Winner: Eric Hoffer Award for publishing excellence and the Indie Excellence Award for notable new fiction! 5 Star Clarion ForeWord Review!
Publisher: Musa (November 16, 2012)
Category: Contemporary Fiction/ Women’s Fiction/ Southern Fiction
Tour Date: April/May, 2014
Available in: Print & ebook, 347 Pages
Life for Grace Place is all about sucking on “meat jerkys” and Lenny Bean, her handsome lover. Grace’s mother has loftier plans for her daughter. She insists that Grace save her money and move to New York City so she can find fame and fortune as an actress.
Grace works as a cleaning lady for wealthy Betty Ann Houseman so she can pool her pennies for the trip north. Betty Ann has a passion for men more pronounced than her overbite, and it isn’t long before she’s parting the sheets for Lenny Bean. But just before Grace leaves Hixson for New York City, she uncovers an insidious plot: the Bean family is trying to steal Betty Ann’s estate.
Grace flees to New York, where she faces her darkest hours. In a world of surprises, Grace truly discovers paradise.
Praise for Dancing Backward in Paradise:
“Dancing Backward in Paradise by Vera Jane Cook is a charming rags-to-riches story with a heartwarming ending, memorable characters, and a riveting plot that will make the reader forget the outside world. The characters in this story are rich and deep. At first, the reader might roll her eyes at Grace’s naïveté and childish reactions as she falls for Lenny, a sexy but lazy “cowboy with sideburns.” Yet as Grace experiences the outside world in sophisticated New York, a place “so miraculous and exciting, so painfully alienating that you just might find yourself amongst the confusion,” the reader will appreciate Grace’s ability to stretch and change. Minor characters have layers, too.
The author’s craftsmanship is stunning and poetic. Cook draws on her own southern heritage to create masterful metaphors like “The car smelled like a Budweiser plant had exploded under the hood and those fools were the happy fish floating in the foam,” or “I was melting faster than ice cubes in Mama’s bourbon.” In the hands of an amateur, such comparisons would only equate one thing to another; Cook layers her metaphors to establish setting and deepen character development.
Anyone who enjoys Southern stories, coming-of-age adventures, murder thrillers, or a satisfying romantic tale should read Dancing Backward in Paradise.”-Emily Asad, Foreword Reviews
“Dancing Backward in Paradise is the debut novel of award-winning theater actress Vera Jane Cook, about one young women’s quest to find herself in “Paradise” – New York City in the 1960s, a place beset by hippies, ambition, and the turbulence of the civil rights era. At first, nineteen-year-old trailer park resident Grace Place enjoys amorous trysts with her lover, Lenny Bean, more than anything else; but urged by her mother to seek fame and fortune in New York City, she works as a cleaning lady for the wealthy Betty Ann Houseman. When her lover betrays her and seeks to steal Betty Ann’s estate, Grace is shocked, yet remains intent upon fulfilling her mother’s wish and seeing New York City with her best friend, Ginny Jo. Together they will discover unforgettable surprises in this Eric Hoffer Award-winning novel. Highly recommended.”-Midwest Book Review
“The author introduces a parade of personalities that you will recognize–people that you will want to know and that you will miss. The life and richness she gives to the people of Paradise will take you in like a welcomed stranger. You will love knowing Grace, her family and her friends, both in Hixson and in New York.
Life has its tragedies, humor and mysteries, and this story has all of that. Some really good novels slip through the cracks, don’t let this be one of them. Armchair Interviews says: Dancing Backward in Paradise is a story you do not want to miss.”-Armchair Interviews
“From the minute I purchased this book I was dying to read it. All I have to say now is MORE please from Ms. Cook. I don’t even no where to start except that this cast of characters, the places, the nostalgia, Ms. Cook’s writing style and humor is like the perfect book for me. All I need now is a wrap around porch, some iced tea and a warm breezy day! This is the book you don’t want to put down or ever end. I am looking forward to her next series of books! Please hurry!”- Carla Bamonte, Amazon Reviewer
“I absolutely cannot recall when I read a book that I enjoyed (loved) as much as I did “Dancing Backward in Paradise,” written by Vera Jane Cook. Starting with that wonderfully apt title, I became so totally involved in this story that takes place in a tailor park called “Paradise,” l was so totally fascinated with the characters who lived in the town of “Holy Horrible Hixon,” that I couldn’t tear myself away from that crazy, mysterious, wonderful trailer park world.
My favorite characters were Miss Grace Place ( Every single time I read that name, I just giggled, wondering how the author ever came up with it.), Mama Place, and Betty Ann Houseman. Poor dear! There was such warmth and love (and a bit of lust) in all three of those characters, and Vera Jane Cook portrayed them perfectly. Then there was also Mrs. Bean talking in verse all the time. What a stroke of genius Cook’s part. Oh, and I also loved Miss Dorothea.
One of the very best things about Vera Jane Cook’s writing is how she magically turn words into touch — into feelings. For example, talking about a little boy, Chelsie, “I felt him wrap himself around me like gift paper on a birthday box.” And about one of the several villains in the book, “He got meaner than a bumble bee shooed off a flower.” And, “She curled up there every day just as happy as a fly on buttered toast.” “I felt as high and as spry as a bumblebee let loose on a sunflower…..as effervescent as champagne on New Years.” And so many, many other wonderful similes.
This book is filled with delightful characters, charm, warmth, love and last, but certainly not least, wonderful humor.
In closing, I will just say that I ADORED the book, and look forward to reading many books from a superb writer.”- Arlene Uslander, Author
“Grace Place tells us her tale with a beguiling and often insightful sincerity. The characters are just a little south of normal, and this facilitates a wonderfully original story and storytelling. The pace is sedate, the plot winds and weaves in all the right places. This is a book that draws you in; it’s bold and blunt and makes no apologies for being so. It’s a southern fried fairy tale. Loved it.”-Ralph Hartman, Author
About Vera Jane Cook:
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
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