NOVELS
Watch Book Trailer HERE
FALLING BACK TO EARTH
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Eve Spencer had always been grounded—her role as wife and mother, her role in the community, her role as Eve Spencer—all certain, firmly planted in her own mind. Until the day she remembers who she really is.
And it is not Eve Spencer.
Memories, like glass shards, shred through her mind, dismantling her world as the reality of her past threatens to rip apart her present: the memory of being lost as a child, then found, taken, and forced to play her role, a role she adopted as her own for over thirty years.
Eve’s name is Lilli—and she remembers. All the people in whom she trusts tell her she’s deluded, yet they all hide something about her, about Lilli, as she becomes more determined to reveal secrets that everyone seem privy to—except her.
Only Orvis Dunn, a jaded, curmudgeonly local attorney believes her, the only person willing to help her excavate her past. As Orvis investigates, Lilli struggles to dig deeper into her own mind—while simultaneously trying to hold onto it. The fissure in her once-grounded world is becoming a chasm: everything and everyone she cares about starts slipping through her fingers, her grip on reality threatening to collapse, as she seeks the truth.
Falling Back to Earth is both a mystery, and search for self; an examination of how we all see truth differently, and how beliefs may blind us. It’s a story of loss, grief, love, parenting, and madness; one woman’s trek through them all, and her ability to ultimately find solid ground and redemption, through forgiveness.
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Read an excerpt HERE.
GRIND: A Novel
GRIND: a Novel: "Top 5 Indie-pubbed literary novels of 2015," IndieReader.com
Six different people from different walks of life all come together in unimaginable ways when they each have a surprising connection to one woman.
She is Kopper Kandy, a nude dancer in a Portland strip club, Exxxotica, and she will ultimately change the lives of everyone with whom she comes in contact. Meanwhile Kopper Kandy is Allison, the single mother, the woman, who must find a way to integrate herself before she loses who she is forever.
As each person is drawn to the club, the reverberations through their relationships are felt in very different ways.
Sex, love, power, money and the ultimate mystery of men and women are explored in this provocative novel. Grind will keep the reader craving the next twist of fate before it all coalesces in one defining moment--a moment that will determine the rest of their lives.
Read an excerpt here.
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From Indie Reader
"GRIND puts the human heart on display, unflinchingly showing it at its most broken and its most beautiful." Read full review here.
From Amazon:
"I found myself reading and rereading this novel. I find the characters to be very real and their stories very compelling. The attention to detail is amazing. The author's descriptions of settings are so good that you can feel the underlying grit. I have a hard time verbalizing how impressed I am with this novel because I haven't found one like this in a very long time, one that holds your attention, bothers you on so many levels because it makes you care about the characters and what is happening in their lives. And at the end, when everything comes to a head, you find yourself disappointed that the story has come to an end because you have come to care deeply about the characters. This felt so very real."
THE RUB: A Novel
(*Nominated by the Utah Arts and Humanities Council for "Book of the Year" in 2012-13.)
Marin and Callie are 15, best friends, and inseparable. Two girls. One suicide pact. Only Callie survives.
Or is there another story to be revealed?
Four years later, Callie's mother, Marilyn, and Marin's father, Dan, begin an illicit affair, threatening to rip apart the tenuously threaded fabric of their lives. As Marilyn and Dan cling to each other in their grief and denial, their spouses, Cliff and Chelle, grasp at the fraying edges as their own culpability in the tragedy is revealed. As the two families hurdle toward an inevitable revelation from that night four years ago, no one will get out unscathed, and only when the truth is embraced will the survivors find redemption.
The Rub explores the depths of human tragedy: loss, grief, guilt and regret. It also explores the deepest parts of our dark sexual needs and desires, how they interconnect us, and ultimately, how they rip us apart. The Rub takes the reader down into the underworld of the human experience, and will continue to haunt long after the final words are read.
Read an excerpt here.
IndieReader:
"THE RUB is such an intense and sordid book, and yet it retains something so humane at its center – it's almost too humane, really, but after such bleakness, it's easy to understand why some optimism might not be a bad thing."
Read entire review here.
Aaron Ritchey, author, Long Live the Suicide King:
"It was so good to read something so meaty, disturbing, bleak, and substantial. I've been reading Vampire books and beach reads. This book was a breath of fresh air. Carter-Winward can write. She's the real deal. Heavy on the sex, but the sex wasn't superfluous-- it mirrored the pain, the depth of loss, the betrayal. It spoke to the substantial, integral parts of us that make us human.
"I feel honored to have experienced this book. It was striking. It was a true experience. It was, in my way of thinking, a literary event."
Raegan Butcher, author/poet, Rusty String Quartet and Stone Hotel:
"Proof that the author is not only a great poet but a novelist of uncommon skill. Delicately weaving through the themes of love, betrayal, sex, grief, and the more painful aspects of being alive, this is a book that will stay with you long after the final page. Highly recommended."
TDTM
“There are places that faces should never go.”
Meet Chelsea Sarkozy, a woman who has spent her life bouncing between anger and irritability, with large quantities of grumpy sarcasm sprinkled throughout. Chelsea has a chip on her shoulder and an axe to grind with the world. But can you blame her?
Her husband, Christopher, leaves her at the age of 40: penniless, homeless, and jobless (although that’s kind of on her). Adding insult to injury? The guy he left her for has smaller thighs than she does. And how did everyone else know he was gay?
But Chelsea’s world takes an abrupt turn to the bizarre when her estranged mother dies, leaving her a sizable inheritance, along with a kinky caveat: she must take over the “family business.” And what’s the family business? Sex.
Broke, alone, desperate, Chelsea begins the descent into a world she’d rather not touch without rubber gloves, bleach, and a HAZMAT suit. To complicate matters further, missing puzzle pieces from Chelsea's past begin to emerge—pieces that have haunted her since she was a child--things she feels would be better left in the dark. But someone's turned on a spotlight.
Enter Kat, a mysterious, enigmatic creature who rattles Chelsea’s sense of safety; a stalker, who is too close for comfort, and getting closer by the minute; and finally, Wanker: handsome, intelligent, sexually magnetic. A law professor, Wanker feels dangerous and alluring…which really pisses Chelsea off. She’s determined to repel him (despite her traitorous heart-rate when she’s with him, her disloyal, two-timing knees, which weaken and wobble, every time he’s in the room.) And to make matters even worse, he’s also the tenant living in an upstairs attic apartment she unwittingly “inherited,” along with her mother’s house.
As events unfold and the clock ticks, Chelsea is running out of time and options. Fearing for her survival and safety, she must trust people in whom she would have never trusted in her wildest dreams (although let’s face it, her “trust radar” hasn’t been so reliable in the past…cough, cough, gay husband, cough, cough). But the hardest person to trust of all is her mother—and even though Estella is gone, she’s paving the road Chelsea must traverse, whether she wants to or not.
TDTM is an irreverent romp of dark humor, mystery, self-discovery and, yes, sex. A coming-of-age tale (it’s about time) of a woman whose anger has helped her survive, but discovers she can do better than “survive:” she can... actually kick some real, serious ass. (You thought it was going to say, “she can thrive,” didn’t you? Admit it. Yes, you did. You totally wanted it to go there, be a cliché. Shame on you.)
Hey, you want that kind of book? Then this one isn’t for you. Because TDTM will leave you guessing with every twist and plot kink, and guaranteed, nothing is—or will be—tied in a neat, pretty bow. (You thought after, “or will be,” it was going to say, “as it seems,” didn’t you? Tsk, tsk. Haven’t you learned anything yet?)
Read an excerpt from TDTM here.
Reader reviews:
New Blog Review of TDTM, on The Gnome Appreciation Society--Jason, United Kingdom
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"As the book says; Chelsea doesn’t like sex, or people, or goo. But whether she likes it or not, her responsibilities are clear and she takes it all, including the goo, head on. With a delightfully sarcastic undertone, TDTM kept me entranced and excited about each coming page. After all, who doesn’t need a little goo once in a while?" --Emily, Salt Lake City, UT
"TDTM had me laughing out loud at how WRONG it is. So dark, so scathing, but sooooo funny. The main character is as grumpy as they come, and as I watched her eyes--and heart--open, the book changed, and then changed again, taking me on this crazy rollercoaster of laughter and emotion I just didn't see coming. It even has elements of a sinister mystery to it. TDTM is an awesome ride."--"Hipster Queen," Mesa, AZ
"Dear Ms. Carter-Winward,
I don’t know how you feel about fan mail to your personal email this is most definitely in that category. Sorry if you don't like it. I am kind of excited that I actually get to tell an author just how much I love their book and know that they will see it. I just finished TDTM. I took a sort of personal day from mommyhood to binge on the whole thing today. It is going on the favorite shelf and I do not say that lightly. From the get go I had to know what happened next. I found myself literally laughing out loud and then crying and then laughing again. I wanted to slow down toward the end to try and extend the story when I could feel myself running out of pages. I am still amazed at how beautifully you put the ending together and in so few pages. I was drawn to a particular character, getting to know her just enough but never spoiling the mystery that surrounded her. Such talented writing, not that you need me to tell you that, or my stamp of approval, nothing you haven’t heard before. I was just really excited to tell you how much I loved it." --Annie, Springville, UT