As autumn sets in, love story and sentimental fiction readers anticipate annual releases by mainstream giants Nicholas Sparks and Richard Paul Evans. Still on the shelves from summer stock is Nora Roberts latest bestseller. All good choices to supply an entertaining read.
But if you want to read a story that’ll leave you dreaming about it all night, I’ve got something better.
Indie Lit writer Nelson Pahl’s Bee Balms & Burgundy is easily the best love story I’ve read in the new millennium. How good is it? Bee Balms & Burgundy beat out both Roberts and Evans for the first annual Bronte Prize, which—as romantic/sentimental fiction’s biggest award—honors North America’s best love story each year with a $12,500 prize. (A prize larger than the Pulitzer!!)
Bee Balms & Burgundy is the story of Mia Lawson, a 30-year-old post-mastectomy breast cancer survivor, and Nick May, a 32-year-old entrepreneur now living in Vancouver. Born and raised as next-door neighbors in St. Paul, they’ve known each other for what seems like forever, although they haven’t seen each other in almost two years.
When “Nicky” returns to visit his widowed mother for a weekend in early-August, he finds Mia again living at her parents house, in the wake of her chemotherapy and radiation treatments five months earlier. Until Nicky’s visit, she’s kept her breast cancer a secret from him. When she finally tells him, he’s floored, to say the least. She also harbors another secret: her lifelong love for Nicky. Needless to say, he’s once again floored. What follows is endearing, charming, sexy, and heartbreaking all at once.
We’re taken through Mia’s inner tug-of-war between her passion and affection for Nicky and the unbridled insecurity that comes with a mastectomy. The questions that fill her mind are all-too real: What will Nicky’s reaction be to her confession? If he is interested, how does she find the courage to reveal her “defective” self during that first intimate encounter? And, if he is interested, after a lifetime of yearning for him, will she live long enough to savor the romance?
Pahl’s uncanny insight into the female psyche is not only unparalleled for a male writer today, but it’s also quite liberating. His style is supremely sexy without trying to be. This isn’t Mr. Nice Guy writing this story, and he doesn’t pretend to be; this is “indie lit’s most intriguing writer” penning it—a guy who is as much “bad boy” as Dudley Do-Right, and a man that seems to understand women intuitively and therefore respect them to the point of near-reverence.
Another inviting trait of Bee Balms & Burgundy is the ease of read. Pahl’s gift for word efficiency and active voice is second to none. His swift style engrossed me in the story immediately and propelled me through this enchanting 200-page novella in just over three hours—and left me with deeper emotional ties to the characters and story than I’ve felt for any full-length novel I’ve read!
You can find the Bronte Prize-winning Bee Balms & Burgundy HERE. Nelson even gives you a free chapter in PDF to evaluate his talent for yourself.
A word to the wise: Before you read this book, make sure you have a box of Kleenex handy. (And maybe a sensual outlet too! LOL.)
Until next time…
But if you want to read a story that’ll leave you dreaming about it all night, I’ve got something better.
Indie Lit writer Nelson Pahl’s Bee Balms & Burgundy is easily the best love story I’ve read in the new millennium. How good is it? Bee Balms & Burgundy beat out both Roberts and Evans for the first annual Bronte Prize, which—as romantic/sentimental fiction’s biggest award—honors North America’s best love story each year with a $12,500 prize. (A prize larger than the Pulitzer!!)
Bee Balms & Burgundy is the story of Mia Lawson, a 30-year-old post-mastectomy breast cancer survivor, and Nick May, a 32-year-old entrepreneur now living in Vancouver. Born and raised as next-door neighbors in St. Paul, they’ve known each other for what seems like forever, although they haven’t seen each other in almost two years.
When “Nicky” returns to visit his widowed mother for a weekend in early-August, he finds Mia again living at her parents house, in the wake of her chemotherapy and radiation treatments five months earlier. Until Nicky’s visit, she’s kept her breast cancer a secret from him. When she finally tells him, he’s floored, to say the least. She also harbors another secret: her lifelong love for Nicky. Needless to say, he’s once again floored. What follows is endearing, charming, sexy, and heartbreaking all at once.
We’re taken through Mia’s inner tug-of-war between her passion and affection for Nicky and the unbridled insecurity that comes with a mastectomy. The questions that fill her mind are all-too real: What will Nicky’s reaction be to her confession? If he is interested, how does she find the courage to reveal her “defective” self during that first intimate encounter? And, if he is interested, after a lifetime of yearning for him, will she live long enough to savor the romance?
Pahl’s uncanny insight into the female psyche is not only unparalleled for a male writer today, but it’s also quite liberating. His style is supremely sexy without trying to be. This isn’t Mr. Nice Guy writing this story, and he doesn’t pretend to be; this is “indie lit’s most intriguing writer” penning it—a guy who is as much “bad boy” as Dudley Do-Right, and a man that seems to understand women intuitively and therefore respect them to the point of near-reverence.
Another inviting trait of Bee Balms & Burgundy is the ease of read. Pahl’s gift for word efficiency and active voice is second to none. His swift style engrossed me in the story immediately and propelled me through this enchanting 200-page novella in just over three hours—and left me with deeper emotional ties to the characters and story than I’ve felt for any full-length novel I’ve read!
You can find the Bronte Prize-winning Bee Balms & Burgundy HERE. Nelson even gives you a free chapter in PDF to evaluate his talent for yourself.
A word to the wise: Before you read this book, make sure you have a box of Kleenex handy. (And maybe a sensual outlet too! LOL.)
Until next time…
- Jazz
