By any other name...: DEATH BY ROSES by Vivian R Probst

Hi there!

Welcome back to Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.

So, did you have a great Thanksgiving?  Eat lots of turkey, chat up friends/family you've not seen in FOR-EV-ER, and brave the crowds for Brown Thursday deals?  Yeah, me too...still recovering (SO TIRED!), but I had to work today, so that's that.  Anywho, now that the holiday season is truly upon us, the more the merrier...with reading options that is!  That's right.  Just because the year is heading towards an end doesn't mean the awesome, must have, great read, and more titles stop.

In today's spotlight, a work of Fiction that came to my attention via Lifemark Press.  It's tinged with humor, both dark and light, glimpses of a curious hereafter, meddling from "angels" (who are almost anything but), and a way of passing that I'd wish on no one.  Ready or not dear friends, here comes today's book of choice...

Death by Roses

by

Vivian R. Probst

9781590791486

About the book...

When a man has brought his wife roses for the first time in thirty years, you’d think she would be happily surprised. You can’t imagine that she’d kick him out of the house… and then turn up dead on the toilet just hours later. But that’s what happened when Art McElroy brought his wife, Mae Rose, a dozen yellow roses.  A disappointing marriage, with a devastating ending.

Except, of course, that it doesn’t end. The whole “til death do us part” thing turns out to be hogwash. Mae Rose McElroy doesn’t really know her husband Art until she sees him from the other side (yes, that other side). She had looked at his face every day for thirty years, but never truly knew the man he was.  Now she longs to go back and have a second chance to choose her happy ending. Funny thing is, Art feels the same way.  He didn’t know his wife at all until she died.

Most people accept their fate when a spouse dies. But not Art and especially not his determined wife, Mae Rose. She breaks every divine rule to come back, but confusion reigns when she ends up in the body of dying horror movie director, Mary Lee Broadmoor, with nothing but the determination to make her life with Art right.

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A rose by any other name might still smell as sweet, but if you get the color wrong, you're asking for trouble...at least in the case of one, Mae Rose McElroy.

Mae Rose and her husband, Art, have been on the outs for some time.  It seems they've "lost that lovin' feeling", and so the smallest of transgressions can bring about World War III.  True, Art went astray some time before, but he admitted and should have been acquitted of that "crime" (since they decided to move on together and all).  True, he pretty much totaled her baby...the baby being a restored VW Bug, and brought barn cats home (apparently not as cute and cuddly as house cats) against her wishes, but the icing on the cake were the flowers...yellow roses.  YELLOW roses!  Anyone who's anyone knows Mae Rose loved WHITE roses...and so begins her journey down the path of way-too-stressed-to-seem-blessed into an afterlife that if she doesn't watch it, may just shun her too.

As fun and funny as some aspects of the story were, I just couldn't ever really connect with our leading ladies.  Yes, I said LADIES as in plural.  What starts with Mae Rose and family continues with the cantankerous "Scary Mary" and her for the most part estranged daughter, leading us on a swirling whirlwind of self-discovery, illumination, and unexpected big screen success with a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction situation, and yet, I just couldn't muster much sympathy or empathy for with circumstances these ladies found themselves in.  I will say this though...the ending, while not what I was expecting in the least, worked to reinforce the values learned along the way, and left things open enough for another potential adventure should someone not get their Viewing Pane taken away from them.  *ahem*

All in all, a curious story with humor and life lessons along the way.  It may not be for all, but it is definitely for some, and YOU might just be that audience-in-waiting it was seeking all along.  Recommended for older teens through adults.

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About the author...

(From author's gallery...)

Vivian Probst is an award-winning author and speaker whose message comes from an inner fire that compels her to search out the unique brilliance of every human being. She is an indefatigable researcher into matters of heart, mind, soul, women’s issues, science, language and the afterlife.  Vivian ‘suited up’ for this work with a deeply religious background and early training in culture and linguistics.

A former missionary, then displaced homemaker living in poverty, Probst rose to become a national consultant to the affordable housing industry.  She has captured the hearts of thousands with her unique gift of insight, humor, and her passion to bring out the best of who we really are through stories.

Since 2013, Probst has been a certified Practitioner of Akashic Records. She lives in Wisconsin and is happily married.

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Special thanks to Samantha at Lifemark Press for the copy for review.  (THANKS!) For more information on this title, or the author, feel free to click through the links provided above.  This title is available now, so be on the lookout for it on a bookstore shelf or virtual retailer of your choosing.

Until next time, remember...if it looks good, READ IT!