The Charm Bracelet: Book Review and Giveaway

Books. One of the best ways to cope with winter.

Yes, in typical Midwestern fashion, I'm getting through February with a combination of grim determination, Walking Dead binging, and lots and lots of reading. So much reading, in fact, that I'm running out of books, as well as the money required to buy said books.

Because of this literary poverty, I was pleasantly surprised to be contacted by the publicity team of Viola Shipman to review an advance copy of the author's debut novel, The Charm Bracelet. Viola Shipman is actually the pseudonym of one of my long-time favorite writers, Wade Rouse, who chose the name as well as the book's title as an homage to his late grandmothers, avid fans of charm bracelets. Rouse has authored several great non-fiction books, including It's All Relative and I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship, both of which of I reviewed here.

The Charm Bracelet arrived at my house last week, and the winter air seemed to lift as I opened the package and turned the pages of this warm novel, the multi-generational story of artsy Lauren, driven Arden, and their aging matriarch, the irrepressible Lolly.

As its title suggests, the book tells the tales of the characters' lives and ancestry via the charms of a bracelet. From the hot air balloon charm, ("to a life filled with adventure"), to the tiara charm ("to a life in which you get to feel like a queen, even for a day"), Rouse weaves the three interlocked stories wonderfully, dipping in and out of each woman's life with ease and grace.

The effortless pace of this novel impressed me the most. I found myself midway through *The Charm Bracelet before I realized it, filled with hope that Lauren would find her passion, Arden would find some peace, and Lolly would once again find her family.

I'm always in awe of non-fiction writers who cross over into fiction. It's difficult enough to compose stories from real life, but the writing is made easier simply because the events really happened, and the characters actually existed.

The fiction author's job, however, is to craft a believable story out of thin air, hundreds of pages of plot, setting and characters pulled from the far reaches of the imagination, or in this case, the charms of a bracelet.

Now, I write only non-fiction for specific reasons, and those are: A) I'm lazy; and B) the act of creating fiction -- an entire world from nothing -- seems impossible to me. But Rouse (a.k.a. Shipman) writes his first novel masterfully, with his finger on the pulse of three very different women who reconnect thanks to some links of chain, bits of metal and the tenacity of the buoyant, unforgettable Lolly.

Warm up your spring with this wonderful, utterly charming (see what I did there?) book, on sale March 22.

One reader will win a copy of The Charm Bracelet, courtesy of Thomas Dunne Books, a division of St. Martin's Press. Comment below to enter, then check back in the comments next weekend to see the lucky winner.
Winner: please contact me with your snail mail address at webs672002@gmail.com.