Stray Affections

October 4, 2009

Stray AffectionsA heart-warming new novel with a touch of mystery and the joy of second chances!

STRAY AFFECTIONS
Charlene Ann Baumbich

Waterbrook Press / Random House
$13.99, Trade Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-0-307-44471-4
Fiction set in a small town in Minnesota

“What a bundle this book is!  A combination of mystery, magic, joy, second chances, quirky characters, and the blessings of God….all brought to light by the purchase of a snow globe at a flea market.  This is an ideal book to read on a snowy winter day, snuggled up in a blanket, with a cup of hot chocolate beside you.”
-Nancy Simpson, Book Vault, Oskaloosa, IA

STRAY AFFECTIONS is an original trade paperback by Charlene Ann Baumbich, the popular bestselling author of the “Dearest Dorothy” books.  This little novel is a great choice for your book club or reading group, too.  October is National Reading Group Month, so gather your group to read and discuss this book.  You’ll be glad you did!

Featured now in the 2009 MBA Catalog –
Books – A Reader’s Catalog
– at participating MBA member bookstores!

Be sure to buy this book from your favorite locally owned and operated Midwest independent bookseller!
Click here for the directory of our member bookstores.

MBA BOOKSELLER INFORMATION

Booksellers — Earn up to $100 in rebates from MBA for promoting STRAY AFFECTIONS!
Midwest Connections rebate form for STRAY AFFECTIONS (PDF)

STRAY AFFECTIONS is available from Waterbrook Press, distributed by Random House, or from your preferred wholesaler.  Be sure to contact your Random House rep for more information about this title.

STRAY AFFECTIONS will be featured in the 2009 MBA Catalog, which will be available at the beginning of November.

If you would like to inquire about setting up bookstore or reading group events or phoners with author Charlene Baumbich, please contact Ashley Boyer, Publicist, WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, phone 719-264-5698, aboyer@randomhouse.com.  If you have marketing questions, please contact Allison O’Hara, Marketing Manager, WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, phone (719) 268-1932, aohara@randomhouse.com.

MBA and Waterbrook Press want your comments and reviews for this new novel.  Please send them to us so we can share your endorsements with your fellow MBA booksellers and with your customers!

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 ABOUT THE BOOK

The last thing that Cassandra Higgins expects out of her Sunday is to be mesmerized at a collectors’ convention by a snowglobe. She’s enjoying some mommy time, with husband, Ken, at home tending their brood of four young boys, when she’s utterly charmed by the one-of-a kind globe containing figures of three dogs and a little girl with hair the color of her own. She can’t resist taking the unique globe home-even if means wrestling another shopper for it!

The beautiful snowglobe sparks long-dormant memories for Cassandra, of her beloved Grandpa Wonky, the stray she rescued as a child, and the painful roots of her combative relationship with her mother, “Bad Betty” Kamrowski. Life in Wanonishaw, Minnesota is never dull, though, and Cassandra keeps the recollections at bay, busy balancing her boys, her home daycare operation, and being a good friend to best pal, Margret. But after a strange-flurrious, as Cassandra deems it-moment happens with the remarkable snowglobe, Cassandra and the people she loves are swirled into a tumultuous, yet grace-filled, and lifechanging journey.

With the quirky, close-knit Midwestern small-town feel that made Charlene Ann Baumbich’s acclaimed Dearest Dorothy novels so popular, Stray Affections invites readers to experience the joy and the healing of second chances.

“Inspirational novelist Baumbich (Dearest Dorothy series) presents readers with a lovely story of forgiveness, restoration and a dash of hopeful whimsy thrown in for pure pleasure. Baumbich, whose nonfiction is frequently self-deprecating and thoroughly comedic, offers her fiction fans a tale that is “flurrious” with the unexpected and unimagined as Cassandra Higgins, mom to four young boys and day-care provider, sets upon a course of self-discovery after purchasing a snow globe. Cassandra, whose father committed suicide and whose mother barely, and bitterly so, continues to face life one day at a time, revisits her childhood pain as she gazes into this glass globe containing three dogs and a girl resembling herself. This young mother realizes that even with a loving husband, children and a life absent of any major catastrophe, the past continues to wield a mighty force that shapes present-day attitudes and lingering emotional afflictions. Baumbich reaches deep into the heart’s recesses, but does so with the precision of the most skilled emotional physician. For that, her readers will feel nothing but gratitude.”
-Publisher’s Weekly

ABOUT THE AUTHOR charlene-image1

Charlene Ann Baumbich is a popular author and speaker and an award-winning journalist. Her stories, essays, and columns have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Today’s Christian Woman. In addition to her Dearest Dorothy series of novels, she has written six nonfiction books of humor and inspiration. She lives in Glen Ellyn, Illinois with retired hubby, George, and Kornflake, her big red dog. Kornflake was adopted from the Winona Area Humane Society in Winona, Minnesota. He helped her write much of this book by cheering her on, taking her for muse-inducing walks, and keeping her toes warm while she typed. For more information about Charlene’s upcoming books, visit her website www.charleneannbaumbich.com

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