What is Magnetic by Carissa Miller (Giveaway and a Talk with the Author)

Today I’m going to introduce you to Magnetic by Carissa Miller. The book is inspired by the author’s real life, and more specifically the time her own mother was almost murdered. I’ve asked Carissa whether writing this story had been therapeutic for her and you’ll be able to read her reply in this post. But first: a little bit about the book.

Publication date: September 10, 2017

Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

Blurb:

When Elle Christiansen’s rebellion leads to her father’s expulsion from a parsonage in small-town Ohio, the forlorn pair is forced to move to Oklahoma to live with an aunt neither of them has ever met. Here she encounters her aunt’s neighbor—Maverick Mason, the quietly confident son of a wealthy oil tycoon who infuriates her as much as he inexplicably draws her in…

Maverick slowly gains Elle’s trust and coaxes her out from the seemingly impenetrable walls of self-protection she erected around her heart when her mother was murdered. He convinces Elle to confide the secrets of her tortured past: that she saw her mother’s murder before it took place, and she was the one who found her, bleeding to death at the end of a lonely dirt road. Together the unlikely pair begins to unlock the secrets of not only Elle’s sordid past, but her mother’s and grandmother’s as well, to uncover decades of greed, corporate corruption, lies, and murder. Quickly, the sobering realization hits: if they do not solve her mother’s murder, Elle will undoubtedly suffer the same fate. As she continues her journey toward truth alongside the boy she is magnetically drawn to in a way both frightening and uncontrollable, Elle finds the road she is most afraid of going down—that one lane dirt road where her mother was murdered—just might be the only place she can truly find redemption.

Where you can buy the book:

• Amazon US (link takes you straight to the book)

Want to win a $25 Amazon gift card? Enter the giveaway!

Add Magnetic to your Goodreads reading list (link takes you straight to the book)

Living with unsolved violent crime: can writing be therapeutic?

Writing can be therapeutic. I can testify to the validity of this statement because I, myself, have lived it. When I was thirty-five years old, the exact age that my mother was when she was almost murdered, my son stepped off the bus with a look of total conflict on his face. He was ten years old, the exact age I was when a man hid in the back of my mother’s minivan with a knife, stabbed her repeatedly, attempted to rape her and murder her, then left her to die, naked and bleeding to death, on the side of a road in McAlester, Oklahoma. In that moment, seeing my son struggle with just a normal, routine day at school, a million emotions flooded my heart and soul. I was forced to face the struggle that I had run from my whole life—the reality of how painful it was to grow up with an unsolved violent crime. You see, in that moment—looking at my son—I realized that when I was his age, I was dealing with murder and violence and the reality that a man who tried to murder my mother was still on the loose, with my picture and address. And I never truly dealt with that until I sat down and wrote Magnetic. In writing Magnetic, I faced the pain, isolation, fear, and anger I felt as a child who was forced to deal with unsolved violent crime. I poured myself into writing the characters and as I did, I poured out my pain, and I healed. During writing, I was able to forgive the man who tried to murder my mom.

So yes, writing can be therapeutic. I know that from experience. To anyone who has pain they have not dealt with, I highly recommend writing to help find resolution.

About Carissa:

Carissa Miller writes a lifestyle and design blog called CC and Mike, where she and her husband blog about their experiences designing, building, and flipping houses in the Midwest. She was inspired to write her debut novel – Magnetic, because of her firsthand experience living with the trauma of an unsolved violent crime, her mother’s attempted murder. When she’s not writing, blogging, or designing, Carissa loves Oklahoma summers on the lake with her husband and three children, going to Oklahoma State sporting events and cheering on the Cowboys, and traveling cross country with her family in the RV she and her husband renovated. Carissa laughs loudly, loves with her whole heart, tells it how it is to a fault, and enjoys living life to the fullest, every moment of every day.

Find her here:

• Blog
• Goodreads
• Facebook
• Twitter (@ccandmike)