Never Turn Back (39 page)

1. How did you experience the book? Were you immediately drawn into the story, or did it take you a while? Did the book intrigue, amuse, disturb, alienate, irritate, or frighten you?
   
2. Do you find the characters convincing? Are they believable? Compelling? Are they fully developed as complex, emotional human beings, or are they one-dimensional?
   
3. What do you see as the main characters’ biggest strengths and their biggest weaknesses?
   
4. Which characters do you particularly admire or dislike? What are their primary characteristics?
   
5. What motivates a given character’s actions? Do you think those actions are justified or ethical?
   
6. Were there moments when you disagreed with the choices of any of the characters? What would you have done differently?
   
7. How does the way the characters see themselves differ from how others see them? How do you see the various characters?
   
8. Do any characters grow or change during the course of the novel? If so, in what way?
   
9. Who in this book would you most like to meet? What would you ask—or say?
   
10. If you could insert yourself as a character in the book, what role would you play? (You might be a new character or take the place of an existing one.)
    
11. Is the plot well-developed? Is it believable? Do you feel manipulated along the way, or do plot events unfold naturally, organically?
    
12. Is the story plot or character driven? In other words, do events unfold quickly? Or is more time spent developing the charactersʼ inner lives? Does it make a difference to your enjoyment?
    
13. What scene resonated most with you personally in either a positive or negative way? Why?
    
14. What surprised you most about the book?
    
15. Were there any particular quotes that stood out to you? Why?
    
16. How does the setting figure into the book?
    
17. How would the book have been different if it had taken place in a different time or place?
    
18. What are some of the bookʼs themes? How important were they?
    
19. Consider the ending. Did you expect it or were you surprised? Was it manipulative? Was it forced? Was it neatly wrapped up—too neatly? Or was the story unresolved, ending on an ambiguous note?
    
20. If you could rewrite the ending, would you? In other words, did you find the ending satisfying? Why or why not.
    
21. Can you pick out a passage that strikes you as particularly profound or interesting or perhaps something that sums up the central dilemma of the book?
    
22. Does the book remind you of your own life? An event or situation? A person—a friend, family member, boss, co-worker?
    
23. Have any of your views or thoughts changed as a result of reading this book?
    
24. If you were to talk with the author, what would you want to know? (Many authors enjoy talking with book clubs. Contact the author to see if you can set up a phone chat.)
    
25. Have you read the author’s other book? Can you discern a similarity—in theme, writing style, structure—between them? Or are they completely different?
    

Lorna Lee

In her former life as a sociology professor, Lorna published many academic and research papers. Creative writing is a new path taken since her premature disability retirement in 2006 due to Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome.

Never Turn Back
is her second book and first novel. Her first book is a memoir entitled
How Was I Supposed to Know?
That book was awarded
Best Memoir, 2012
by the
Adirondack Writing Center
in their
Annual Literary Award Contest
. In 2010, she was a finalist in the memoir genre of the
Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Contest
with her short story,
Monkey Business
.

Lorna currently lives with the man of her dreams and the dog of her dreams in the home of her dreams in the Portland, Oregon area. She keeps herself busy by writing, quilting, walking, meditating, and blogging.

To find out more about Lorna and her current shenanigans, visit her blog,
lornasvoice.com
. She can be contacted via a page on her blog dedicated to this novel.

Thank you for choosing my book. I hope you enjoyed reading it. I enjoyed writing it. And rewriting it. And re-writing it. And…you get the picture! No less than two years of my life went into researching and writing this novel. Weaving the real with the imaginary was an interesting challenge. I wonder, as an author, if you, the reader, can tell which parts actually happened and which parts came from…well…from the place writers get inspiration.

No matter how much marketing an author does, nothing promotes a book like positive reviews from readers.

Please take a few moments of your time and go to Amazon.com where you can find this novel by searching by either the title or the author and submit a review. Tell the world (and me) what you thought of Never Turn Back.