GIVE ME YOUR ANSWER TRUE (THE FISH TALES #2)
by Suanne Laqueur
Publication Date June 20, 2015
Synopsis:
“What I feel has no name…”
Suanne Laqueur’s award-winning debut novel The Man I Love thrilled readers with its memorable characters and depth of emotion. Erik Fiskare’s journey of love, recovery and forgiveness captivated hearts but also left questions unanswered. Now Daisy Bianco has a chance to tell her story.
It’s been three years since a single lapse of judgment cost Daisy the love of her life. Erik was a conduit to her soul but now he’s chosen a path of total disconnection, refusing to speak to her or acknowledge her betrayal. Alone and shattered, Daisy attempts to take responsibility for her actions while building her career as a professional dancer in New York City. But Erik’s unforgiving estrangement proves too much for her strength. Plagued by flashbacks to the Lancaster shootings, she falls into a dangerous spiral of self-harm, cutting into her own skin as a means to atone. Only the timely appearance of an old friend, John “Opie” Quillis, saves her from self-destruction and gives her a chance to love again.
Laqueur skillfully weaves flashbacks to the college years with Daisy’s present life. Supported by John’s patient affection, she works to separate her evolution as an adult from the unresolved guilt and grief of her youth. As her professional accomplishments lift her out of depression, Daisy learns to hold onto her accountability without letting it become her identity. Years pass and she builds a beautiful life filled with dance and friends. Lovers come and eventually go, leaving her on her own with the old thought: Come back to me.
In this parallel narrative, Laqueur peels open the beloved characters from The Man I Love to reveal new and complex layers of vulnerability. The scars from the shooting are deep and pervasive within this circle of friends. Like Daisy, they are trying to evolve without being fully resolved. But when questions from the past go unheeded, you alone must find and give your answers true.
My Review:
“I love you, I will always love you,” Daisy said. “And I am… And I am moving on.”
Dear Ms. Laqueur:
Thank you very much but I have a massive book hangover after reading Daisy’s story. Extraordinary!!! Daisy’s story is everything I hoped it would be! It was simply magical.
While I am always up for a re-telling, that is NOT what this book was and I applaud your beautiful storytelling. I was entranced by your technique of having Daisy speaking with her therapist several years ahead of the last book, and by Daisy telling her story through her own eyes. SO much was revealed! I am just in awe of your creativity.
“Try to find a beginning,” the therapist says. “Or just start somewhere. We can go forwards or backwards, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to give me the perfect story arc.”
I absolutely adored seeing Erik Fiskare through Daisy’s eyes. You made her love, her pain, her despair and her hope and recovery feel so REAL. I felt like I KNEW Daisy, and all of the characters, personally. I don’t know how you wrote such another magnificent book but you skipped all the tired old clichés and made this another incredibly unique story. Can I say that I would even love a story about Ray? I fell in love with him. There were just so many gorgeous stories in this book!
Your descriptions of ballet and dance were magnificent. I felt like I was in the theater with your characters, feeling their passion. Please excuse my gushing but I am just in awe of your writing! And thank you for keeping up the characters’ sharp and biting sense of humor. The wit was a welcome relief from some of the almost unbearably heartbreaking events of the story. I hope you never stop writing! Thank you for another perfectly written story.
❝I am sorry, I love you and I forgive myself.❞
(Read The Man I Love (The Fish Tales #1) for FREE through the end of September 2016 at Instafreebie HERE!!)
The Fish Tales Series:
About the Author:
Suanne Laqueur’s first novel, The Man I Love won a gold medal in the 2015 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards. Its other 2015 accolades include a gold medal for Best Debut Author from Feathered Quill Book Awards and being named a finalist with the Kindle Book Awards.
Suanne graduated from Alfred University with a double major in dance and theater. She taught at the Carol Bierman School of Ballet Arts in Croton-on-Hudson for ten years. She lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband and two chil-dren. An avid reader, cook and gardener, she started her blog EatsReadsThinks in 2010 and now blogs at http://suannelaqueurwrites.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/suannelaqueur
Twitter: https://twitter.com/suannelqr
Instagram: www.instagram.com/swainblqr