A Jigsaw Life

By Angela Carlton

A Jigsaw Life is a series of short stories that are set in the deep South surrounding a woman named Violet, a mother who suffers from bipolar episodes and severe depression. Lilly, the oldest daughter, will use her beauty and charm to maneuver through a small Georgia town but this ultimately sets her up for tragedy in the end. Meanwhile, the youngest girl in the family, named Jane, must work her way out of the heavy cobwebs of dysfunction. As a further matter, Violet and Jane are left struggling to overcome these hardships in order to prosper or grow.

 

This is a collection of short southern stories that deal with flawed, and profound relationships, from the beginning with Jane, the child who must use her strength and creative energy to endure life with an unstable mother, and later she must learn to rise above her own father’s addiction. In other stories, as Jane grows into adulthood her romantic relationships are tested when boundaries are crossed and broken once more, wreaking havoc on the weak.

 

Will she rise or will she fall? Can Jane pick up the jigsaw pieces of a shattered life and find her way back home again?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638293422

Angela Carlton

Angela Carlton is a Georgia native. Her fiction has been published in EWR, everyday fiction, Pedestal magazines, Long story short, High noon, 50-word stories and Friday flash fiction. In addition, she won the reader’s choice award with Pedestal magazine in 2004. When she was a child, she wrote a book called The Magic Fish and tucked it away in a box for safekeeping.

Book preview

A Jigsaw Life

A Jigsaw Life debuts this year with Southern stories packing universal appeal: a severely depressed mother, a tragically beautiful sister, and another daughter who manages to fly above it all, circling, circling till she makes her way back home. For Carlton, home is where the creative magic happens with a tender ferocity that belies a burning need to share stories stitched into a crazy quilt of love and sorrow. Don’t miss her first book. It surely won’t be her last, and that’s a rich promise indeed for readers everywhere.

– Kathy Des Jardins, author of Mama Tried.

Angela’s writing has the incredible ability to transport you into the minds of her characters. You are able to share their thoughts and feelings by the way she weaves their stories through her use of emotion and imagery. You are drawn into her writing with the desire to read more!

–Kathleen Siekman is a children’s book author based out of Charlotte, NC with her two debut books Ew, Goo! and Belle Meets Henry. For more information about Kathleen, please visit

https://www.foxpointepublishing.com/author-kathleen-siekman

or email her at [e-mail]

Angela Carlton has a lovely way with words. She guides the reader through her stories with a gentle hand, yet reveals with authenticity all the pain and anguish her characters experience through specific details. From the Lost Ones, she writes, Jane´s barely eleven when she takes her first sip of liquor. She's found the hidden stash that her mother often adds to her coffee between shifts.

– Gay Degani, Pomegranate Stories, Eight stories about mothers.

Rattle of Want, Full-length collection of short stories and flash fiction

What Came Before, Suspense novel

Angela Carlton’s strengths – her empathy for her characters, her ability to put the reader in the moment, are on display here in spades. Her writing is sharp, keen with edges that can cut and her insights into these lives are deep and smart. She is a writer to watch. She is just getting started and I eagerly look forward to future books.

– Corey Mesler, author of Memphis Movie and The Diminishment of Charlie Cain.

About the Author

Angela Carlton is a Georgia native. Her fiction has been published in EWR, everyday fiction, Pedestal magazines, Long story short, High noon, 50-word stories and Friday flash fiction. In addition, she won the reader’s choice award with Pedestal magazine in 2004. When she was a child, she wrote a book called The Magic Fish and tucked it away in a box for safekeeping.

Dedication

For my mother and father, who gave me the golden ticket to board this marvelous, mystical, thing called life.

Copyright Information ©

Angela Carlton 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Carlton, Angela

A Jigsaw Life

ISBN 9781638293415 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781638293422 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022918704

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street,33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

With deep gratitude and love for my entire family and friends, especially all the strong, beautiful women who have been a guiding force in my life.