Marsha has lived free of her past but must now return home
A successful runaway at 15, Marsha lives in New York City where she earns a living as an illustrator of botanicals but her passion is a game of ‘catch and release’ with men, luring them into affairs only to leave them. But she has found herself caught in the lure of a weatherman, a storm chaser of sorts, who pursues her wildly unpredictable moods.
With an unexpected call, Marsha is pulled to her childhood home, to her mother, a florist, who cuts the living plants to present their ephemeral beauty. Now her mother’s life is being cut short, her only wish is that her strong willed daughter keep her alive.
Marsha struggles to maintain her balance between who she has become and the world she ran away from, the treacherous cliffs of her childhood home. With the weatherman still in pursuit, a steady pressure on the edges, Marsha learns to care for her mother, who remains aloof but increasingly dependent. Then a man appears who claims to be Marsha’s father, setting in motion events that display the fragile beauty of love and its destructive power.
Praise for “Sleeping In Public”
Marsha moves gracefully through time and space, unpredictable as weather. It pieces together the story of a tormented young woman who has created a life for herself in the New York world after fleeing an abusive home. Marsha has settled into a small apartment and settled on a single lover when an unexpected call summons her back to her childhood home.
As the novel unfolds, we witness birth, childhood, love, betrayal and death. The detail is so fine we see up close what’s important. The characters are full and complex and include Dog, a fabulously rendered animal with a protective streak. Carol Lee Lorenzo is at the top of her game with keen insights into everything from drawing in the dark with oil-based pastels, to choosing the right man, to caring for a dying parent, to bathing an untouchable stray dog. Every scene is loaded with new and often surprising views of the world that stick with the reader long after reaching the end. – Joe Coberly, author and Atlanta native.
Viola – a girl drowned and still alive.
On the cusp of Christmas, her mother Wanda wants Viola away from the ocean, and wants the father, James, away from ‘trouble’ – the nighttime drowning. They set off to Wanda’s childhood home, inland Georgia. A daughter caught between parents, with parents caught between family, Viola must learn to navigate the swells.
Praise for “Under the Spell”
Carol Lee Lorenzo has beckoned us into the world of Viola, a young child with the imagination and dream life of a unique and creative soul. “Under the Spell” is finely and delicately wrought, both delightful and heart wrenching. Readers will be intrigued and in wonder with every page.
– Trudy Nan Boyce, 2017 Georgia Author of the Year, author of “Out of the Blues,” “Old Bones” and “The Policeman’s Daughter”
Under the Spell is exquisite and unsettling, the saga of a large and messy family–but really it is nine year old Viola’s story, her voice, her journey, her child’s place in the complex doings of the grown ups around her. Viola is wise and funny, wonderfully observant, a worthy witness, a survivor. She is a character I won’t soon forget. As for Carol Lee Lorenzo, she manages, somehow, to infuse each and every page with her own, very special virtuosity.
– Alexandra Curry, author of “The Courtesan”