Guest Post: Libby Mercer

Earlier this week I reviewed Libby Mercer's novel Unmasking Maya (check out my review here if you missed it). I really enjoyed it and am so happy to have a guest post from the author herself for you all! I think this is a fabulous post and I hope you all like it. Thank you to Libby for writing this post!

Hi Kaley, and thanks so much for having me here today!

A few years ago, back when I was running a little boutique in New York, I had a bizarre glimpse at the life I might have had. To properly explain, I’ll have to rewind a few more years to when I worked as a freelance fashion journalist.

It wasn’t a bad situation. I absolutely loved writing about fashion, but money was tight. I had to supplement my funds with soul-destroying temp jobs, and I was dying for a steady, stable position. The whole time I was a freelance journo, I applied and interviewed for editorial positions in dozens of glossy fashion mags. Well, if you’ve read or seen The Devil Wears Prada, you’ll know how high my goals were as I tried to land “the job a million girls would kill for.”

Then one day, I had an interview at Cosmo that went fabulously well. Days later, the editor called to offer me the position, but informed me it would no longer be an editorial assistant post – it would be an internship. I’d been out of college for over three years by then, and I’d already had three unpaid internships, so (regrettably) I turned her down.

Fast forward to that day in my boutique. I was chatting with a customer who happened to mention that she worked at Cosmo. Turns out, she’d taken the internship I turned down a couple of years back.

It was wild, and it got me thinking: what would my life be like if I’d taken the internship? Why did I choose not to? Sure, the idea of yet another unpaid job was my reason, but I could have gotten by (just) with my freelance work. Cosmo was major. I hadn’t been offered a position (paid or not) with a magazine of its calibre before. In retrospect, it’s kind of strange that I turned it down.

I know a lot of people believe everything happens for a reason. I’m still officially on the fence about this one, but I’m warming to the idea.

Let’s press rewind again, and revisit my life as a freelance journo. While seeking out stable employment and bringing in some income, I was also writing fiction. Not to toot my own horn (well… okay, to toot my own horn) but I did quite well in college. I majored in creative writing, and because my profs loved my stuff, I was sure the world would too. Needless to say, I envisioned a fabulous life just around the corner as a successful author.

Pride cometh before the fall, of course. Immediately after graduation, I started sending out my stories. And I was met with rejection after rejection for year after year. But that didn’t stop me. Even though all those rejections were tough to endure, I never gave up. And I never stopped improving. This is key. And this is what makes me think perhaps everything does happen for a reason. If someone had taken a chance on me way back when, it would have been disastrous. My writing was pretentious and I hadn’t fully grasped story structure. No doubt my book would have flopped.

So even though my twenty-two year old self would have been mortified if she’d known it would take me/her/us so long to reach published author status, if I could travel back in time and tell her one thing, I’d say, “Chin up, babe. There’s a reason for all this rejection. You’re not ready yet.”

What do you think? Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

Author Bio:
Born and raised in the Midwest, Libby Mercer’s adventurous spirit kicked in after graduating from high school, and she’s since lived in Boston, NYC and London. San Francisco is the city she currently calls home. For several years, Libby worked in fashion – first as a journalist and then as a shopkeeper. She also dabbled in design for a while. Even through the crazy fashion years, Libby never let go of her dream of being a published author, and has since developed her signature writing style, crafting quirky chick lit/romance hybrids. Fashioning a Romance was her first published novel, and Unmasking Maya will be her second. Libby has a third novel, The Karmic Connection, scheduled for release in 2013.

Connect with Libby:
Blog
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Buy Unmasking Maya on Amazon!

Just Finished: Unmasking Maya

I really enjoy stories that have a twist or two that are unexpected. The characters in Unmasking Maya had a few secrets and author Libby Mercer revealed them at just the right times. I really enjoyed this novel!

Here's the synopsis:

Defamed, Disgraced and Displaced...
Fresh from a career-killing scandal, New York fashion girl, Maya Kirkwood, arrives in San Francisco to reinvent herself as a fine artist. She's offered the opportunity to create an installation at the Silicon Valley headquarters of a hot new tech company. Fabulous, right?
Not so much.
She can't stand Derek Whitley - wunderkind software genius and CEO of the company. Hot as he may be on the outside, inside the man is a cold, unemotional, robotic type. Way too left-brained for her right-brained self.
As Maya and Derek get to know each other, however, their facades begin to crack. She catches her first glimpse of the man behind the superhuman tech prodigy, and he starts to see her as the woman she used to be. But is this a good thing? Once that last secret is revealed, will it bring them closer together or will it tear them apart?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel. It had some art (I loved that Maya was an artist), some secrets (on all sides), some romance, and some humour. Mix all that together and you get a really great read. I found myself laughing out loud while reading at the gym and I thought the humour really lightened up some of the story. Those secrets I mentioned? Kind of heavy. So the joking around between characters was welcome.

I loved watching the romance begin between Maya and Derek. The butterflies and the "does he or doesn't he" thoughts Maya has - so much fun to read about. I won't go any further than that so use your imagination on how that relationship may or may not turn out :)

Maya was a great character. She was sweet and strong and just a little bit spunky. I really connected with her and I desperately wanted things to work out for her. I was hoping that she kept landing good jobs, like the one at Derek's company, so she could get out of her crummy apartment. I'm also really glad she found a friend at the tech company. Life is so dull without good girlfriends!

Unmasking Maya was a fabulous read. I definitely recommend it for chick lit lovers and I, for one, will be trying to get my hands on Libby Mercer's other novel, Fashioning a Romance. Stay tuned for a lovely guest post from Libby herself coming up on Wednesday!

Happy reading :)