Friday Freebie: Life Drawing by Robin Black

Congratulations to Heather Johnson, winner of last week's Friday Freebie 10-book bonanza: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, Labor Day by Joyce Maynard, Little Bee by Chris Cleave, The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan, The Explanation for Everything by Lauren Grodstein, The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, The Tilted World by Tom Franklin & Beth Ann Fennelly, Note to Self by Alina Simone, Tampa by Alissa Nutting, and Guests on Earth by Lee Smith.

This week's giveaway is Robin Black's debut novel, Life Drawing.  Those of you who enjoyed her first book--the short story collection If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This--will definitely want to get your hands on this new release.  Stay tuned for Robin's account of her "first time" later this month here at the blog.  In the meantime, here's a little more about Life Drawing--which a reviewer with The Bookseller (UK) said “might be the nearest thing to a perfect novel that I have ever read.”

In Life Drawing, Robin Black unfolds a fierce, honest, and moving portrait of a marriage—the betrayals and intimacies, the needs and regrets, the secrets that sustain love and the ones that threaten to destroy it.  Augusta and Owen have moved to the country, and live a quiet, and rather solitary life, Gus as a painter, Owen as a writer.  They have left behind the city, and its associations to a troubled past, devoting their days to each other and their art.  But beneath the surface of this tranquil existence lies the heavy truth of Gus’s past betrayal, an affair that ended, but that quietly haunts Owen, Gus and their marriage.  When Alison Hemmings, a beautiful British divorcée, moves in next door, Gus, feeling lonely and isolated, finds herself drawn to Alison, and as their relationship deepens, the lives of the three neighbors become more and more tightly intertwined.  With the arrival of Alison’s daughter Nora, the emotions among them grow so intense that even the slightest misstep has the potential to do irrevocable harm to them all.  With lyrical precision and taut, suspenseful storytelling, Black steadily draws us deeper into a world filled with joys and darkness, love and sorrows, a world that becomes as real as our own.  Life Drawing is a novel as beautiful and unsparing as the human heart.

If you’d like a chance at winning a new hardcover copy of Life Drawing, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on July 17, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on July 18.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.