Guest Post with Deb Caletti

Photo Credit: © Susan Doupé

Deb Caletti is an award-winning author and National Book Award finalist. Her many books for young adults include The Nature of Jade, Stay, The Last Forever, Essential Maps for the Lost, and Honey, Baby Sweetheart, winner of the Washington State Book award, the PNBA Best Book Award, and a finalist for the California Young Reader Medal and the PEN USA Award. Her books for adults include He’s Gone, The Secrets She Keeps, and her most recent release, What’s Become of Her.

Deb grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, and now lives with her family in Seattle.

        

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Bantam (May 14, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0345534352
ISBN-13: 978-0345534354

Praise for HE'S GONE

“A thought-provoking and moving exploration.” —New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister

Dear Nerds – thanks for sharing in a really big time for me, the publication of my tenth book, and my first novel for adults, He’s Gone. I couldn’t celebrate this release with a nicer group of people! Yay, Nerds!

BORN THIS WAY GUEST POST BY DEB CALETTI

I was likely born this way, as most of us probably are. “Us” - writers, the people who need to see and understand the world through the written word. I can remember very early on taking long car rides with my parents, sitting in the backseat, looking at the dry, yellow hills of California and having some vague longing to understand and describe how they made me feel.

Books only intensified this desire. From Ramona the Pest on, books were companions and most understanding ones at that. How did Beverly Cleary know exactly how I felt in Kindergarten? What magic did E.B. White possess to make me cry like that over a dead spider in Charlotte’s Web? What had allowed Roald Dahl to make me downright giddy with vicarious glee when those nasty kids got what was coming to them in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? (My God, all these years later, I still am sort of hoping to see the glittery corner of a golden ticket whenever I open a chocolate bar.)

I was encouraged in my early efforts at writing. My elementary school used to have writing contests that the entire student body was required to participate in. The winners had to read their stories in front of a school assembly. I won several times, and got a dose of the competitive thrill of success, coupled with the terror that came with it. My sister would tell me that she almost threw up with fear watching me head up that aisle to accept my blue ribbon and read my story, and I know that I, too, was shaking in my little shiny shoes. I was maybe six or seven. The thrill, the terror, it was pretty much what publishing would be like.

But I remember the day when I really knew I wanted to be a writer. I was maybe ten. I was in our living room, sitting in an avocado-colored green plaid rocker (my mother would tell you that avocado was THE color then), and I was thinking. And thinking. And a story began to form, and I don’t even remember what it was about entirely. Something along the lines of peace and brotherhood, two boys of different races who become friends, tra la la. (Okay, I hadn’t yet heard “Write what you know.”) What it was about - that part doesn’t even matter. What matters was the urgency. The need. This was beyond the hazy heart-pull in the back of the car looking at the yellow hills, and beyond the need to win a contest – this was NEED. I recall actually running to my room, the words tippling over in my head. I had to get them down on paper. I wrote in an all-at-once rush. It wasn’t about the fleeting fame of elementary school blue ribbons or even about Beverly Cleary or Roald Dahl. This was not about outcome. This was a soul-deep desire to express and convey and understand through words. And it has never left me.

From that point forward, I was always a writer. Years later, I had to get serious with myself about committing to the huge goal of publication. But that’s a separate story. More importantly, from then on, writing was not something I did or do. It was and is - and likely always will be - who I am.

“What do you think happened to your husband, Mrs. Keller?”

The Sunday morning starts like any other, aside from the slight hangover. Dani Keller wakes up on her Seattle houseboat, a headache building behind her eyes from the wine she drank at a party the night before. But on this particular Sunday morning, she’s surprised to see that her husband, Ian, is not home. As the hours pass, Dani fills her day with small things. But still, Ian does not return. Irritation shifts to worry, worry slides almost imperceptibly into panic. And then, like a relentless blackness, the terrible realization hits Dani: He’s gone.

As the police work methodically through all the logical explanations—he’s hurt, he’s run off, he’s been killed—Dani searches frantically for a clue as to whether Ian is in fact dead or alive. And, slowly, she unpacks their relationship, holding each moment up to the light: from its intense, adulterous beginning, to the grandeur of their new love, to the difficulties of forever. She examines all the sins she can—and cannot—remember. As the days pass, Dani will plumb the depths of her conscience, turning over and revealing the darkest of her secrets in order to discover the hard truth—about herself, her husband, and their lives together.

Waking up to a hangover on a Sunday morning on her Seattle houseboat, Dani Keller is alerted to discover her husband, Ian, is not home. Thinking he will return home later, she goes on about her day like any other Sunday. But when time has stacked up, Ian is still not home. Dani begins to worry and finally comes into terms that her husband is gone. Deb Caletti’s He’s Gone is the story of a wife’s desperate search for a husband that will lead her to learn the truth the hard way. She will need to dig deep into her own secrets to reveal the truth about their relationship.

Instead of getting answers on this dark trip that Dani has embarked on, it actually raised more questions. With her husband’s mysterious disappearance prolonging, Dani has all the time in the world to analyze her own life. All the possible reasons cross her mind as to why her husband is gone. When police fail to locate her husband, she’s suddenly under their scope as a possible suspect for his disappearance.

Deb’s writing is able to transport Dani’s dark downward spiral. It explores the intricacies of her mind and her marriage to her husband. The first person delivery gives readers a realistic view and in-depth details to her painful journey. There were so many questions as to why her husband went missing. Was there another woman involved? Was he killed? Did Dani kill him? Dani considered all of these questions as she desperately tries to piece things together.

The plot line is weaved intricately as we are given pieces about Dani and Ian’s past. Readers spend a lot of time in Dani’s head which made it a very interesting psychological thriller/mystery. An unexpected backstory is built with well-written flashbacks that seamlessly intertwine with the present. He’s Gone provides a real vision into the complexities of marriage and divorce and will have you second guessing the fallout.

You can purchase He's Gone at the following Retailers:

    

And now, The Giveaways.

Thank you DEB CALETTI for making this giveaway possible.

3 Winners will receive a Copy of He's Gone by Deb Caletti.

1 Winner will receive a Poster and Bookmark of a Surprise Art by James Vallesteros.

10 Winners will receive One bookmark of a Surprise Art by James Vallesteros.

WEEK ONE
MAY 17th FRIDAY JeanBookNerd REVIEW& INTERVIEW
MAY 18th SATURDAY A Soul Unsung REVIEW
MAY 18th SATURDAY Best Books EXCERPT
MAY 19th SUNDAY Must Read Faster REVIEW
MAY 19th SUNDAY Rose’s Book Corner FAVORITE THINGS
MAY 20th MONDAY Snuggling on the Sofa REVIEW
MAY 21st TUESDAY Tsk Tsk What to Read EXCERPT
MAY 22nd WEDNESDAY Beneath the Cover REVIEW
MAY 22nd THURSDAY Curling up with a Good Book INTERVIEW

WEEK TWO

MAY 24th FRIDAY Sabrina’s Paranormal Palace REVIEW

MAY 25th SATURDAY TTC Books and More TENS LIST

MAY 25th SATURDAY Intoxicated by Books REVIEW

MAY 26th SUNDAY As You Wish Reviews MUSIC PLAYLIST

MAY 27th MONDAY A Dream Within a Dream EXCERPT

MAY 28th TUESDAY Mom with a Kindle EXCERPT

MAY 29th WEDNESDAY Annie Brewer Writes REVIEW

MAY 30th THURSDAY Ya-Aholic REVIEW

MAY 31st FRIDAY James Vallesteros ARTWORK

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