The Blurb:
For the first time in nearly thirty years of marriage, Art McElroy Sr. buys his headstrong, disapproving wife a dozen yellow roses. Hours later he discovers her lifeless body seated on the toilet. Mae Rose McElroy's sudden death leaves a void in her family and in the entire Midwestern farming community of Fairview. It's a void Mae Rose will attempt to fill, herself, from the hereafter by meddling directly in earthly affairs.
Mae Rose's meddling leads to her spiritual expulsion from heaven, and she winds up in the body of Mary Lee Broadmoor (Scary Mary), a crusty writer and director of exquisite horror movies. Mary Lee refuses to succumb to stage-4 pancreatic cancer until she gets one final shot at an elusive Oscar. Like Mae Rose, who argues with God for a return to earth, Mary Lee pleads, from her Hollywood deathbed, for more time to complete her work, as her hospice nurse, Gertie Morgan, looks on.
The two women's spirits work together, and Mae Rose provides her host with a new script idea: a love story, based on her life! The script earns Mary Lee her coveted Academy Award, but the movie's release shocks and disturbs Mae Rose's family. They set out to find, and confront, the woman who has somehow co-opted, and publicly revealed, their personal tragedy.
Along the way, new love emerges as the reader meets a caste of crazy, eccentric, but highly memorable characters. "Death by Roses" suggests that relationships don't end at death, but continue until their ultimate purpose is achieved. The universe has every resource at its disposal to get the job done. It also has an amazing sense of humor.
Writer was generously provided with ARC in exchange for my honest
review. This wasn’t the typical smutty romance I usually read, but the
plot was really intriguing!
The protagonist, Mae Rose, has met her end on the seat of her commode…a fact I came to appreciate even more the more I got to know her character. As deaths ago, that's definitely not the way anyone wants to go out.
Mae Rose is meddlesome, sharp-tongued, and a bit annoying, even after death. If I’m being honest, she’s not my favorite character of the book going in, but I like that she was never insisted upon as such. She had one job: don’t interfere in the lives of the living. Can she do that? Absolutely not. So she gets the boot back to the realm of the living.
Now she must share the body of another woman, Mary Lee, a director who just wants another shot at recognition before she succumbs to her own health issues. The two women have to work together to help Mary Lee realize her vision and get that Oscar.
For the record, if I die, someone help me get a RITA?
The storyline is pretty golden, most of the time. It’s funny, it’s dramatic, sometimes a bit of both. I liked the morbidity of the circumstances, just sort of hanging over everything like a giant ironic rain cloud. After a while I started to read this almost in the same tone as Steel Magnolias. My mind made Mae Rose into Ouiser. And then I really started to like her.
Probst gives a lot of attention to each of her characters, which is great but it can get overwhelming at times. POV transitions between several characters, which was necessary for this sort of plot, but I think it could have been scaled back a bit. Occasionally got confused between Mary Lee and Mae Rose.
What I liked most about this story was the honesty. Think of your most annoying relative at Thanksgiving dinner. Now, when they pass, think of the choices they might make, about their personality and their nature. Picture them arguing with God. Probst’s writing tackles death in an often humorous way, but also reminds us that our flaws are not something that have to be glossed over just because we’ve passed onto the other side. Even after death, we can continue to grow. For me, that’s the good stuff.
The protagonist, Mae Rose, has met her end on the seat of her commode…a fact I came to appreciate even more the more I got to know her character. As deaths ago, that's definitely not the way anyone wants to go out.
Mae Rose is meddlesome, sharp-tongued, and a bit annoying, even after death. If I’m being honest, she’s not my favorite character of the book going in, but I like that she was never insisted upon as such. She had one job: don’t interfere in the lives of the living. Can she do that? Absolutely not. So she gets the boot back to the realm of the living.
Now she must share the body of another woman, Mary Lee, a director who just wants another shot at recognition before she succumbs to her own health issues. The two women have to work together to help Mary Lee realize her vision and get that Oscar.
For the record, if I die, someone help me get a RITA?
The storyline is pretty golden, most of the time. It’s funny, it’s dramatic, sometimes a bit of both. I liked the morbidity of the circumstances, just sort of hanging over everything like a giant ironic rain cloud. After a while I started to read this almost in the same tone as Steel Magnolias. My mind made Mae Rose into Ouiser. And then I really started to like her.
Probst gives a lot of attention to each of her characters, which is great but it can get overwhelming at times. POV transitions between several characters, which was necessary for this sort of plot, but I think it could have been scaled back a bit. Occasionally got confused between Mary Lee and Mae Rose.
What I liked most about this story was the honesty. Think of your most annoying relative at Thanksgiving dinner. Now, when they pass, think of the choices they might make, about their personality and their nature. Picture them arguing with God. Probst’s writing tackles death in an often humorous way, but also reminds us that our flaws are not something that have to be glossed over just because we’ve passed onto the other side. Even after death, we can continue to grow. For me, that’s the good stuff.
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