On Writing: Lucille Guarino

As far back as I can remember, I was a hobbyist writer. Way longer than I was an avid reader. I loved coming up with stories and experiencing a whole gamut of living through reading. But the genre that always seemed to stay with me—long after I finished a book—were the ones where the protagonists overcame difficulties and hardships. The outsider, the resistor, the sufferer. The disheartened, and the griever. Whatever the struggle or sacrifice, I will advocate for my characters so that they can become champions in their own story. For that reason, I am more of a character-driven story writer.

A dream inspired Elizabeth’s Mountain, which explores enduring relationships through a lens of 1950s American historical and contemporary romance. I wrote between three and six hours daily until its completion one year later. This multigenerational romance novel will appeal to those drawn to stories that cross time periods and highlight life’s and love’s complexities.

Elizabeth is ninety, living in the Blue Ridge Mountains, when she tells her story—spirited and wise. Her thirty-four-year-old granddaughter, Amanda, is selfless but resolute in her goals. Joe, though slightly wounded, remains reliable and conscientious. Jesse is impulsive and driven. Each one of them has to navigate complicated situations and readers will follow their journey and thought process. The best compliment I receive is when readers tell me that when they turned the last page, they said they were really going to miss these folks.

My personal experiences of making lifelong friends at a major New Jersey law firm inspired the Lunch Tales series. Lunch time offered us a casual meeting ground and a place where we could come together and vent or unwind. It was our favorite time of the day. We called it lunch therapy. Originally, I titled my novel simply Lunch Tales, which was about four women, but when I read through my first draft, I realized the women needed a lot more space and therefore their own books, specifically Suellen and Teagan, as their stories were so compelling and inspirational. It took me several years to streamline and rework the Lunch Tales books and they developed in ways I never imagined at the start.

From the opening scene of a roller coaster ride to the vulnerability of a breast cancer diagnosis, wit and introspection mark Suellen’s inner dialogue that has readers rooting for a flawed, yet fiercely relatable heroine until the very end. Lunch Tales: Suellen is about survival—emotional, physical, and relational. At the end of the day, it is a love story. Whatever the obstacle, true love finds a way, even if we sometimes have to let go or give it room. Suellen would tell you, “You hand it all over to fate with its cruel sense of humor and equally astonishing grace.”

Gripped by trauma and grief of suddenly becoming a single parent, Teagan leans heavily on her friends and lively Irish family for support. Lunch Tales: Teagan is a heart-tugging novel about second chances, unveiling a tale of love and friendship that proves the courage to move forward springs from those who have your back. Replete with emotional depth, family dynamics, and themes of courage, the Lunch Tales series explores the healing power of friendship and connection, balancing between romance and the messiness of real life.

I bring realistic romance in my Lunch Tales books, but it is the B stories that resonate strongly with my readers—issues close to many family’s hearts—a life-changing medical diagnosis, challenges of infertility, and joys of adoption. When readers tell me, “You wrote these books just for me!” I tell them, “Yes, I did.”

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An Amazon bestseller for what she considers her debut, ELIZABETH’S MOUNTAIN, and a multi award-winning author of three novels, Lucille Guarino loves emotion-heavy stories with resilient female characters who are as realistic as they are inspiring. She holds the record in her family for reading the most books, writing the most stories, and giving them some of the funniest fall fails. Having lived most of her life in northern New Jersey, she now lives in Lexington, South Carolina, with her husband and close to her two daughters and grandchildren. She delights in embarrassing her kids . . . and now her grandkids. She loves road trips, touring the countryside, and talking to the locals. If there was ever any doubt about her fear of heights, standing before the Grand Canyon clinched it.

LUNCH TALES: SUELLEN  was the Grand Prize winner in A Woman’s Write 2023 writing competition.

Find out more about Lucille on her website https://www.lucilleguarino.com/

 LUNCH TALES: SUELLEN

“A tender love story sprinkled with a bit of angst. Slip it into your beach bag and enjoy.” –Linda Rosen, author of The Emerald Necklace

Old scars. New love?

Suellen Atkins’ trust fund has given her everything except love. As the youngest attorney in a major law firm, her life is filled with reckless spending and meaningless flings. But when she dumps her latest wild guy, he doesn’t leave quietly.

Unable to shake the feeling she’s being watched, Suellen runs into an old classmate at a colleague’s farewell. Adam Isaacson is one of the good guys — and that might be more scary than her stalker ex. With the echoes of her parents’ tumultuous marriage still ringing in her ears, Suellen can’t imagine anything this promising.

When a shock medical diagnosis complicates things, her proclivity for self-sabotage goes into overdrive. As life turns upside down, her lunch friends at the law firm become a lifeline in the storm. But even they, with all their good intentions and well-meaning advice, can’t save Suellen from herself. Nor can the man who’s fallen in love with her. Only she can do that.

 

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LUNCH TALES: TEAGAN

“In Lunch Tales: Teagan, Guarino dazzles—unveiling a tale of love and friendship that proves the courage to move forward springs from those who have your back.” —Cam Torrens, author of the Tyler Zahn suspense novels

Can losing your future give the past a second chance?

Pushing her son’s stroller on a summer day, thirty-six-year-old Teagan Quinn has no reason to think a big change is looming—the kind that happens in a mind-blowing instant. Nothing could prepare her for a shocking heartbreak.

Gripped by the trauma and grief of suddenly becoming a single parent, Teagan leans heavily on her lunch friends and lively Irish family for support. But when something ends, something usually begins—and Officer Luke Pisani walks back into Teagan’s life. Not just any old friend, he was her idealistic first. The man who got away.

As the grieving months go by, Luke is there at every turn, and gradually, old attraction reignites. But as ambivalent feelings challenge Teagan’s new beginning, a series of hurtful anonymous notes arrive, each angrier than the one before it.

With grit and urgency, Teagan must summon her inner sleuth before the letters poison one of the best things that could happen to her—learning to love again.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing