Molly Harper by Emelle Gamble - Virtual Tour and Giveaway



This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Emelle will be awarding a $50 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter, and three other commenters will receive digital copies of Molly Harper. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

A Day with Emelle Gamble
My Most Memorable Day….August 14, 1982


This is the day I became a mother for the first time. My beautiful girl was born in a hospital in Southern California. The sun was shining, the hills were glorious, my husband was smiling like he was about to collect his winnings from the Lotto.

After a ten hour induced labor (that’s it for the gory details, except let me say this to all the Lamaze teachers in the world who say, “It’s not pain, it’s discomfort”… “You Lie” – HA!) Olivia Rose was laid on my stomach. She was perfect and pink and wrinkly, shiny and thoughtful from her first breath. Her eyes met mine and I fell completely in love. Forever. And my very first coherent thought was, “It wouldn’t matter at all if she was adopted…”

Now I am sure you are thinking, wait, what? A woman goes through nine months of pregnancy, complete with swollen ankles, nausea and an inability to wait more than one hour to visit the lady’s loo…and then spends ten hours in labor while her husband holds her hand and eats the lunch the nice hospital lady delivered (not bitter much, am I?)…and her first thought was that if that sweet little bundle was adopted, she wouldn’t feel any less love?

Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

My mom, Lorraine, married a wonderful man, Richard, when I was six. He legally adopted me and they went on to have two children together. We were a solid, happy family, complete with summer trips and giggly Christmas eves and support every day of our lives from two parents who brought us up with optimism and love. We weren’t perfect, in fact, we had some very dysfunctional attributes related to my adoption, but we were good with a capital G.

However, despite this Leave It To Beaver kind of family life, I felt (for the most part subconsciously), that because I was not my Dad’s ‘natural’ child, that I might be loved in a different or lesser way than he loved his other two children. I thought that for a long, long time. Until August 14, 1982.

But in that second that I reached out and touched my daughter, and the doctor said, “it’s a healthy baby girl” and Phil-the-fist and I were given this child to cherish for the rest of our lives, I understood parenthood, and family, and love like I never had before. And I knew my Dad had never loved me less, and that the children one adopts grow in your heart the same way the ones you birth do, because they are yours from that first moment.

That day was the beginning of the novel MOLLY HARPER. I didn’t conceive of or plan on writing that book until about twenty-five years after that day my daughter was born. But that’s writers for you. One day something happens, a seed is planted in our minds and then a story begins to grow. We weave real life, personal issues, ‘what if’ and our view of the world into a story that is uniquely ours, but one we hope will touch readers who feel the truth in it.

I hope you get a chance to meet the mothers and daughter and sons and lovers in MOLLY HARPER, and that your life is enriched a little by my most memorable day. While adoption is not the biggest theme in this book, it is an important one underlying many of the character’s lives, and I’d love to hear from any reader what they thoughts are on how I handled it.

Movie star Molly Harper has it all, beauty, success in her field, and a loving family and marriage to actor Ben Delmonico. Norma Wintz, Molly’s mother, has it all, a lovely life style and two children who adore her, and a respite from the battle against cancer she’s been fighting. Anne Sullivan, at age fifty, is optimistic that her move to sunny Santa Barbara, California, will allow her to be closer to her youngest son and his family, and help her start her life anew after the death of her beloved husband.

But all three of these women, despite their considerable blessings, are plunged into turmoil when the most intimate of secrets that ties their lives together is revealed. At this same time, Molly Harper is confronted with the news that her marriage to actor Ben Delmonico is over. As she navigates this heartbreak and tries to keep the personal details of the drama off the front pages of the newspapers, Molly must also find a way to once and forever negotiate a way forward with her ex- lover and best friend, the volatile and compelling Cruz Morales.

How each of these characters handles the resulting upheaval in their own life, and in their relationships with one another, forms the compelling story of family, secrets and trust in the romantic women’s fiction novel, Molly Harper.

About the Author:
Emelle Gamble was a writer at an early age, bursting with the requisite childhood stories of introspection. These evolved into bad teen poetry and worse short stories. She took her first stab at full length fiction in an adult education writing class when her kids were in bed. As M.L. Gamble, she published several romantic suspense novels with Harlequin. She has contracted with Soul Mate Publishing for Secret Sister, published in the summer of 2013, and Dating Cary Grant, a March 2014 release.

Once and Forever, an anthology which includes the novella Duets, came out on November 1st. Molly Harper, a full length novel starring the characters from Duets 3 years later was released by Posh Publishing in January.

Emelle lives in suburban Washington D.C. with her husband, ‘Phil-the-fist’, her hero of thirty years, and two orange cats, Lucy and Bella. These girls, like all good villains, have their reasons for misbehaving. Her daughter, Olivia, and son, Allen, are happily launched on their own and contributing great things to society, their mother’s fondest wish.

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Comments

  1. Judy Thomas, thank you so much for hosting this post. It was an important one for me, and I hope your readers enjoy learning a little more about the inspiration behind MOLLY HARPER.

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  2. This sounds like a great book I'd love to read/win it

    debbiec1313@yahoo.com

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  3. What a beautiful guest post! I concur absolutely: I have 2 foster sons who I love and adore as much as the two to whom I gave birth. The ironic thing with our family 'dysfunction' is that my two fosters are much more respectful and appreciative of my parenting than my natural born brats! Thanks for sharing.

    ilookfamous(a)yahoo(dot)com

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  4. Such a seriously cute post! Thanks for letting us into your life for just a minute! Really inspiring :)

    andralynn7 AT gmail DOT com

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  5. A beautiful and touching post.

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  6. Great post, I enjoyed it very much.

    Kit3247(at)aol(dot)com

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  7. What a wonderful post from you. I really loved reading it. This story has to be good.

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  8. Anonymous2:47 PM

    Such a sweet post!

    vitajex(at)Aol(Dot)com

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  9. Elise-Maria, thanks for understanding this from your personal experience point of view. And thank you too, Andra Lyn and Debbie. MomJane, it's nice to see you here too! and thanks to all the rest of you for coming by and getting to know me a little. Lavinia Kent, thank you for your support and love, as always.

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  10. Great post. Loved it. Thanks for sharing with all of us!! grandmatinaof2(at)gmail(dot)com

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  11. Teena and Patrick, you're welcome. It was good to share that bit of personal life with you all...I hope you get a chance to read Molly Harper...if you do, be sure and leave a review so I know what you thought! Good luck in the drawing.

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  12. You almost had me in tears with your heart felt post.

    marypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com

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  13. Ah, Mary Preston, thank you for being touched. Me too when I was writing the darn thing! But that just goes to show...when writer's reach down deep, readers feel it. Thanks for your post and good luck in the drawing. XXX Emelle

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  14. That's a heartwarming story, Emelle! I'm looking forward to reading the book.

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  15. What a wonderful post today. And childbirth is a pain that we quickly forget as soon as that precious little baby is placed in our arms!

    kareninnc at gmail dot com

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  16. Thanks for this great giveaway!!

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  17. What a great post Emelle! Thank you for sharing a part of your story with us! <3

    Brandi
    BLeigh1130 at yahoo dot com

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