Symmetry by Joyce Scarbrough
A lifelong reader and bibliophile, Joyce Scarbrough is a Southern woman weary of seeing herself and her peers portrayed in books and movies as either post-antebellum debutantes or barefoot hillbillies á la Daisy Duke, so all her heroines are smart, unpretentious women who refuse to be anyone but themselves. Joyce serves on the board of her local Writers Guild and is also active in her regional chapter of SCBWI. In addition to writing, she was formerly the senior editor for Champagne Books and still does freelance editing. She also teaches a Creative Writing Course at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, and she is a permanent faculty member of Writing Away Refuge. Joyce has lived all her life in beautiful LA (lower Alabama), she’s the mother of three gifted, nonconformist children, and she’s been married for over 40 years to the love of her life—a superhero who disguises himself during the day as a Hall of Fame high school softball coach. Find out more on her website: www.joycescarbrough.com
A little bit about Author Joyce Scarbrough…
I’ve been making up stories to entertain myself since before I could even read or write, but I didn’t write my first short story until I was in high school. After graduating, I completed a course from The Institute of Children’s Literature, then life intervened and I got married and raised three children. When I went to my 20th high school reunion in 2000, one of my classmates asked me if I was still writing and it killed me to tell him I hadn’t written anything in years. Since I was turning 39 that year, I thought I had only one more good year to go, so I started writing my first book on my birthday and finished it 6 months later. True Blue Forever was published in 2003.
This is Author Joyce Scarbrough’s writing and publication journey in her own words…
Inspiration to start writing…
I was inspired to write by my lifelong love of books with unforgettable characters, and that’s my goal for writing my own books—to create realistic characters that readers will remember long after they read the last page. I write both middle grade and YA, but women’s humorous romantic fiction is my favorite genre to write.
Joyce’s works…
In 2016, I decided to write a prequel to my first novel and split the original book into two parts, so it’s now the True Blue Trilogy.
I also have two YA paranormals in the Unfinished Series. My novel with The Wild Rose Press is titled Symmetry and is available in their bookstore, and also from Amazon and multiple other retailers.
Symmetry Blurb
Jessica Cassady is a copyeditor for a small newspaper in Georgia where her husband Lee is a sportswriter. While he’s at a convention in New York, Jess calls his hotel room in the middle of the night and a woman answers the phone. Lee swears things aren’t what they seem, but Jess still kicks him out. While she’s deciding whether or not to believe his story and forgive him, she realizes her hair pulling is more than just a nervous habit and finds out she has a condition called trichotillomania. As if that’s not enough to deal with, her domineering mother shows up for a surprise visit.
Things become even more complicated when she runs into Noah Hamilton, a sweet, unassuming history teacher from her past. Jess’s interest in Noah makes Lee even more determined to win back his wife. Sparks fly as these two polar opposites on the testosterone scale compete for Jess’s affection, and it makes her wonder if she should forgo the beefcake brigade and give the sensitive type a try like her cat and her best friend Deb want her to do Or should she give in to the addictive rush she’s always felt whenever she’s close to Lee?
Will Jess be able to find her emotional center, decide which man is right for her and finally achieve the symmetry she craves in every aspect of her life? It’s enough to make any girl pull out her hair!
One of Joyce’s favourite scenes from Symmetry…
He gave her another of his heart-stopping smiles and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. She was thankful it was only a chaste kiss, because she wasn’t sure she could have resisted him if he’d tried to kiss her for real. Just the brush of his lips on her face was an exquisite agony she knew all too well.
Sensing that she needed to put some space between them, she opened the car door and said, “I’ll see you at work tomorrow, Lee. Don’t forget to ask your mom about letting me come over to see your sister.”
“Okay, I will. Don’t forget I love you, Jess.”
Once she was safely inside the house, she fell onto the couch and listened to the sound of his car pulling away, nearly in a panic at the realization that she was always going to love a man who hurt her on a regular basis and would likely keep doing so, because he did it unintentionally. And the thing that scared her the most was knowing she would probably end up sacrificing everything else that was important to her and let him go on hurting her, because the times in between the pain were the moments she lived for.
Connect with Author Joyce Scarbrough
