New book by Maylee MacDonald by "Bonds of Love & Blood"

CALABASAS, Calif. - Oct. 7, 2015 - PRLog -- If you’re feeling low and in need of some inspiration, or just want to read a feel-good story or two, pick up “Bonds of Love & Blood,” by award-winning author Marylee MacDonald.

“Bonds of Love & Blood” is a collection of short stories about ordinary people yearning for deeper connections with their loved ones; however, as with most people, the bonds that chain them together also chafe their wrists. To get to know her characters, MacDonald interviews them, posing a series of questions about the secret hopes and desires. They share their struggles, concerns, and feelings of being outcasts or in the wrong place at the wrong time. When they’re backed right up against the precipice, they must either jump or change.

One might come to the preconceived notion that MacDonald is a therapist, but that’s the furthest thing from the truth.

“First and foremost, I am a mother and a daughter, a wife and sister. I’m 70 as of September, and a grandmother many times over. Some of these stories originated with my own long and complicated life. Central to that life are issues having to do with loneliness and displacement,” she says.

Again, these are not simple tales but portrayals of real human weakness and hope, and the courage to continue on through life’s ups and downs. Her 12 stories take readers from Canada to Turkey to Prague and even inside a Baltimore jail.

In one story, “Pancho Villa’s Coin,” a teenaged girl and her scared, but strong, mother risk a late-night escape from an abusive father/husband. As readers we wonder when --or if -- they will succeed. Like the rest of the chapters in “Bonds of Love & Blood,” we are left rooting for these two characters, hoping they will persevere.

“Superbly written collection of short stories regarding the strength, love, and conflict of human relationships. MacDonald does something quite tricky in each of these stories and that is to blend a sense of clarity with uncertainty,” says Jason Lolus, Pacific Book Review.

In the short story, “Proud to be an American,” Billy, just 18, travels around the Midwest remodeling mall stores. A simple carpenter’s assistant, he is hungry, tired and hoping the current grind will lead to a better life. Tom, the carpenter who employs him, gives Billy all the grunt work and never lives up to his promises. It is not until Billy meets another young apprentice that Billy can see his way clear to a brighter future.

The story, “Finding Peter,” about a mother trying to find her runaway, adoptive son, hits close to home for MacDonald.

“Like the son in ‘Finding Peter,’ I was adopted,” she says. “Over the years, I have expended a lot of emotional capital trying to figure out where I belong. But, I am also the mother in that story, a mother yearning for a biological child and keeping hidden from him the devastating loss of her three miscarriages. Often, our deepest pain is the very thing we find hardest to speak about. We may only be dimly aware of it ourselves.”

A former teacher, MacDonald draws inspiration from such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, Henry James, Chekhov and Charlotte Bronte.

“When I find a writer whose work I admire, I want to read everything they’ve written. I want to see where they began and what kinds of discoveries they’ve made,” she says.

Lucky for readers, MacDonald successfully shares her own discoveries in “Bonds of Love & Blood.”(Summertime Publications Inc, athttp://www.SummertimePublications.com. (http://www.SummertimePublications.com)Available for pre-order soon.

About the Author

Marylee MacDonald is a former carpenter, prize-winning author, and writing coach. Stories in “Bonds of Love & Blood” have won the Barry Hannah Prize, the Ron Rash Award, the American Literary Review Fiction Award, the Jeanne Leiby Award, the Matt Clark Prize and other honors. Her novel, “Montpelier Tommorrow,”won the Gold Medal for Drama from Readers’ Favorite, and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award, the Faulkner-Wisdom Prize, the 2015 Next Generation Indie Awards, and the Bellwether Prize. She lives in Tempe, AZ. Learn more about her writing at http://maryleemacdonald.org.