Loving from the Outside

WITH LOVE FROM THE INSIDE by my new favoritist author, Angela Pisel--and my new best friend--is better than a 5-star book. Wow. I haven't cried this hard over a work of fiction since Snape died!! This may be Angela's first published novel, but it clearly demonstrates her amazing writing ability--her awesome storytelling skills. Wow.

I had the wonderful joy of meeting Anglea at Barnes & Nobel in Hickory, NC the evening of the release of WITH LOVE FROM THE INSIDE, Tuesday, August 9. My counselor had told me about the release of Angela's book and suggested that I might like to meet Angela, especially since she's from Hickory and is a writer--and I am, too. (I just don't have anything published beyond my blogs.) So I ordered her book from Amazon, put the date on my calendar, and waited anxiously to meet a local author.

I was so excited about meeting Angela, I was there--with my friend--at 4:30 even though she wasn't scheduled to be there until 7:00! I even got a front row seat!!! Angela shared some facts and statistics and other interesting information about her book and then she read a few passages--both of which were really intriguing. The irony is that when I read the 2nd passage myself just a day later, even though Angela had read it the night before at her reading, I bawled like a baby--as if I'd never heard that section!

And I didn't stop crying throughout the whole book. In fact, I kinda-sorta cried the first 3/4 of the book, but from about page 250 on, I cried non-stop. By the end of the book, I was sobbing so hard, I couldn't see the words on the page through my tears. I had to stop and allow myself a good five-minute crying-fest where I went through about 10 Kleenex.

Don't let the tears keep you from reading WITH LOVE FROM THE INSIDE. The tears were because this is an AMAZING story. Part of the reason why we love stories such as HARRY POTTER as much as we do is because of the tears we shed over beloved characters; it's the same with Angela's book. I CARED about the characters in this book. They became REAL to me. I want, so desperately, to hold both Sophie and Grace--and Thomas and Max and Roni and others--in my arms and let them know how powerfully their story has affected me.

I can't help thinking about Roni just a little more than other fairly minor/background characters. I want to know Roni's whole story. I may have to explore some more about this amazing woman on death row--even though she's a work of fiction. Angela did say that many of her characters in this book are based on real people, so I'd love to hear more about the real woman Roni is based on, as well as more about Roni herself.

I hope and pray that WITH LOVE FROM THE INSIDE by Angela Pisel becomes a top ten best-selling novel and that it stays in the top ten until hundreds of thousands of millions of people read it. I also hope that Angela Pisel will allow me to be one of her groupies and to "stalk" her--but in a good way....if she can agree with me that there is a "good" way to stalk someone!!!!  ;)