Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Life List

Today's special guest is Chrissy Anderson. Chrissy spends her life doing exactly what she always wanted: doting on those she loves. A former fashion executive, she is a writer, wife, and mother whose own life events inspired The Life List. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with the love of her life and her beautiful daughter.


AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

I love the whole concept of The Life List and realizing the perfect life that was laid out before Chrissy turned out to be not the life she was meant to live... So my questions for Chrissy were: How did she come up with the idea for this book? Was it based on personal experience or observations of others' lives? Is there a message she'd like for readers to come away with? Here's her answer:


First off, thank you for hosting me on your blog!  I’m very happy to be here and to share a little bit about The Life List. 

The concept for my novel came from a life list I created when I was sixteen years old. The outcome of that list was dream husband, a career to envy, and the kind of best friends every girl wants.  I thought I had everything I ever wanted…until a chance encounter with a man at bar made me rethink everything.  In one night my life unraveled.  The Life List is my real life love story and it examines the sanity of blindly following the bucket list we make when we are young and the impact of changing our minds after we have checked most things off the list.

The story resonates strongly with readers who laugh, cry and actually yell when they read the book and don’t agree with my choices.  Chrissy’s a rather maddening, and eventually, endearing character.  The story begins with an impeccably dressed Chrissy at her best friend’s funeral, reading the Eulogy while internally reflecting on how her life is so different than anything she ever planned.  We then flash back to how she got to that moment and learn that her life list led her down an unsatisfying path— hoping the entire story she gets the courage to find a new one.   

Women of all kinds will be able to relate to the pressure of constructing the ideal life, only to fall short. Not everyone will agree with my decisions, but all will pause as they follow along on my journey to ask, “What would I do if I were her?”

The Life List, book ONE of The List Trilogy, will take you on a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows as Chrissy makes mistakes on her bumpy road to happiness.  Come along for the ride and you’ll be left breathless and ready to find out what she does next in book TWO, The Unexpected List


ABOUT THE BOOK


When she was just sixteen, Chrissy Anderson made a life list…

…The outcome is a dream husband, a career to envy, and the kind of best friends every girl wants.  Then out of nowhere…an affair. What would you do if you realized the life you created wasn’t right for you? You think you know the answer?  Think again. Follow Chrissy as she lies and cheats and ultimately learns to tell the truth to herself and those that she loves.
At twenty-eight, Chrissy has been steadily checking off the boxes on her life list as she mocks the style and life choices of everyone around her. She’s got it all—or so everyone thinks. Her life begins to fall apart when she unexpectedly meets a much younger man, Leo, who makes her question just how perfect her “perfect life” really is. With the help of her no-nonsense therapist, Dr. Maria, Chrissy learns more about herself than she anticipates.  But it isn’t until she stares an untimely death in the face that Chrissy is catapulted into an overdue reality check.  Only then does she scramble to correct the mistakes of her past…trying to figure out if it’s her husband Kurt, her lover Leo, or both that she has to leave behind to make everything right.

Women of all kinds will be able to relate to the pressure of constructing the ideal life, only to fall short. Not everyone will agree with Chrissy Anderson’s decisions, but all will pause as they follow along on her journey to ask, “What would I do if I were her?”

The Life List, book ONE of The List Trilogy, will take you on a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows as Chrissy makes mistakes on her bumpy road to happiness.  Come along for the ride and you’ll be left breathless and ready to find out what she does next in book TWO, The Unexpected List. 
 
AN EXCERPT

I just made it official. I’m a twenty-eight year old married woman with a twenty-two year old boyfriend who lives twenty minutes from a husband who he doesn’t know exists. That God I started believing in a few minutes ago is sending me straight to Hell.


SPECIAL LINKS

Chrissy will be awarding a $50 Victoria’s Secret Gift Card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.

 


Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: