Nov 17 2010
About The Author
SO TELL ME ABOUT THE AUTHOR ALREADY!
Lisette Brodey was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia. After high school, she moved to New York City where she attended Pace University and studied drama. After ten years in New York, several of them working in the radio industry, she moved to Los Angeles, where she held various positions at Paramount Studios in Hollywood and CBS Studio Center in Studio City, CA.
She returned to the east coast for several years, where she worked as a freelance writer, specializing in the entertainment industry. In May 2010, she relocated permanently back to Los Angeles.
Lisette’s third novel, MOLLY HACKER IS TOO PICKY!, was published in December 2011.
WHAT ELSE HAS SHE WRITTEN?
Well, gee, thanks for asking.
Lisette’s first-published book, CROOKED MOON, is a story of friendship and forgiveness. As children, Frankie Cavalese and Callie Mason were the very best of friends, growing up together behind opposite walls of a row home in a blue-collar neighborhood of Philadelphia called Rainytown.
The friendship they shared was special – the kind that storybook heroines had – and neither ever considered the possibility of it not lasting forever. But after high school, life interfered and circumstances separated them as they each went on to live in drastically different worlds. Twenty-three years later, one hot unsettled summer, their lives come crashing back together when Callie, who has led a life of privilege, returns to Rainytown and finds her old friend still living in her childhood home, unmarried, and caring for her angry dying mother, Ruby.
To complicate the fragile reunion, Callie’s marriage to her husband, Jackson, is suddenly at risk, further muddled by the affections of (and attraction to) Frankie’s brother Paulie. Tensions and passions explode in the sweltering heat, and amid pain and tragedy, each woman not only ends up with a life-altering secret regarding the other, but the burning question of what to do with it.
SQUALOR, NEW MEXICO is a coming-of-age story shrouded in family mystery. Darla McKendrick is nine when she first hears her mother and her aunt Didi secretly discussing their younger sister, Rebecca, speculating about her life in squalor. From the moment Darla asks to know more about her mysterious aunt, she is offered nothing but half-truths, distortions, and evasions. As Darla grows into her teen years, her life is oddly yet profoundly affected by this woman she has never known. She can’t help but notice that Rebecca seems to exist only in dark corners of conversations and that no one ever wants to talk about her-with Darla.
As the plot takes twists and turns, secrets are revealed not only to Darla but to the “secret keepers” as well. Darla learns that families are only as strong as the truths they hold and as weak as the secrets they keep.
To read the reviews, just search for each book on Amazon.com.
MYSTICAL HIGH (Book 1, The Desert Series – A YA paranormal trilogy) In Mystekal, a small, dying town in the Southern California desert, only 75 students attend the old, sometimes creepy high school dubbed “Mystical High,” where strange things have been known to happen. Jessie Dalworth and Jinxsy Patterson are juniors and lifelong best friends. At home, Jessie deals with the pain of an absentee mother who has abandoned the family for the lure of Hollywood; Jinxsy contends with a 17th “birthday present” she never wanted or expected.
Meanwhile, at school, the unexplained activity begins to escalate when Jinxsy keeps seeing a long-haired guy in the hallway checking her out. Jessie can’t see him, but her younger brother, River, can.
Then, in English class, a stapler mysteriously flies off teacher Eve Carrow’s desk, hitting a student in the face who has just mouthed off to her. The beloved teacher is in the unenviable position of having her brute of a father as principal, so she hates sending any student to his office. As Principal Ernest Carrow begins to terrorize Eve and others more openly, something or someone unseen decides that it’s payback time.
School is getting stranger, and Jinxsy and Jessie are faced with mind-boggling changes in their home lives that complicate everything. When a string of shocking events expose explosive secrets, decades-long mysteries are finally revealed.
DESERT STAR (Book 2, The Desert Series – A YA paranormal trilogy) Larsen Davis isn’t afraid to stand up to those who bully him, but in a two-against-one situation at Mystekal High, it’s never easy. When classmate River Dalworth witnesses the abuse and intervenes, the two seniors become good friends. Larsen explains that he’s fighting another battle at home: his own mother, Raylene, bullies him for being gay.
When Larsen meets River’s mother, Arielle, and learns she is overseeing the renovation of the Desert Theater, he shares his dream for a career on stage. Soon, Arielle offers Larsen a job as her assistant, but Raylene is dead set against the idea of her son doing what she considers “gay work.” After Raylene gets a new boyfriend, Reggie, the bad situation at home worsens and Larsen has no choice but to leave.
Now working at the Desert Theater, Larsen feels the unearthly presence of someone in the long-abandoned theater. Meanwhile, as the theater nears completion, a talent show is scheduled for opening night. As it becomes more evident that the theater may have a ghost, it also comes to light that someone may be sabotaging the renovation and the show. Is the ghost real or just the handiwork of someone with a grudge?
Opening night at the Desert Theater sets the stage for a crime, never-imagined reunions, long-awaited explanations, and otherworldly miracles.
DRAWN APART (Book 3, The Desert Series – A YA paranormal trilogy) When Avalon Martelli and Stephanie Lambert meet at the start of their junior year at Mystekal High, they form an instant connection. Stephanie is from South Jersey and Avalon from North Jersey, and they both feel out of place in the Southern California desert.
Aside from having a home state in common, they each possess a talent for art and the heartbreak of a broken family. Avalon has the gift of sight, where the future is sometimes revealed in her paintings, while Stephanie’s drawings are all about forever love. As Stephanie, a self-described poetry geek and hopeless romantic, talks about past lives and eternal happiness, Avalon denies she’s in love with her best guy friend, River Dalworth, who is attending art school in Los Angeles.
Only weeks before graduation, Stephanie is in a car accident and falls into a coma. Devastated, Avalon believes it is all her fault. The night before, she had painted Stephanie with her head against the steering wheel—and hadn’t told her. She confides this to River, who has come home to be with her, but he can’t convince her she’s not to blame. Avalon loudly proclaims to the universe that she no longer wants her gift, but River warns her she may receive another one in its place.
Avalon and her family, along with Stephanie’s mother, pray for a miracle. River tries to console her, but she finds his presence difficult, knowing he has someone else who “just might be the one.” Trying to push her own pain and disappointment aside, Avalon keeps vigil for her best friend, hoping that Stephanie will wake up and have her greatest wish fulfilled— the meeting of her soul mate.
THE DESERT SERIES is also available as a boxed set.
HOTEL OBSCURE: A Collection of Short Stories
In a run-down neighborhood in an unnamed city, people live and die in “the Obscure.”
Whether anyone remembers the real name of the derelict establishment is a mystery. In this six-story building, most who occupy the rooms are long-term residents, though some stay for as little as an hour.
The patronage is an eclectic group: musicians, writers, addicts, hookers, lonely people, poor people, rich people, once-well-off people, and those who have reason to hide from their former lives or to escape the demands of a disapproving and punishing society.
As shabby as the Obscure is, as long as its walls keep out the wind and the rain, it remains a shelter, a hideaway, and a home for the many bewildered souls.
Hotel Obscure is a collection of seventeen short stories that all take place in or around the “the Obscure.” While the stories stand alone, they are to be read in order. Some characters appear in multiple stories, and sometimes, a story will continue in an unexpected way.
The Obscure is life. It is death. In the blink of an eye, it may appear supernatural. It is a place we all visit … whether metaphorically or physically, at least once in our time on Earth.
Hotel Obscure on Amazon
At twenty-nine, Sage Gordon has had it with love. The owner of Sage Earth Gifts, a metaphysical gift shop in the old-money town of Swansea, New York, Sage is content to run her quirky store and enjoy her dog, Rufus, and her two cats, Finlay and Babaloo.
She is convinced love isn’t for her. As a child, her best friend, Jimmy Cole, the boy she thought she’d marry someday, disappeared in the middle of the night with his family and was never heard from again. Haunted by the loss, she was wary about love as she moved into adulthood, never really connecting with the men she dated, clinging to the hope that Jimmy would return.
When she’s set up with Caleb Dunlap, a gorgeous marketing executive in New York City, Sage struggles to let go of the past, but she does. Happily, she finds herself engaged … then … not so much. If only Caleb had betrayed her before she sent out the save-the-date cards.
When an obnoxious customer causes Sage’s neurotic assistant, Margie, to quit on the spot, Sage finds a friend in Godiva Jones, a woman she hires on the same spot. Godiva, twenty years older than Sage, brings much-needed friendship and wisdom. Having recently broken up with the love of her life, Freddie, Godiva also relates to the pain of heartbreak. She is disturbed, however, when Sage professes that she wants love to look away from her … forever.
In no time at all, life takes another turn for Sage when an old friend (and long-time admirer), Adam Canoga, shows up at Sage Earth Gifts to let her know that he’s opening a new men’s clothing store in town. Discovering she is no longer engaged, he asks her out, but with regret, she tells Adam that she has no interest in dating.
Sage’s resolve to do without love becomes an even greater challenge when an Australian visitor, Benton Bradley, walks into Sage Earth Gifts and impresses Sage with his warmth and Aussie humor. Despite her best efforts to keep love at arm’s length, she finds herself developing relationships with both Adam and Benton, two completely different, yet wonderful, men. But Sage is stubborn, still haunted by her past, and finds herself wholly unsure of what to do.
Eight people. One weekend. Eight lives forever changed.
In the mid-1960s, at an elite college in the quaint town of Barrie Hill, Connecticut, a group of literary-minded students met regularly off-campus at the Vanessa Grand Hotel. Often late into the night, they would discuss the day’s news, analyze literature, philosophize, trade barbs, and socialize.
Twenty years after graduation, in 1986, the group’s founder, Clare Dreyser, organizes a weekend reunion. Seven former Barrie Hillers and one guest get together, eager to re-create an extraordinary time in their lives and reunite with old friends.
From the outset, and baffling the group, Leah Brent displays a brash, condescending attitude for nearly everyone and everything. To the chagrin of actor Bart Younger, Leah immediately lays out the unwelcome mat for his wife, Aimee. No one, not even Leah’s husband, Colin, is immune to her wrath, but Leah is relentless in her bizarre and cruel quest to bring down her primary target: Clare.
As the reunion progresses, the Barrie Hillers strive to enjoy their time together as they become enmeshed in personal dramas, struggle with matters of ethics, and weather escalating uncertainties that threaten to destroy their lives. By Saturday night, the second day of the reunion, karma makes a surprising and shocking visit. As the Barrie Hillers’ time together draws to an end, each is changed forever.
Love, Look Away on Amazon
TELL ME AGAIN ABOUT
“MOLLY HACKER IS TOO PICKY!”
It is a romantic comedy that takes the reader on a yearlong ride through Molly’s life as she juggles four men and fends off matchmaking attempts from the town socialite. To read a synopsis, just click the link on the left side of this page. If you’d like to read Chapter One, you can either click Excerpt on the lefthand side of the page, or go to Amazon.com and download a sample.
WHERE CAN I BUY THESE BOOKS?
For readers who still like the feel of a book in their hands, the trade paperback editions of both novels are available on Amazon.com.
For those with electronic readers, all three novels are available as Amazon Kindle versions. Members of Kindle Unlimited can read all Lisette’s books for free.
AND WHERE CAN I FIND THE AUTHOR ONLINE?
You can follow her on Twitter
Check out her Author Website for updates, blogs, and guest blogs. Lisette also interviews authors at Lisette’s Writers’ Chateau.
Her Facebook Author Page is the primo spot for all updates
She has an author page on Amazon.com
She loves to post photographs on Instagram