Allegiance is now available on Audible!

Good news! Allegiance is now available on Audible! Narrated by Susan Russell, former Penn State University laureate and Broadway star of Phantom of the Opera, I am sure you will experience the new dimension she brings to Keri Slater's angsty story. If you are interested in getting a FREE download from the Audible site, contact me at MaryFlinnBooks@gmail.com. Susan and I would love to have your honest reviews. I hope you enjoy listening to our work as much as we did writing it and producing it!

Musical References for Playing by Heart

 

Playing by Heart is a musical immersion! When researching the songs and instrumental pieces to include in Sylvie and her friends' journey through Oberlin College's Conservatory of Music, I listened to many of the selections as played on YouTube for inspiration and how to write about them, the emotions stirred within the performances, and the technical aspects of all the music you will read about in the book. I urge you to listen along as you read and enjoy the performances as I did while researching these remarkable musical pieces. Here is the curated list for your enjoyment!

YouTube Videos with musical selections from Playing by Heart

 

Mozart’s "Queen of the Night" aria from The Magic Flute performed by Sabine Devielhe

https://youtu.be/tZT4DoTx0fU

 

Rimsky-Korsakov’s "Scheherazade" violin solo performed by Robert Kwiatkowski

https://youtu.be/6kaQNPPuizs

 

Rachmaninov’s "Etudes Tableaux Opus 39, number 1 in C minor" performed by Yuja Wang

https://youtu.be/mAEM5q5YFtg

 

George Gershwin’s "Rhapsody in Blue" performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic 1976

https://youtu.be/cH2PH0auTUU

 

Debussy’s "Beau Soir" performed by Natalie Perez

https://youtu.be/whmb_9wLX7Q

 

George Gershwin’s "Someone to Watch Over Me" performed by Jean Louisa Kelly in Mr. Holland’s Opus

https://youtu.be/3A84-s9RyNw

 

 

 

 

 

Book Launch Event for Playing by Heart

   MEET THE AUTHOR!

Book talk and reading at 4:15 followed by book signing

Sunday, October 2, 2022

Porters Neck Country Club Ballroom

8403 Vintage Club Drive

Wilmington, NC 28411

    ALL ARE WELCOME!

RSVP with number in your party to mflinn56@gmail.com by September 26.

 

To learn more about Mary Flinn and her books, please visit TheOneNovel.com. Autographed copies are available from her website at Buy the Book. 

Playing by Heart to be released October 2022

The new book is coming! I'm so excited to announce my tenth book, Playing by Heart, is set to release in October 2022! It is the sequel to LUMINA. Follow the blog or watch for updates on social media for book launch date and signings.

Here is the summary:

Returning to the characters readers grew to love in LUMINA, author Mary Flinn continues their parallel stories in Playing by Heart. The current-day Wilmington characters Anne Borden Montgomery and Mr. May are back to attic diving during the early stay-at-home days of the COVID-19 pandemic. After discovering more of AB’s mother Sylvie’s diaries, the two are eager to share these new treasures with their younger neighbors, Nate and Elle, on the front porch where they can sit outside, read to each other, and maintain social distancing. The reading is a nice break for Nate, who is struggling to work effectively from home, and Elle, determined to keep her bakery from falling victim to COVID.

Paired with their story is Sylvie Meeks’ journey to the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College in 1928. As a first-year performance student, Sylvie realizes she is a fish out of water with her ungainly Southern accent and unassuming ways. Pining for the family and unfinished business she’s left behind, Sylvie is looking for just one friend. She finds four other misfits: Dot an overconfident soprano from Cincinnati; Bart, a fellow pianist from Chicago, vying for faculty favor; Hersch, a Jewish violinist from New York City; and Mina, a gifted singer and descendant of slaves. Sylvie narrates her life through soul-searching diary entries while trying to fit in and help her friends work through their own identity searches.

Who among Sylvie’s friends will make the cut at Oberlin and go on to become professional musicians? Will Sylvie’s search for truth destroy or strengthen her relationships? And what can Elle and her friends learn from Sylvie and her time as they endure their own efforts to cope with social distancing and planning a wedding amid a pandemic?

 

 

A native of North Carolina, award-winning author Mary Flinn long ago fell in love with her state’s mountains and coast, creating the backdrops for her books. Playing by Heart is her tenth novel.

Books will be available for purchase on my website TheOneNovel.com and other platforms beginning October 1, 2022. Order autographed copies directly from my website for gift-giving and for yourself!

LUMINA is an indieBRAG Honoree!

 LUMINA has been honored with an indieBRAG Medallion! Here is one more affirmation that this historical novel is worth your time and money. Read comments from some of the judges:

"This book captivated me from start to finish. Bravo!"

"I was attracted to this story because of the time period and setting. It's set in 1928 and much of the story takes place at a dance hall on Wrightsville Beach. The author does an excellent job of conveying the flavor of the dance hall and the flapper era."

"I thought the novel was very well written. I enjoyed the characters and the plot and I loved how the present day story mirrored the past. It made me want to read the novels that came before this one."

Merry Twelfth Day of Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 Merry Christmas readers! As Twelfth Night approaches, let me fill you in on all that has happened since I last wrote.

As did so many folks I know, my husband and I hit our own reset button and mulled over our priorities while we quarantined at home during the Covid pandemic. We marveled at the money we were saving by not going out. We realized we could make do with much less and tried our best to safely support those in need of food and assistance, while staying contact-free. We also decided it was time to fix the house so we could plan a move in a couple of years. The punch list was made and completed in no time! When it was safe to travel, we took a house-hunting trip to Wilmington, NC and found the perfect house for us. It had everything we required--a master on the main level, a great kitchen, two rooms upstairs for our girls to visit, and a yard with a clean slate for the next chapters in our garden story. So in August, we moved!

Being retired afforded us the luxury of not worrying about working, unlike those on the front lines, and those who lost their jobs due to the shutdowns. We feel blessed to be in good health and we feel a commitment to do our part to keep others safe as well. We did have a family gathering at Christmas and I'm happy to report that all are well after our visit. As we looked for the silver linings the pandemic brought, we sorrowed with others who lost family members and friends during this sad time. We are grateful for the efforts of those front line workers, the doctors, nurses, hospital staff, grocery store workers and teachers, tradesmen and bankers, real estate agents and small business owners trying to keep things afloat. We look forward to better times filled with good health and happiness...and possibly a sequel to LUMINA coming sometime soon!

Below is a Christmas message I was inspired to write by my brother, who enjoys entertaining me with the most imaginative birthday cards he creates. This year's card had only four-letter words! I thought the idea was a fitting sentiment for 2020, so I continued on his word play just for fun!

 

All the Flinns at home in Wilmington, NC

 

Welcome Azalea Festival Street Fair Shoppers!

With the current pandemic and subsequent state of affairs, I am so happy that you have made it onto my website and apparently to my blog! As we have all had to give up our hopes and plans due to COVID-19, I am tremendously disappointed to miss this opportunity to visit Wilmington again and to share the stories of Lumina with so many who remember her. Those who are unacquainted with our premier beach pavilion that reigned on the southern tip of Wrightsville Beach from 1905 to her destruction in 1973 might get a small taste of what might have been in the summer of 1928. That was the year that the Shag was created by Lewis Philip Hall and introduced on the Lumina dance floor in August during the feast of Pirates. The Roaring Twenties was a time of extravagance and change, National Prohibition, the flappers and the changing roles of women, the invisible black population that built Wrightsville Beach, and the social mores of the times.

LUMINA transports the reader to the summer of 1928 to Wrightsville Beach where tourists, middle-class folks, and aristocrats alike are dancing the night away at the beachfront pavilion where they are falling in love—not only with each other but with the grand ballroom itself. Told in alternating sequences between modern-day friends and the newly discovered diary entries and old letters from young siblings on the brink of decadent change, Lumina becomes magic for anyone on the dance floor from eight until midnight. Kip and Sylvie are swept away until they realize that people are not always what they seem.

If you would like to order a copy of LUMINA, please return to the website and click on Buy the Book. I will be happy to send you an autographed copy. Thanks for visiting. 

I hope you find the magic!