GIVEAWAY CLOSED
For readers of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, debut author Suzy Krause delivers a colorful story about love, loss, second chances, and what it means to truly live in her novel, VALENCIA and VALENTINE (LakeUnionPublishing).
Valencia, a timid debt collector with crippling OCD, is afraid of many things, but the two that scare her most are flying and turning thirty-five. To confront those fears, Valencia’s therapist suggests that she fly somewhere—anywhere—before her upcoming birthday. And as Valencia begins a telephone romance with a man from New York, she suddenly has a destination in mind. There’s only one problem—he might not actually exist.
Mrs. Valentine is an eccentric old woman desperate for company, be it from neighbors, telemarketers, or even the funeral director (when you’re her age, you go to a lot of funerals). So she’s thrilled when the new cleaning girl provides a listening ear for her life’s story—a tale of storybook love and incredible adventures around the world with her husband before his mysterious and sudden disappearance.
The stories of Valencia and Mrs. Valentine may at first appear to have nothing in common…but then again, nothing in life is as straightforward as it seems.
I’ve read both Eleanor and now VALENCIA and VALENTINE and can’t help but think this is the start of a new genre of “regular people living regular lives,” but with a twist of some quirky sort.
Suzy grew up in the village of Frontier, Saskatchewan, two hours from the nearest McDonald’s, one hour from the nearest movie theatre, half an hour from the nearest swimming pool. She now lives in Regina—the Queen City!—and it has all of those things and she doesn’t really use any of them. It’s small compared to New York, but compared to Frontier, it’s basically a megalopolis.
Suzy is a writer and a music lover. She’s been blogging (here and elsewhere) for over a decade, but she also writes, from time to time, on various arts, entertainment, and lifestyle websites. Valencia and Valentine is her first novel, inspired by her time working as a debt collector in Saskatoon (she received a lot of death threats that summer).
Writing a book has been on her to-do list since she was six-ish, so it’s good that she did it.
Thanks to Lake Union Publishing we have one copy to give away. Just tell us what you know about OCD. We’ll announce a winner soon. Good luck.
GIVEAWAY: USA only, please.
I don’t know a lot about OCD, just that it’s a mental disorder where people have to go through rituals, daily, to add a sense of order to their lives.
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I really don’t know anything about OCD.
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I don’t know much about OCD; however, we do “joke” and say we are OCD about something from time to time when we don’t even REALLY know what it means. We kind of have an idea, but not enough to know how to explain it.
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I don’t know much about OCD. I know that people that have it need to have things in a certain way and if they are not they are stressed. I know that there are many other things but I am not that familiar with them. Thank you for the chance.
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I know some about OCD, my husband lives with it on a lower level. It seems to be getting worse as he ages. Thanks for chance.
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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a mental health issue in which the person has repetitive thoughts or a need to perform repetitive actions.It can be treated with medication or therapy or a combination of the two.
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OCD would be very tiring to live with.mentally. To have to do something a certain way, and repeatedly would be very high stress. Sounds like a wonderful. book💕
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i am not familiar with OCD although I know that it is a mental issue which involves repetition of certain actions.
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OCD is a mental condition that compels a person to do certain things over and over exactly the same way.
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The only thing I know about OCD is being around a really close friend who suffers from it. She is definitely left crippled by it and it causes a lot of anxiety for her throughout her daily routines.
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OCD is a common, chronic and long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions) that he or she feels the urge to repeat over and over.
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Yes. A very difficult condition, one of many mental conditions and not very understood by many.
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I’ve read a couple of books recently that have characters with OCD. Sometimes I think I might even be a little OCD!
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I’ve read about it ,it seems to be very difficult to live with and for those close to the person with ocd difficult to deal with,
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I had OCD as a teen and young adult. It was ruining my life. I got intensive therapy three times a week for a year and it worked. I no longer have OCD and I am happy. My OCD was compulsive cleaning, washing everything down and bleaching as much as I could. I was always cleaning. Now I clean once a week except the kitchen which is cleaned after meals, but I dont go overboard. My house is messy sometimes, but yet clean, but I dont spend every second of the day cleaning.
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God Bless, Zuccie!
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I don’t know a lot about OCD except that it is a mental disorder. Sometimes we “joke” about having it but there are people with serious OCD.
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I don’t know a lot about OCD but know it can be debilitating for some.
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Its a mental disorder where things are repeated over and over. I heard it can be very tiring..
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As a special education teacher, I do know a good bit about OCD. I have had students who has varying degrees of OCD.
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Medication helps people with OCD feel calm and less stressed.
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I believe all of us might have a small form of OCD, and everyone needs love! That’s my feelings on OCD! Hope the ones with severe OCD get the help and love that they need to cope in this world!
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I had a family member with OCD. At the time I didnt realize what it was. It can be quite debilitating.
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I have read about OCD. I know it’s a compulsive behavior disorder that causes someone to do something repetitively such as washing their hands all the time.
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I really don’t know much about OCD.
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I don’t know much about OCD.
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OCD is a mental disorder that a person stresses over certain things and has to have everything just so and is obsessive about it.
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I’ve never been around anyone that has it.
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I know that OCD is a mental disorder that causes people to be obsessed with doing things over and over again. They become fixated on that one behavior or act.
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Not too much except it can be a stressful disorder to live with, for the sufferer & those that live with them.
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I know that it’s more common than people might think. It’s a condition where a person has to complete certain rituals eg. counting, hand washing before they can proceed through their day. It is anxiety based and can be very distressing to the person with OCD, and their friends and family as it is hard to understand and support someone if you don’t know much about the disorder.
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