MY RATING
Ever felt so overwhelmed by a story you just don’t know how to communicate the level of significance it had for you? An Exaltation of Larks, under Suanne Laqueur’s exquisite pen, was one of them.
I feel my poor words will be lacking at any attempt to tell anyone what this story is about. I just wouldn’t dare minimizing such a beautiful and unabridged tale by trying to outline it for my review’s sake. But I can’t either stay silent about it. Even if it’s just praising the author’s writing, or urging you to grab a copy and experience the utter pleasure it is to read Suanne Laqueur’s fictional people. Just so you wait. They won’t feel that fictional for long. Promise.
“We’re so alike, you and I. It’s no wonder we kept finding each other.”
September 11, 1973: Eleven-year-old Alejandro Penda watches from his apartment window as Santiago, Chile falls to a military coup, destroying his family and his childhood. Arriving alone in America, he’s taken in by the Larks: a prominent family in the town of Guelisten. Though burdened by unresolved grief for his disappeared parents, he becomes fiercely loyal to the Larks, eventually marrying one of their daughters, Valerie.
September 11, 2001: Javier Landes watches from his apartment window as New York City falls to terrorism. As one of Manhattan’s top-paid male escorts, this professional lover has never lacked for company and is loyal only to himself. But in the wake of 9/11, Jav is named guardian for an orphaned nephew in Guelisten and must open his carefully-guarded heart to pain he’s long suppressed.
Alex, Valerie and Jav meet first in their twenties, with a sudden attraction each finds strange and compelling. When they meet again in their forties, they discover not only is their bond still strong, but their life experiences are strangely similar. All have been shaped by separate 9/11’s, and their unfinished business from the past will change everything they know about love, loyalty and friendship.
“Life has rules. You cannot come in the middle of the night and take what we agreed isn’t yours.”
Across three decades and two continents, Suanne Laqueur’s fifth novel explores the unpredictability of sexual attraction, how family ties are forged, torn and mended, and how love’s downfall can turn to exaltation.
Author : Suanne Laqueur
Title : An Exaltation of Larks
Series : Venery #1
Number of pages : 499
Publisher : Cathedral Rock Press
Release Date : November 22nd, 2016
Genre : Contemporary.
My heart beats with yours. Wake up to hear my heart one day. This day. every day. Sobrepasarlo.
It only took me over a year to have the guts to write something about this book. I felt like such a shitty reader for not even dropping a line saying I LOVED it. And I truly adored this story.
See, a year is more or less the time it took me to get past my unprecedented withdrawal regarding a book.
This author’s words are a drug and it took me weeks to let her words truly sink in.
Many times I tried to write a review and in all honesty all I could think about was : WOW.
Such an inadequate manner to describe my experience reading one of the most amazing storyteller.
And yet. Just fucking wow.
But you understand surely how poor and lame my attempt at describing the sensitivity, every nuances and subtlety the author created would be. I don’t feel like I can make her work justice by exclaiming : WOW! This book!
Or can I?
If marriage was a prison yard, your spouse was the inmate who had your back. Together you were a devoted Gang of Two, each making sure the other didn’t get shanked or shivved.
The amount of work, research, emotions, passion she puts in her stories is just astonishing. I don’t claim to know it but you can tell an author is beyond invested in her story when you feel and cherish fictional characters as you would real people you love. It’s talent and dedication combined to be able to create such genuine and arresting people. It’s unnerving how real they get under Suanne Laqueur‘s pen.
The feelings and care I have for each every character she creates are to this day unequalled.
We, reviewers, often describe great fleshed-out characters as “complex”. But forget complex. Complex is the equivalent of me resuming this book with my pathetic “wow”. Try torturous, tormented, overlayed, fascinating, sorrowful but also beautiful, comforting and full of hope.
It’s not the Larks that kill you. It’s the exaltation.
I could try and relate what An Exaltation of Larks is about, but I won’t. It’s subtle, it’s bold, it’s complex, it’s real’s people stories spanning over decades and just as much emotions life can encompass over such a long period of time. It’s intricate and real, it’s raw and gritty and most of all meaningful.
It’s just plain remarkable and I can’t urge you enough to try Suanne‘s work. Just read the damn book!
Because music makes good citizens and beautiful hearts.
A former professional dancer and teacher, Suanne Laqueur has gone from choreographing music to choreographing words. Her goal is to create a new kind of emotionally-intelligent romance that appeals to the passions of all readers, crossing gender, age and genre.
Laqueur’s debut novel The Man I Love won a gold medal in the 2015 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards and was named Best Debut in the Feathered Quill Book Awards. Her follow-up novel, Give Me Your Answer True, was also a gold medal winner at the 2016 RFBA.
Laqueur graduated from Alfred University with a double major in dance and theater. She taught at the Carol Bierman School of Ballet Arts in Croton-on-Hudson for ten years. An avid reader, cook and gardener, she started her blog EatsReadsThinks in 2010.
Suanne lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband and two children.
Visit her at suannelaqueurwrites.com
$5.99
Grab on AMZ
Your review is great. Book sounds amazing.
Thanks for the chance!
Thanks for the chance! I’ve heard great things about this book!
Congrats, Bookerina, An Exaltation of Larks is yours! PM with your address so I can send you the book! <3
Awesome! Thank you! ! !