Blog Tour & #Giveaway: From Then to Now by Mitzi Mensch @PRBookPro @authorhouse @RRBookTours1 #RRBookTours #BlogTour

Welcome to the blog tour for From Then to Now by Mitzi Mensch! Read on for details and a chance to win a print copy of the book!

From Then to Now

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Publisher: Author House

From Then to Now is a novel within a novel. Maggie figures that, with events being so old, it is safe to tell all. Figuring wrong is her first mistake. Downloading the manuscript onto her grown daughter’s computer is her second mistake.
Andrea is dismayed to discover Maggie’s infidelity in her first marriage and shocked to learn of her grandmother’s cloistered pregnancy and forced adoption of her newborn daughter. She uses the Internet to find the people mentioned in her mother’s story, more to satisfy her own curiosity than to bring her mother peace.
From Then to Now spans six decades and addresses changes, both individual and societal, in attitude, perception, and awareness. These changes, triggered in part by outside world events, bring about personal understanding achieved only after loss is experienced and enlightenment has been attained.

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Excerpt

I must have gone too far on Waialae Avenue because all of a sudden

I was on a freeway and then the freeway turned into a winding road cut

through a sheer cliff. There was no place to turn around so I kept going

and watched in wonder at the water pounding the rocks below and the vast

expanse of blue ocean beyond. I was ten minutes late for my assignment.

This was the road — I recognized it — where they had filmed Blue Hawai`i,

with Elvis. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. So far all I’d seen was

Schofield, Waikiki, downtown. Now I was in Hawai`i. The assignment

no longer mattered. I stopped at a look-out point called the Blow Hole and

peered down at a rock with a hole in it where the water spouted up like a

whale. I watched, mesmerized, for time indeterminate, enthralled at the

energy of the ocean. I had to see more. Continuing on I drove past a beach

where body-boarders sailed through the surf and flew through the foam,

flipping just in time to escape the fury before the waves crashed straight

down on the sand with frightening ferocity. When I thought I’d seen all

the glory this island could possibly offer, I came to another place where

the road steepened precipitously and the view was more spectacular, if

imaginable, than before. I craned my neck to see what beauty lay beneath

the guard rails but the sharp curves forced me to focus on the wheel. I

turned the bend and there was Sea Life Park on the mountain, or mauka

side of the road as Glen had taught me to say, and on the ocean side, or

makai, was Makapu`u. I drove down, parked, took off my shoes, walked

to the beach. It was so beautiful. I sat on a rock to take in the majesty

and totally gave up on the assignment. I thought of Michener’s words in

the first chapter of Hawaii, the book I was reading, about the creation

of the islands. About the force deep below the sea which built and grew

until volcanic eruptions burst through the surface and left molten deposits

which cooled and became rocks. I thought about the birds, from far

away, flying over, dropping seeds, creating vegetation. I thought about

the marvel of how these islands were formed, then found, and inhabited,

and now here I was, a tiny, insignificant speck on the face of the earth,

sitting on a rock, at the edge of an island, in the middle of the sea, in the

most beautiful place in the world. As I felt the water lap at my feet and

the sun caress my skin I knew, without a doubt, I was the luckiest person

who ever lived.

When I finally got back to my car there was a cop, writing a ticket

Available on Amazon and at Author House

About the Author

Mitzi Mensch was born and raised in New England and attended college in Vermont. An island girl at heart, she moved to Hawai’i, where she has lived long enough to be a kama`aina.

Author House

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