A Negotiation of Wounds by Michael Stephenson
Love and Happiness once dwelled together in homes throughout this world. But now, it seems as if more homes have come to marry the thoughts of Love and Divorce. In A Negotiation Of Wounds, the battle between the two paradigms finds it’s way into the public eye.
When Amanda Matthews finds her film producer husband Reed Matthews having an affair, she moves swiftly to file for divorce. But when, she and her husband attain the services of two cutthroat lawyers in the city of LA, they find themselves pushed farther into a world of deception than they dared go. Now they must wade through the dangerous and often hostile land of divorce, without losing themselves in the process.
A sexy, visceral, fast-paced ride in the vein of TV shows like Scandal and The Good Wife, A Negotiation of Wounds takes you on a journey through fame, pain, rejection, eroticism, self-discovery and love as one couple seeks to severe the ties that bind.
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About the author:
He tends to dislike taking pictures but enjoys TV and film just as much as books. He can be found on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6653829.Michael_Stephenson . He also runs a Goodreads group entitled: Shows similar to Breaking Bad, Scandal and other Popular shows.
What inspired you to write your book?
Though over half of all marriages end in divorce, very little fiction exists exploring the ups and downs of the process, and even less work delves into the sometimes underhanded tactics used by divorce lawyers. I looked to change that. In writing this book, I sought to not only deal with the sneaky and sometimes underhanded tactics used in divorce proceedings, but to tell a contemporary romance in a unique way. Though it is romance, it doesn’t unfold the way most expect it to, instead traversing the often complicated emotional web that love can entangle us in.
Here is a short sample from the book:
Sitting in a white Lamborghini at a stop sign, Amanda Matthews rifled through her purse. The murmur of the engine in the background, she gave no thought to anything outside of her current mind.
“Damn it! Where is it!” she yelled into her purse. With each second gone by, she grew more and more frustrated. She was sure that what she was looking for was in her purse but yet was unable to find it. Even more aggravating was how her diamond wedding ring continually caught on the inner-lining of the purse as her hands fumbled around within its walls. The gaudy ring had always been too large for her to do anything with. Normally she wore her gold band. But during important occasions she deemed it necessary to wear the haute piece of jewelry.
“Shit!” she exclaimed, finally giving up her search. She sat back up in her seat and looked down the residential street. Knowing she had to go back home, she shifted the car back into drive and made a u-turn.
Five minutes it took for her to arrive back at the gate into her home. Thirty seconds it took for her to drive up the driveway and notice another car sitting in the front of the house that hadn’t been there twenty minutes ago when she left. It took her another thirty seconds to get from her car to the house door and enter her lovely mansion. One minute it took for her to rummage through a few downstairs rooms before remembering what she was looking for, she had left in her bedroom. Another minute it took for her to walk up the stairs and to her bedroom. One second it took for her to see her husband bouncing atop another woman and realize that her life had changed in an instant.
In that one second, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Her brain began to work faster than it ever had before. What was she to do? How was she to react to this… in the moment? Was she to yell and scream at the raw, visceral proof of her husband’s infidelity? Was she to go on the attack and run to fight off the harlot who dared to sully her marital bed? Was she supposed to have a strong reaction at all? Amanda couldn’t think. Instead of reacting, she quietly left the room and walked down the hall in a catatonic state.
Half-way down the hall, she heard the hurried footsteps of her husband running after her.
“Honey, honey… let me explain, OK? Let me explain. It wasn’t what…” he said. The rest of his speech, to her, was inaudible as sound seemed to slowly fade. He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her toward him, only to see the look of shock on her face. She couldn’t feel his hands. The warmth that used to occupy them had vanished; they didn’t feel cold either. They were ineffective in every way.
His lips moved, as he shook her back and forth. Neither had any effect on her; neither held her attention. She knew what was happening. It had only ever happened twice in her life: once during her days as a model when she hadn’t eaten anything in thirteen days so she could lose ten pounds before a runway show; the other time, occurred when she lost her first child—a late-in-term miscarriage they never talked about. The feeling she had was that of her fainting.
Michael Stephenson (0101-01-01T00:00:00 00:00). A Negotiation of Wounds (Kindle Locations 32-55). Kindle Edition.
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