LISTEN FOR FREE. FINDING PENELOPE: AN IDEAL SUMMER STORY.

I have a number of promo codes from Audible https://adbl.co/2LUAfAH & https://adbl.co/32sGth9 which will entitle you to a free audio copy of my critically-acclaimed novel Finding Penelope, narrated beautifully by Sarah Brady. If you contact me at jameslawless23@hotmail.com with your name and email, I will send the code for the free copy to you.
Apart from casting a wry glance at the phenomenon of chick lit and treating of the role of patriarchy in a family, the novel Finding Penelope is essentially a love story marking a growth in self-realisation in the protagonist Penelope Eames. It delves into the drugs culture and its associated criminality in Spain (where a lot of Celtic Tiger money wound up laundered), Ireland and the UK. The prompt for the novel was from Cervantes and a motif may be interpreted as a sort of modern day parallel of Don Quijote’s attack on the proliferation of romance novels of that time. As seventy per cent of readers are now female, I wanted to understand more of the female mindset. So I picked the brains of women of my acquaintance, including two adult daughters and I researched contemporary women writers and books like Everywoman and I reread with new female (or at least androgynous eyes) my well-thumbed de Beauvoir, Anna Karenina and Portrait of a Lady. Simultaneously, I was studying the crime culture on the Costa. The result was the character Penelope Eames.
Thirty three year old romance novelist Penelope Eames moves to Spain to avoid her oppressive father and drug-addicted brother, Dermot. When she meets Ramón, a young Spanish school teacher, she is immediately attracted to him and feels the happiness that eluded her all her life may at last be hers. However, she receives a distress call from Dermot saying he is at the mercy of Charlie Eliot, a pimp and drug dealer on the Costa. Ramón, whose mother was killed by a drug addict, tells her to have nothing to do with Charlie Eliot. Penelope must decide: is she prepared to compromise herself with Charlie Eliot and jeopardise her chance of happiness with Ramón for the sake of her drug addicted brother?
‘Lawless reinvented the millennia-worn story line to reveal not only a Dublin expat Costa del Sol akin to the RTÉ Love Hate series but beautiful writing.’ Books Ireland
‘Penelope’s is an authentic voice, full of human contradiction and composed desperation.’ Sunday Independent
‘This is a really, really fine piece of sharp, precise and accurate work. A novel that will give deep, literary pleasure.’ Carlo Gébler, author.
More reviews at https://amzn.to/2HKnl6f & https://amzn.to/2U38D0N