King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: A World I Never Made

author: James Lepore

pages: 262

genre: mystery, suspense

published: 2009

first line: Dad, I don't owe you or anybody an explanation, but I think you'll appreciate the irony of a suicide note coming from a person who has abhorred tradition all of her life.


rated: 4 out of 5





In A World I Never Made, American Pat Nolan is called to Paris to claim the body of his daughter Megan. Apparently Megan was suffering from cancer and commited suicide.
Megan had been traveling the world working as a freelance journalist for many years and Pat went for long stretches of time without seeing her. Pat raised Megan alone because her mother died during childbirth.
However, when Pat sees the body, he knows right away it is not his daughter. For some reason Megan faked her death and Pat is trying to find out why she did it and where she is now.

Pat looked into Annabella Jeritza's eyes and then down at his hands. He had used these hands to do and fix many things. Move the earth with a giant machine, tear apart and rebuild a car engine, make a soda box wagon for Megan. He sometimes thought that whatever he was good for in life was contained in his hands. But now he had entered the territory of the broken heart, which hands could not repair.

With the help of a beautiful Parisian detective Catherine Laurence, Pat goes on a hunt to find his daughter. Slowly but surely, startling secrets are revealed about Megans life.


As the book goes on you get glimpses into Megans life. She met a Saudi businessman named Abdel Lahani and began to have an affair with him. What Megan doesn't realize is the danger she has put herself into because of her connection to Abdel.




I really enjoyed A World I Never Made. There were alot of plot twists and turns. I liked Pat's chracter and I was quickly drawn into the story.

If you're in the mood for a suspenseful story with interesting characters, pick this one up.


Special thanks to Lisa at TLC Booktours




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Now onto author James Lepore's guest post.




Naida,


You have kindly said I could feel free to post whatever I like, so here goes.

“When women stop reading, the novel well be dead.” Ian McEwan, novelist.

I have been thinking lately about the fact that women make up 70% of the fiction readers in the world and wondering what effect this will have on me and the career I would like to have as a novelist. Reasons for the women-read-more-fiction phenomenon abound: women have more advanced mirror neurons (some kind of nerve endings behind the eyes), which make them more empathetic; women are genetically engineered to be more in touch with their own emotions and therefore are more willing to make the emotional commitment required to engage with other people, in the real as well as the fictional world; girls do better at reading/writing assignments in school because they are more patient and this carries over into adulthood. Whatever the reason, it’s a hard fact that women read much more fiction than men.


What does this mean for me, a male novelist? Can I compete with the many extremely popular female writers out there? I don’t know. I take heart from the fact that of the twenty or so good reviews of A World I Never Made, ninety percent are by women. One or two have commented on the well-drawn female characters in the novel. (There are two, Megan Nolan, the beautiful, cynical young woman who fakes her suicide because she is on the run from some very bad people; and Catherine Laurence, a French detective who shakes off her sadness to help Megan’s father, Pat, track her down). We all have traits or “sides,” as they say, that are thought more traditionally to belong to the opposite sex. Maybe I have a feminine side that gives me insight into women, or at least helps me describe the workings of their hearts with some credibility. Or maybe it’s because there came a point in my life when, after much resistance— dumb guy that I was—I finally began to grapple with, rather than avoid, my own feelings.


I don’t know the answer. I do know that, as a man, I like action as a means of resolving problems. I do not see the point of dithering when a decision has to be made. However, I understand that it is the heart that has to be looked to—and listened to—when deciding what action to take. Megan Nolan had a huge heart-driven reason for doing what she did, as did Pat and Catherine. To me, listening to the heart is a human thing, not a gender thing. It is the first thing we have to learn how to do in order to grow as human beings. And I hope this idea—how crucial it is that we listen to our hearts—is what people—men and women—take away from A World I Never Made, and anything else I am fortunate enough to get into print in the future.




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Thank you Mr. Lepore for stopping by my blog today!
I totally agree when you say: 'listening to the heart is a human thing, not a gender thing'




About the author:


Jim Lepore practiced law (civil trial work) in New Jersey for over twenty years and then sold the practice so he could write and take pictures full time. Some of his photography can be seen at nakedeyeimages.com.