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Half-Blown Rose: A Novel Audiobook
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An irresistible story of a woman remaking her life after her husband’s betrayal leads to a year of travel, art, and passion in Paris, from the award-winning author of This Close to Okay.
Vincent, having grown up as the privileged daughter of artists, has a lovely life in many ways. At forty-four, she enjoys strolling the streets of Paris and teaching at the modern art museum; she has a vibrant group of friends; and she’s even caught the eye of a young, charismatic man named Loup. But Vincent is also in Paris to escape a painful betrayal: her husband, Cillian, has published a bestselling book divulging secrets about their marriage and his own past, hinting that when he was a teenager, he may have had a child with a young woman back in Dublin—before he moved to California and never returned.
Now estranged from her husband, Vincent has agreed to see Cillian again at their son’s wedding the following summer, but Loup introduces new complications. Soon they begin an intense affair, and somewhere between dinners made together, cigarettes smoked in the moonlight, hazy evenings in nightclubs, and long, starry walks along the Seine, Vincent feels herself loosening and blossoming.
In a journey that is both transportive and intimate, Half-Blown Rose traverses Paris, art, travel, liminal spaces, and the messy complexities of relationships and romance, with excerpts from Cillian’s novel, playlists, and journal entries woven throughout. As Cillian does all he can to win her back, Vincent must decide what she wants . . . and who she will be.
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"With Half-Blown Rose, Leesa Cross-Smith has given us a brilliant, sexy, funny masterpiece. Reading her stunning prose is a full-blown experience. Within the deeply intimate worlds she conjures, she captures love, lust, and longing with such emotional intricacy and verve, I’m fairly certain I read this entire book with my hand pressed against my heart.” —Deesha Philyaw, author of National Book Award 2020 finalist The Secret Lives of Church Ladies"
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Leesa Cross-Smith’s richly vivid prose pulls you in and transports you to Paris. Sharp-edged and sexy, Half-Blown Rose is an utterly intoxicating story of love, betrayal, and loyalty.” —Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Malibu Rising
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By far the most exhilarating and sexy American-in-Paris story I’ve ever read. Leesa Cross-Smith’s Half-Blown Rose is smart, intriguing, and pure delight.” —Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers
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Leesa Cross-Smith is a consummate storyteller.
— Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author -
This Close to Okay hits the ground running. Cross-Smith writes tenderly about the trial and error of intimacy and draws you in with enormous warmth and control.
— Raven Leilani, New York Times bestselling author of Luster -
Leesa Cross-Smith writes the way many people wish they could: ferociously, tenderly, and with a tremendous amount of heart.
— Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things (on So We Can Glow) -
Leesa Cross-Smith has written a book to help us through these bleak and confusing times. This Close to Okay is a story of loneliness and wrenching loss, perfectly counterbalanced by the compassion of strangers and the love of family. This book is a hand-knitted sweater in the middle of a cold winter night.
— Bryn Greenwood, New York Times bestselling author of The Reckless Oath We Made -
This Close to Okay is the kind of novel that allows the reader to slip into a world rich with both comforts and troubles. The story of Emmett and Tallie is delicious, romantic, cozy, and satisfying, and it's also mysterious, unstable, and loaded with loss. This book opens up hard emotions and truths, but it also offers moments of relief and attention to the sustaining pleasures of life.
— Naima Coster, New York Times bestselling author of What's Mine and Yours -
Leesa Cross-Smith is a wonderful storyteller.
— Alexia Arthurs, award-winning author of How to Love a Jamaican -
Leesa Cross-Smith is some sort of sorceress.
— Rion Amilcar Scott, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of Insurrections and The World Doesn't Require You
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About Leesa Cross-Smith
Leesa Cross-Smith is a homemaker and the author of Every Kiss A War and Whiskey & Ribbons. She lives in Kentucky with her husband and children.
About the Narrators
Tim Campbell, winner of AudioFile Earphones Awards, is a narrator and actor based in Los Angeles, California. He studied at the University of California and earned a BA in music and theater and a certification from the prestigious Great Books program at Pepperdine University, where he graduated magna cum laude. He is also a classically trained singer and performs regularly with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Los Angeles Opera Chorus, as well as on studio soundtracks for film and television.
Christine Lakin is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and acclaimed television actress, best known for her roles as Alicia “Al” Lambert on the hit family comedy Step by Step and as Joan of Arc on Showtime’s Reefer Madness.