We've come to many forks in the road in our lives. Whether it was deciding between two job offers out of college and meeting your soulmate at the one you did choose(Liz!) or deciding to do a second internship that led to an illustrious career. (Lisa!) Or when we put our hesitations aside and launched Chick Lit is Not Dead. It's decisions like these that shape our lives. But what if we had decided differently? And if you had the chance to take a peek into what that other life looked like, would you?
We're ecstatic to have the fab Ellen Meister sharing her Do's and a Do-over on the site today. Her third book,The Other Life, is a thoughtful and engrossing novel that we weren't able to put down.
Happily married and pregnant, Quinn Braverman has an ominous secret. Every time she makes a major life decision, she knows an alternate reality exists in which she made the opposite choice—not only that, she knows how to cross over. But even in her darkest moments—like her mother's suicide—Quinn hasn't been tempted to slip through...until she receives devastating news about the baby she's carrying.
The grief lures her to peek across the portal, and before she knows it she's in the midst of the other life: the life in which she married another man and is childless. The life in which her mother is still very much alive.
Quinn is forced to make a heartbreaking choice. Will she stay with the family she loves and her severely disabled child or rediscover her exciting single life and reconnect with one person she thought she’d lost forever-her mother. But Quinn can’t have both lives. Soon, she must decide which she really wants—the one she has…or the other life?
We highly recommend The Other Life and have FIVE copies to give away to lucky readers! Just leave a comment and you'll be entered to win! Yep, it's that easy. We'll choose the winners after 6pm PST on Thursday, March 17th.
And we think you'll love her Do's and a Do-over. She provided photographic evidence!
CHICK LIT IS NOT DEAD PRESENTS: ELLEN MEISTER'S 5 DO'S AND A DO-OVER
DO'S
1. Listen to your mother, no matter how old you are. She's always right.
2. Leave the dirty dishes in the sink ... to get up and dance ... or make love ... or take a phone call from a friend. The dishes will still be there when you're done.
3. Say yes to the things that scare you. You will never regret facing your fears.
4. Spend more time with the people you enjoy and less time with the people you don't. Life's too short.
5. Say "I love you" the moment you think it.
DO-OVER
Despite that I wrote THE OTHER LIFE, a novel about a woman with the ultimate "Do-over" (my protagonist gets to slip through a portal to the life she would have had if she never got married and had a child), I try not to indulge in regrets. Indeed, I'm one of those people who believes that whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger.
Still, I've never been able look back with any fondness on a certain spiky, henna-drenched, 1980's mullet ...
I'm attaching a suitably ridiculous photo!
You were rocking that mullet, Ellen! xoxo, L&L
To read more about Ellen, head on over to her website or find her on Twitter and Facebook.