Today I\u2019m hosting Victoria Bernardine\u2019s blog tour for her novel, A Life Less Ordinary. Comment below for your chance at winning either a $25 gift card or one of two $15 gift cards to either Amazon or Smashwords!<\/p>\n

First, here\u2019s the blurb:<\/p>\n

For the last fifteen years, Rose \u201cManny\u201d Mankowski has been a very good girl. Now, at the age of 45, she\u2019s questioning her choices and feeling more and more disconnected from her own life.<\/p>\n

When she\u2019s passed over for promotion and her much younger new boss implies Manny\u2019s life will never change, something snaps. In the blink of an eye, she\u2019s quit her job, sold her house, cashed in her pension, and she\u2019s leaving town on a six month road trip.<\/p>\n

After placing an ad for a travelling companion, she\u2019s joined in her mid-life crisis by Zeke Powell, the cynical, satirical, most read \u2013 and most controversial \u2013 blogger for the e-zine, What Women Want. Zeke\u2019s true goal is to expose Manny\u2019s journey as a pitiful and desperate attempt to reclaim her lost youth \u2013 and increase his readership at the same time.<\/p>\n

Now, armed with a bagful of destinations, a fistful of maps, and an out-spoken imaginary friend named Harvey, Manny\u2019s on a quest to rediscover herself \u2013 and taking Zeke along for the ride.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

Darius was very sweet and charming, just eighteen, but he couldn\u2019t pay his own way, and Manny wasn\u2019t about to support him for six months. He\u2019d shrugged and accepted her decision with an adorable smile and she offered to call Daisy\u2019s boss, Max, to see if he had any work that Darius could do. Darius had thanked her and even paid for their lattes, and they\u2019d chatted for a good forty-five minutes before he\u2019d finally gone on his way. Yes, he would have been a good choice\u2013and she might change her mind if she didn\u2019t find anyone before she left in two weeks.<\/p>\n

You can always go by yourself.<\/p>\n

I know. But it would be more fun with someone else.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll have me.<\/p>\n

Manny glanced at Harvey sitting in the chair across from her. He was dressed casually in jeans and a button down shirt open at the throat to show the strong lines of his neck and chest.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not real.<\/p>\n

Harvey winked at her. Just checking.<\/p>\n

She shook her head and Harvey blinked out of existence as the door opened and a darkly handsome man walked in. He paused in the doorway and removed his sunglasses as he glanced around the small room. Securely hidden in her corner, Manny considered him.<\/p>\n

Tall; over six feet. Dark. Handsome, with large, dark eyes and full pouty lips. His black, tousled hair and dark stubble on his face gave him a sexy, scruffy appearance. He was slim, with broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs encased in jeans.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll bet he has a great ass.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll bet you\u2019re right.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s like a younger version of me.<\/p>\n

Manny blinked at the man standing in the doorway and realized Harvey was right. Oh, they didn\u2019t exactly look alike, but they had similar colouring, and a similar underlying confidence and arrogance in their stance. Probably something natural when you\u2019re that naturally gorgeous, Manny thought ruefully, or, in Harvey\u2019s case, that unnaturally perfect.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d almost be jealous\u2026if I was real.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019re not\u2013and he\u2019s quite something. I wonder who he\u2019s here to me\u2026eeet.<\/p>\n

My Review:<\/p>\n

A Life Less Ordinary is a fun, chatty, witty novel that really grabbed me the more I read it. While the novel mostly follows Manny\u2019s roadtrip and Zeke\u2019s attempts to maintain his professional distance while documenting it, there are also three other side stories about Manny\u2019s sisters and Zeke\u2019s bosses. Together, the different threads cover all sorts of ways life can sucker-punch you. Manny\u2019s isn\u2019t the only life that changes over the course of the novel; everyone involved has to overcome an unexpected problem and grow from the experience.<\/p>\n

One side-story in particular \u2013 about a woman faced with raising her grandchild when her daughter proves incapable of doing so really resonated with me, and so did Manny\u2019s story of reclaiming her sense of self and self-worth in the middle of being middle-aged.<\/p>\n

I loved Manny\u2019s banter with her invisible \u201cfriend\u201d Harvey \u2013 by far one of the best parts of the book. I also liked the way Zeke struggled to even see Manny as a \u201cwoman\u201d rather than as an \u201cold woman\u201d.<\/p>\n

The one thing I wished had been added was more excerpts from Zeke\u2019s blog posts, and I had the feeling that if the story had included two or three \u201cblog readers\u201d who \u201ccommented\u201d each time he posted, the author could have added another fun and interesting subplot.<\/p>\n

Take this one to the beach when you have a long, lazy day ahead of you!<\/p>\n

Author information:<\/p>\n

Victoria Bernadine (a pseudonym) is, as the saying goes, a \u201cwoman of a certain age\u201d. After twenty-something years of writer\u2019s block, she began writing again in 2008. She began with fanfiction about a (now-cancelled) TV show called Jericho and particularly about the characters of Heather Lisinski and Edward Beck. From there, she expanded into writing original fic and she hasn\u2019t stopped since.<\/p>\n

Victoria enjoys reading all genres and particularly loves writing romantic comedy and post-apocalyptic science fiction. What those two have in common is anybody\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n

She lives in Edmonton with her two cats (The Grunt and The Runt). A Life Less Ordinary is the first novel she felt was good enough to be released into the wild.<\/p>\n

Victoria can be contacted through Love of Words Publishing Inc. (loveofwords@shaw.ca) or through her brand new blog at http:\/\/victoriabernadine.wordpress.com\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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