A Matter of Chance: A Novel

by Julie Maloney

Overview

When eight-year-old Vinni Stewart disappears from a Jersey shore town, Maddy, her distraught single mother, begins a desperate search for her daughter. Maddy’s five-year journey leads her to a bakery in Brooklyn, where she stumbles upon something terrifying. Ultimately, her artist neighbor Evelyn reconnects Maddy to her passion for painting and guides her to a life transformed through art. Detective John D’Orfini sees more than a kidnapping in the plot-thickening twists of chance surrounding Vinni’s disappearance, but his warnings to stay away from the investigation do not deter Maddy, even when her search puts her in danger. When the Russian Mafia warns her to stop sniffing into their business, Maddy must make a choice whether to save one child—even if it might jeopardize saving her own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631523694
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	04/10/2018
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Julie Maloney is a former dancer/choreographer and artistic director of her own modern dance company. She is a poet whose work has been published in many literary journals. Her book of poems, Private Landscape, was published in 2007. As founder/director of Women Reading Aloud, a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of women writers, she has been leading workshops and writing retreats in the US, Greece, and France since 2003. A Matter of Chance is her debut novel. She lives outside of New York City in Morris County, NJ.

Editorial Reviews

04/16/2018
Maloney, founder of Women Reading Aloud, an organization that promotes women writers, sensitively examines grief, guilt, and a mother’s love in her well-crafted first novel. New York single mother Maddie Stewart, an editor at Hot Style magazine, has a job she enjoys, good friends, and a lovely and intelligent eight-year-old daughter, Vinni. One sunny morning during a summer holiday at the Jersey shore, Maddie and Vinni spot an older couple, Rudy and Hilda, strolling hand in hand on the beach. Suddenly, Rudy collapses. Maddie leaves Vinni with Hilda and rushes back to her cottage to phone for an ambulance. When she returns, Hilda and Vinni are gone and Rudy is dead. Although Maloney throws in conventional mystery elements, including the handsome police detective, villainous threats, and repeated admonishments to leave the investigation to professionals, she focuses on Maddie’s discovery of herself through her struggle to find her daughter. The book’s epigraph by Isadora Duncan succinctly sums up its theme: “With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood.” (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

2019 Eric Hoffer Award Winner in General Fiction 2019 Foreword Indies Finalist in Adult Fiction—Thriller & Suspense “Maloney highlights the risks a mother will take to save her child, and the will and determination to never give up hope, in an intriguing literary-thriller/women's-fiction crossover that will appeal to readers looking for a sophisticated puzzle.” —Booklist “What makes this book stand out from the usual kidnapping stories is depth and carefully nuancing of Maddy's emotions. She suffers, yet sustains herself with friends and art and a potential new love.” —Midwest Book Review “In this effortlessly readable novel, Julie Maloney beautifully and sensitively captures the heartache and longing of a mother whose quest to find her daughter forces her to face the ghosts of her own past.” —Christina Baker Kline, author of the New York Times best-selling Orphan Train “Julie Maloney’s A Matter of Chance captures the desperate heartache of a mother’s unthinkable loss in haunting, beautiful prose. Maloney’s vividly etched characters immediately drew me into this suspenseful, emotionally stirring novel. A Matter of Chance is not to be missed.” —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times best-selling author of The Weight of Silence and Not A Sound “How do we hold on to the things we’ve lost? In Maloney’s incandescent novel, an eight-year-old girl vanishes, leading to a heart-wrenching exploration about what it means to look after your own, the mystery of how and why we leave, and what is taken from us when we do. Beautifully written and impossible to forget.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times best-selling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World “Julie Maloney’s debut novel is a remarkable, riveting journey. What lengths will a mother go to when her child vanishes? Clear your schedule for this book, because you will not be able to stop reading.” —Jacqueline Sheehan, New York Times best-selling author of Lost and Found “In A Matter of Chance, author Maloney offers a journey through grief and betrayal by reconnecting to life through the expression of art. This gorgeous book explores and evokes desperate love, continued hope, and, finally, a way through to a surprising conclusion. You won’t want to stop reading this compelling novel until you turn the very last page.” —Ann Garvin, USA Today best-selling author of I Like You Just Fine When You’re Not Around

From the Publisher