Publisher: Moonshine Cove Press (February 1, 2015)
Category: Contemporary Fiction / Women’s Fiction / Southern Fiction
Tour Date: February-March, 2015
Available in: Print & ebook, 285 Pages
With murder in common friendship is inevitable:
As fifteen year old Pleasant Day struggles with her mother’s distance, her father’s infidelity and the death of her best friend, she draws closer to Clarissa, an older woman with the secrets to heal her. But Clarissa has struggles of her own as she faces betrayal and seeks to come to terms with old wounds. With her unpredictable but psychic ability to ‘read people’ Clarissa uncovers the answers to a deadly crime and to Pleasant’s true identity. In the end, both Pleasant and Clarissa’s worlds are transformed by the truths they’re forced to accept.
Praise for ‘Pleasant Day’ By Vera Jane Cook:
“Absolutely unputdownable, a real page turner. Be prepared to clear your schedule for the day. You’re going to read this one straight through! This is Vera Jane Cook’s best one yet!” –Wall to Wall Books
“A beautiful blend of past and present with loveable, memorable characters and a page turning pace, I was sorry I couldn’t read it in one sitting.” –Jenn Doyle, Books & Life.
“A beautiful piece of southern fiction…a great page turner…this book is filled with delightful characters, charm, warmth, love and last but certainly not least, wonderful humor.”-Arlene Uslander, Editor and writer.
Excerpt
Chapter One Pleasant Day
I wanted to let loose with a good right hook to his grin. Son of a bitch was always treating me like I had nothing in my head but air, no way to reason or form thoughts. I had no purpose on this earth but to appease his need to be believed. Little bastard would never get as tall as the tales he told.
“Ain’t that something,” he said.
He stood there breathing hard, getting fat on bad news. Of course it wasn’t true, meant to scare me away from giving John Peter two minutes of my time. I raised my eyes to the sky and put my hands in the pockets of my jeans.
“You shocked?” he asked.
Now listen here, bull shit is not my middle name. I shoot straight from the hip, tell it like it is. But you throw bull shit my way it’s going back atcha, that you can be sure. I don’t’ take any crap from anyone and I don’t give it. So don’t go trying to sell me the frigging Gervais Street Bridge ’cause you can’t put a price on something that can’t be bought.
“You owe me five shiny quarters for that little bit of news.”
“Kiss my white, southern little ass, Angus.”
He stared at me like I was a detour he’d come up against, his free ride to money took a sharp left, right off the road. The little bastard was stumped, like a jeopardy question that froze him up. “Duh, what is a summer’s day? Can’t get much easier than that.”
He squinched up his nose, his leprechaun impression, I guess. He looked Irish as a shamrock, eyes the color of a glossy post card pea green sea and his jaw line was just begging to be grown into, waiting for him to get handsome, which one day he would be, I guess. But for now, he was irregular looking, like his poor features didn’t know where to go to get caught up with.
“I never understand what the hell you’re talking about,” he said.
He wasn’t too smart. “Shall I compare thee to…..” “What? I swear, Pleasant, you’re out of your mind.” “What is a summer’s day, asshole. It’s a Jeopardy question. It’s Shakespeare.”
He made some whishing sound in his throat and kicked the dirt, like he wished I was getting the benefit of the end of his shoe. I always made him angry, angry as my daddy gets when he looks at his paycheck and wonders where the zeros went.
“You hear what I’m saying, Pleasant? You’re nuts.” “Good thing to be, I hear.”
He made a whishing sound again. “Can you believe what I just told you? I wasn’t lying. Hell, I wish I was. What the hell reason would I have to be lying about a thing like that?”
“You want to play Jeopardy or not?”
”No. You listening to me?”
”I hear words falling like bricks from your mouth.
They have no meaning but they are awfully heavy, hard to bare.”
“Why do I bother telling you anything?”
“You don’t tell me shit, you are one big piece of crap and your mouth is filled with things that don’t mean nothing. Your mind is the same.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“You want me to believe that Mrs. Clottey found a dead body in her son’s box-spring? You really want me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth.”
“No truth on this goddamn planet ever made its way out of your mouth. If truth was hanging out of your nose you’d blow that goddamn truth bugger into a snot rag and toss it into a fire pit.”
“Fuck you, Pleasant.” And off he walked.
Damn Angus Ray would have me believe that Pluto is the planet with rings and Mars got nothing to do with the God of War. Oh no, the God of War is a freaking pansy and he took his name from those little hard candies look like hearts. According to Angus we got Cupid to thank for slaughtering the assassins of Caesar.
He must think I got nothing better to do on a July afternoon but swallow any line of bull he wants to feed me.
Truth is though, I don’t have much better to do on a July afternoon but join all the other aimless souls got nothing in their heads but some kind of fuzz. Damn if I understand what we’re doing on this earth. I mean, I can’t justify getting born. I didn’t ask for it, nobody did. Then all of a sudden you’re here, screaming at the top of your little lungs ’cause you know what you’re in for. Hard times is what you’re in for. I can’t even begin to tell you what bad news is lying on my path through life but I best be ready for it. I best be putting on my armor and I’d best be prepared to fend off all the bullshit coming my way head on.
People make up things to do before they go insane doing nothing. Now, ain’t that the truth? Most people I know don’t take the pleasure in reading that I do. That’s what keeps me from terminal aimlessness. I got my own July classroom up on Piper Hill with my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird in my knapsack and five dime store paperbacks stuffed under my arm.
About Vera Jane Cook:
Winner: Eric Hoffer Award for publishing
excellence and the Indie Excellence Award for
notable new fiction!
5 Star Clarion ForeWord Review!
Vera Jane Cook, writer of Award Winning Women’s Fiction, is the author of The Story of Sassy Sweetwater, Lies a River Deep, Where the Wildflowers Grow, Dancing Backward in Paradise and Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem.
Jane, as she is known to family and friends, was born in New York City and grew up amid the eccentricity of her southern and glamorous mother on the Upper West and Upper East Side of Manhattan.
An only child, Jane turned to reading novels at an early age and was deeply influenced by an eclectic group of authors. Some of her favorite authors today are Nelson DeMille, Calib Carr, Wally Lamb, Anne Rice, Sue Monk Kidd, Anita Shreve, Jodi Picoult, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Her favorite novels are too long to list but include The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Cheri and The Last of Cheri, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Wuthering Heights, Look at Me, Dogs of Babel, The Bluest Eye, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Body Surfing, Lolita, The Brothers Karamazov, She’s Come Undone, Tale of Two Cities, etc., etc., etc.,
Vera Jane Cook’s Website: http://www.verajanecook.com/
Vera Jane Cook on Twitter: https://twitter.com/verajanecook
Vera Jane Cook on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vera.j.cook
Buy ‘Pleasant Day’ by Vera Jane Cook:
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