Blog Tour: Marcie by Carly M. Duncan

Author: Carly M. Duncan
Publisher: CreateSpace
Date of publication: may 2013

When Kate's mother, Marcie, dies mysteriously she is forever tormented by the many questions surrounding her mother's death. In Marcie's absence Kate clings to her mother's husbands, searching for solace.

As family secrets are revealed Kate works to build her own life and family, but the mystery of her mother's death sidetracks her until she finally gets the answer she's always hoped for.

Marcie is a very quick read. Coming in at 136 pages, I was able to read it in an afternoon   I was really captivated by the synopsis and I was expecting a good mystery   Unfortunately, I did not get what I was hoping for.  The story was just OK.  I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing really does. The "secrets" weren't all that exciting. I didn't care for the ending at all and felt cheated with the end. My actual reaction, was, "Wait, what?"  

I guess in the end I wanted more from the book. It felt more like an outline and needed more meat to the story.  The synopsis was very misleading.  Instead of a mystery,  I read a rambling story of a girl who is neglected by her parents but ends up with a pretty decent life in the end.  If you go into the book with that in mind, I think you will enjoy it more than I did.

Enjoy this book excerpt:

A call in the middle of the night can never bear good news. In fact, the sound of each ring sends a chill through me. Even the tiny hairs on my arm stand on edge.

A glance at the clock tells me two things; either there is an emergency, or the neighborhood middle school kids are having a prank hay day. The frequency of the latter enables me to calmly and patiently let the phone continue to ring a few more times.

I don’t have an answering machine, and there’s no reason I wouldn’t be home (asleep) at this hour, so whoever is dialing knows I’ll answer as long as they challenge me with the annoyance of each ring. I pretend that I’m dreaming, but by the seventh ring I can’t ignore reality. There is, after all, the small possibility that the call could be something important. I answer.

It’s my stepbrother, Terry, and there isn’t a greeting at all. Just, “Something’s happened to Marcie. I just got a call from Guam. Get to my house as soon as possible.”

Terry is six years older than I and is someone who entered my life when I was five years old. He is his father, Beau’s, clone in every way a son can and should be. He’s handsome, loud, bossy and, though I sense a lot of anger from the depths inside of him, he’s always laughing.

He lives nearby with his mother, so we see him often and he’s another protective, embarrassing older brother I could’ve done without. I imagine if I were to enter into a family that wasn’t my own, I might do so gradually and with care, but Terry immediately jumped into his role as big brother and was happy not only to have a brother to team up with, but a little sister to antagonize as well.

I’m nineteen and my brothers still insist on making fun of me. I figured it would die down once I exited junior high, then thought it would lose its charm once I turned eighteen, but it happens to be our family’s form of entertainment, so I laugh. I try to get my share of punches in on them. I remember that they jest out of love, and convince my normally overly sensitive side to giggle with them on occasion.

I am the perfect little sister because I make the jokes easy to come by (or perhaps simply being a little sister allows the jokes to flow freely.) Like when I enter the living room, ready for a date, and my big brothers say to me, “You’re not honestly going out like that, are you?!” My super jock-y, rule-the-school brothers are used to a hotter level of date, I guess. 

About the author:

Carly M. Duncan is a television producer by day and a writer whenever there is time. She loves baking, scripted television and is working on easing her addiction to her too-smart-phone. She lives with her husband, two daughters and beloved Westie in Brooklyn, New York.

Pay Carly a visit at her website at www.carlymduncan.com.