Hi All,
Sorry I have been so absent recently. But I have just returned from South Africa where I enjoyed an amazing holiday with my husband and two sons. It was a much-needed summer break!
I want to tell you what I have been up to since my return. Before I went on holiday I sent off There Is Always More To Say to Readers’ Favorite which is the fastest growing book review and award contest site on the Internet.
And what an experience! I couldn’t have imagined such a great response from some of the most prolific and respected book reviewers. And I couldn’t have asked for a more positive response. I am absolutely delighted to be able to tell you that I have been awarded a couple of five-star reviews.
Verified Readers’ Favorite Sticker!
Below is some of the feedback I received.
“Thirty years is a long time for passion to smolder and for love to grow. Thirty years is the true test of time in this strangely intriguing story about two young lovers who allow themselves to part ways in the name of responsibility. Their friendship comes first, above private thoughts and personal desire. They believe their fate is to belong to other partners and in distant parts of the world. Although they begin their journey in a small London cafe, they follow destiny into separate lives. “The Soho Cafe was full of both character and characters.” These characters remain in their memories and not far from their actual existence. As former friends grow closer with distance, a true love story unfolds.
Lynda Young Spiro has created a unique plot and has actually invented a different form of storytelling in There is Always More to Say. I believe that the reader will relate to the personal nature of the story, written almost as a conversation between the narrator and the character she fell in love with thirty years before. Doesn’t everyone have a secret romance lurking in the shadows? Initially I was put off by the use of past perfect verb tense, but the flow of this word pattern became more realistic as the story progressed. The repetition of words and thoughts aptly imitate the roving of the human mind. I foresee Spiro’s novel will be in the hands of every female beachgoer this summer as an easy read.” – Lisa McCombs“A thirty-year friendship and intimate relationship, with just a few meetings during this span of time, is the focus of Lynda Young Spiro’s novel, There Is Always More to Say. The fifty-five year old narrator reflects upon the relationship with her life-long companion. They met at the Soho Cafe in London in 1984. Usually, they worked on different shifts, but that day she traded shifts with another staff member and they met. There was an immediate and intense connection between the young woman from London and the young person from Malibu, California. Soon, her new friend returns to California. Their lives go on, as each marries, they parent children and pursue their careers. The intensity never leaves, though face-to-face meetings are rare. Letters, emails and eventually Skype become a familiar part of the relationship. The book is written in freestyle journal-writing style. The narrator explores the details of meetings and communications, as well as her emotional reactions, to this long-term relationship. There is much movement between the past and the present; many of her reflections focus on how their choices have affected their lives. One technique that Lynda Young Spiro has utilized is quotations relating to each chapter. Each chapter begins and ends with a quotation; this helps to clarify the main focus of the specific journal entry. One quotation sums up the book particularly well. Paulo Coelho wrote: “Really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.”” – Deborah Lloyd
“There Is Always More To Say: A Never-Ending Story About An Everlasting Friendship by Lynda Young Spiro is the story of a person who understood multiple levels of love, affection, and friendship with the people around her. The narrative style is somewhat unique because not many writers are brave enough to dabble with it. This novel is simply more than a love story. It is a story of a woman’s journey when she discovers her life and finds that love has so many shades. The novel takes place in 1984 when the two protagonists meet, fall in love, and commit to each other. We see them move forward with their lives, make new friends, and understand each other on a level that no one else can reach. This is a story of true, unconditional love that defies time and distance. The narrative style is good; I liked the fact that the main protagonist of the novel was talking directly to readers. It is candid and very intriguing. She did not portray a lovey-dovey image of love; it was rather accurate to real life. Love is complicated because there are all kinds of love and they were portrayed beautifully in this novel. Also, I would like to comment on the length of the novel: a novel does not need to be lengthy to be good. It is the way it is portrayed and Lynda Young Spiro portrayed her thoughts so well. There Is Always More To Say is a good complicated tale that makes you want to know more! I connected with it very easily and I loved it, which is what matters the most.” – Rabia Tanveer
“There Is Always More To Say is a literary fiction romance written by Lynda Young Spiro. The narrator always felt that her life had been segmented into two distinct lives. There was the one before her father died and the one after. Her early career efforts in business administration and the scare over her father’s cancer led her to quit her job with the travel agency and travel to Africa. When she returned to London, she knew she had to find a job quickly so she could continue to live in the moment as she had been doing. She ended up working in The Soho Cafe. While the work was routine, she loved the atmosphere and the clientele. And when she exchanged shifts with another worker, she met someone who would change her life forever. They instantly knew there was a reason they had met, that they belonged together, and so it went quite happily until that phase of her life was nearing its end. Her father’s cancer had returned and he was dying, and her lover’s partner came to London with a dutyfree ring. Lynda Young Spiro’s literary fiction romance, There Is Always More To Say, is an experiential journey into the heart and musings of a middleaged Londoner whose secret friendship with a person living in Los Angeles has continued on for thirty years and counting. Both are married, with children of their own and lives quite distinct from each other, and yet the time they spend together feels as if they had never left each other’s side. There Is Always More to Say is not your typical contemporary romance. It’s more akin to a collection of pensees, musings, dreamlike interludes as the narrator communes in her consciousness with her absent friend and shares this somnambulistic state with her readers. Spiro’s writing is shares this somnambulistic state with her readers. Spiro’s writing is predominantly stream of consciousness, her sentences often a series of short and staccato fragments, echoing her thoughts as they arrive, linger momentarily, and give way to their successors. The author uses duplication frequently in her work, which seems to echo the ceaseless circles her narrator follows to those seminal moments in her life, such as that cafe and the change of shifts — and lives. Spiro builds a dreamlike, yet tense atmosphere, an atmosphere of expectation overshadowed at times by regret and intensive introspection. While discomforting and disquieting at times, There Is Always More To Say is an original and compelling tale of a friendship spanning decades.” – Jack Magnus
“Lynda Young Spiro proves that when you are talking to someone you love, “There Is Always More to Say”. A fifty-five year old woman writes a story of love and profound enduring friendship. It is a journal of muddled thoughts about two lives traveling down parallel paths. Two people together, yet separate. Two entangled hearts forever bonded and broken. A tale of truth and of secrets. It is a reflection, a chronicle of wounded young love, and scarred aged companions. It is about life before and life after. Sounds confusing, but isn’t life an adventure of ups and downs, beginnings and endings, awkward silence, loud expressions, and all wrapped up in an endless conversation? Lynda Young Spiro writes a one of a kind story in “There is Always More to Say”. Spiro pens an ambiguous characterization; the main characters are not given any names. Written in first person, the short story takes you inside the head of the female narrator. Her expressions are recollected memories, some scattered, others finite and unforgettable. The narrative is chronicled as diary entries traversing a thirty-year time span. Like plotting out a timeline, the narrator tries to get a bearing on the present, while digging up memories of the past. Repetitive ramblings overlap the same points of time, like a cycle of rehearsed jumbled thoughts as she retraces her life. These reiterations can be frustrating for the reader. However, each retelling leaks out a little more information never told before. It is a poignant example of the chaos that resides within the soul of a woman; therefore, the confusion is a depiction of genuine reality. The narrative poses many questions, questions with no concrete answers. This is true to life as well. For me, I was the most concrete answers. This is true to life as well. For me, I was the most inspired by the quotes included within this spiraling drama. They were diamonds in the rough, bringing insightful relevance to the story.” – Cheryl E. Rodriguez
There have been more reviews coming in and the full list can be seen directly on the Readers’ Favourite page in the link below:
https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/there-is-always-more-to-say
At this point I should really like to thank my family and friends for their fantastic support. Seriously without you lot I don’t know how I would be able to cope in this new and unknown territory of self-publishing. Thank you all.
Of course, for those who still haven’t yet had a chance to purchase their copy, There Is Always More To Say is available on Amazon here.
Lynda x
Lynda lives in London. She is a mixed media artist and There Is Always More To Say is her first novel.