Welcome, Molly Greene!

If you haven’t met Molly on Twitter at @mollygreene, she’s the savvy, social media go-to girl with the new contemporary fiction release, Mark of the Loon. Her debut continues to receive rave reviews on GoodReads and Amazon. Welcome, Molly!

No doubt about it, I’m a quirky person with a personality that’s a clash of opposites. A great friend who lives too far from civilization to be a good one. A lover of random thoughts with little time to entertain them. A smartass with no one to practice on but the dog. Someone who loves to laugh but rarely has the chance to make others snicker.

To a great extent, I’ve resolved my internal conundrums by crafting novels. I love to write about incredible friendships among intelligent, sharp-witted, smart-mouthed women. Like me, my characters are flawed and floored by life. They juggle too much and struggle along, until a light switches on and they experience their own aha moments. Ah, but the epiphanies are few and far between.

Writing a good novel is like living a good life. The secret to both is bound up in our ability to devise workable solutions. The better we get at problem solving, the more satisfying and successful our life – and our novels – become.

About Mark of the Loon:

What happens when a workaholic serial remodeler falls in love with an old stone cottage built by an ornithologist and his eccentric Irish wife? If you’re Madison Boone, you kick your budding romance with handsome Psych Professor Coleman Welles to the curb and lose yourself in a new project.

Madison renovates distressed homes in addition to her busy real estate sales career. When she hears about a quaint house on a private tract of land overlooking Lake Sonoma, she climbs in the window for a private tour and falls in love with the place. Good fortune enables her to purchase the Blackburne’s property, but far more than a new home and lush gardens await discovery during this renovation.

As Madison works on the remodel, she’s drawn into an old love story with dangerous consequences. She unearths buried secrets and discovers herself in the process. Good thing she has three wise, hilarious friends to advise her along the way! Mark of the Loon is the skillful combination of history, mystery, and romance in a novel that explores deep friendship, choices, and how individuals cope with loss.

Excerpt from Mark of the Loon, Chapter 16

The Home Depot lot was crowded for a weekday afternoon. Madison was forced to settle for a parking spot toward the back. She tucked a list into her pocket and hiked to the store, winding among the pickup trucks and do-it-yourselfer’s SUVs.

She made a beeline for the garden department and grabbed an orange cart from the queue, then leaned on the handle and idled her way among the fertilizers. She was searching for a bulb food. When should it be applied? She’d have to find someone to ask if the instructions didn’t say.

A bag of worm castings caught her eye. She dawdled over the ingredients, wondering how pure it was. What did the worm farmers feed their crawly charges, anyway? Someone behind her cleared their throat and she pushed the cart aside, assuming a busy shopper needed more room. She looked up when no one passed.

Her face pinked at the sight of Coleman Welles.

The professor was leaning lazily against his own tangerine-colored vehicle, which was filled with an assortment of low-slung glazed pots and potting soil. Bags of narcissus, hyacinth and crocus bulbs were heaped on the upper shelf. The kiddie seat, she always thought of it. He wore a teal cowboy shirt and well-worn jeans. Could the man do no wrong with his wardrobe? She yanked at the hem of her untucked blouse and hoped with sudden heat that she looked as good as he did.

“Fancy meeting you here,” they said in tandem, then grinned and immediately both repeated, “Bread and butter.” When Madison laughed, the sound rose deep from her diaphragm. She enjoyed the moment, and at the same time acknowledged that only her girlfriends normally inspired this kind of humor.

“You first,” Madison said.

“Hi, Madison.”

“Hello, Cole. What are you planning to do with all the goodies?”

“Ah. Well. Forcing bulbs for Christmas. Not a manly pastime, I’ll admit.”

She laughed again, loving the feeling of joy that bubbled up with the sound. “Playing hooky?”

“Campus is quiet, so I cancelled office hours this afternoon,” Cole replied. “I wanted to get this errand done. You look happy. That’s a good thing.”

“I was just thinking the same about you.”

“I try. So. Is it the house, or the prospect of laying down some fertilizer? Inspiring that grin on your face, I mean.”

“Both, I think.” Madison wondered why she couldn’t say she was happy to see him, too. That made three things to smile about. “You should see–” She hesitated. “Um, you will have to come up and see the garden someday.”

“I’m jealous enough as it is. But if that’s a real invitation, count me in. I can hold my envy in check.”

Madison knew a flicker of uncertainty flashed across her face and tried to hide it with another smile. She wondered why she couldn’t reply, at first imagining she did not want him to see the mess. Was that the real reason for her hesitation? Her lips trembled. Damn, girl. What is your problem?

He glanced away, then dropped his eyes to the bag she’d been reading. “That’s pricey stuff. You could just buy some red worms and put them in your compost pile. If you keep it damp and make sure they have plenty to eat, they’ll stick around and turn it into homemade castings. They like manure best, though. Any horses in your area?”

Madison managed to chuckle. “I don’t have a compost pile, and actually haven’t met many neighbors yet. I was just trying to figure out if I should feed the iris in the fall or wait until spring. I’ve never tended them before.”

“Best in the spring just before they bloom. They probably like bone meal, but a general purpose fertilizer will work. They’re hardy, though. They’ll get upset if you give them too much nitrogen.”

Cole reached for a bag just beyond the castings. He brushed against her as he moved to place the heavy sack in her cart, then paused with his face inches away. For a moment she thought he might kiss her, and closed her eyes, breathing deeply of his masculine smell. When she felt him draw back she trembled, knees weak, and found herself blinking and red-cheeked once again.

The look on his face was unreadable. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I forget myself.” He leaned in, this time to buss her forehead. “It was absolutely wonderful to see you. You have my number. Call me if you are so inclined.”

He turned his cart in the aisle and trundled away.

Molly Greene bio:

Although my day job since 1993 has been Marketing Manager for several high-profile national mortgage companies, I moonlight as a freelance writer, blogger, and author. Previous nonfiction works include the consumer booklet, For Sale By Owner, and the thoughtful self-awareness guide, Someone Worth Becoming. My fiction debut, Mark of the Loon, is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I’m at work on my next novel, Rapunzel, which features attorney-turned-detective Genevieve Delacourt, who appears prominently in Loon.

Links:

Mark of the Loon eBook links: AMAZON: http://amzn.to/LvIKt3  B&N: http://bit.ly/OYhExv

Visit my website/blog: www.molly-greene.com 

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/mollygreene

Join me on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5561802.Molly_Greene