel, I gazed into my fiancée’s eyes and felt like crying. We shared so much love, but had so little time left. She was everything to me. “If I could live a thousand lives,” I told her, “I would choose you as my partner each and every time.”
As a final surprise to my beautiful bride, the reception was catered by Sagres Restaurant. We dined on the same Portuguese food we’d eaten all those years ago; roast pig cacoila, chourico and pepper sandwiches, codfish, baked beans, favas, kale soup, stuffed quahogs, grilled sardines and spit-fire chickens. For dessert, a tray of malasadas, rice pudding and custard cups were washed down with jugs of sweet red wine.
Though there were no large tents, or strings of bare bulbs zigzagging across a wet glistening street, Gary made magic on an acoustic guitar and we danced to Keith Whitley’s classic, When You Say Nothing At All. At one point, Riley, Michael, Madison and Pudge joined us to create a circle of love on the dance floor. We had the night of our lives.
~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
As our guests finally dispersed, we returned home with the moon. In the driveway, I pulled my new wife into my arms. “I know we haven’t talked about it, but what do you say we go some place tropical for our honeymoon…like Barbados?” I waited for an explosion of joy. Bella had talked about going to Barbados for years. It was her dream.
She squeezed me tight and shrugged. “I was thinking tropical, but someplace different.”
I was stunned. “Where?” I asked.
“I was thinking about the only place that ever came between us; the one place that you still need to make peace with, Don.”
A sudden wave of sorrow rolled over me. She was talking about Vietnam. The thought of it still caused me to lose my breath – and not the same way I did when Bella and I exchanged vows. “But…”
“Barbados is a sweet gesture,” she interrupted, “and I appreciate it, but I think it’s more important that we face some old demons and finally put them to rest… together.” She was right.
“Okay,” I agreed. “But I’m not sure ‘Nam’s gonna be the best honeymoon spot.”
She kissed my cheek. “As long as we’re together, who cares where we are?”
I kissed her back, and was instantly filled with equal amounts of excitement and fear – and nausea, caused by the cancer that was gnawing away at my insides.

* * * * *

If you would like to review Twelve Months, please email Tracee Gleichner at pumpupyourbookvp(at)aol.com. Steven is also available for interviews and guest posts.

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