Book Review: A Life Less Ordinary by Victoria Bernadine

This post is part of a Virtual Book Tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Victoria will be awarding a $25 (grand prize) gift card to either Amazon or Smashwords (winner's choice), as well as two runners-up prizes of $15 Amazon or Smashwords gift cards each to randomly drawn commenters. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour--remember, the more you comment, the better your chances!

For the last fifteen years, Rose “Manny” Mankowski has been a very good girl. Now, at the age of 45, she’s questioning her choices and feeling more and more disconnected from her own life. When she’s passed over for promotion and her much younger new boss implies Manny’s life will never change, something snaps. In the blink of an eye, she’s quit her job, sold her house, cashed in her pension, and she’s leaving town on a six month road trip.

After placing an ad for a travelling companion, she’s joined in her mid-life crisis by Zeke Powell, the cynical, satirical, most read – and most controversial – blogger for the e-zine, What Women Want. Zeke’s true goal is to expose Manny’s journey as a pitiful and desperate attempt to reclaim her lost youth – and increase his readership at the same time.

Now, armed with a bagful of destinations, a fistful of maps, and an out-spoken imaginary friend named Harvey, Manny’s on a quest to rediscover herself – and taking Zeke along for the ride.

This was certainly quite a ride! Manny, or Auntie Em as Zeke first thinks of her, is ready for a change--and change she does! From her MisFit Toys to winning at "Last Dancer Standing", Manny is finally finding herself. And, she's not the only one.

This book is more than just the story of one woman and her mid-life crisis... it's the story of family and friends as well as learning, loving, and living.

I enjoyed this book more than I have any book in recent history--there's not a single character I didn't like! I felt like I had gotten to know them and they became friends. I want to find out what happens to them now.

Kudos to Ms. Bernadine for a job well done!

About the Author:Victoria Bernadine (a pseudonym) is, as the saying goes, a “woman of a certain age”. After twenty-something years of writer’s block, she began writing again in 2008. She began with fanfiction about a (now-cancelled) TV show called Jericho and particularly about the characters of Heather Lisinski and Edward Beck. From there, she expanded into writing original fic and she hasn’t stopped since.

Victoria enjoys reading all genres and particularly loves writing romantic comedy and post-apocalyptic science fiction. What those two have in common is anybody’s guess.

She lives in Edmonton with her two cats (The Grunt and The Runt). A Life Less Ordinary is the first novel she felt was good enough to be released into the wild.

Victoria can be contacted through Love of Words Publishing Inc. (loveofwords@shaw.ca) or through her brand new blog at http://victoriabernadine.wordpress.com/.

A Life Less Ordinary is available for sale on Amazon in both Kindle and hard copy formats at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AMJBOSQ.