I Got Laid Off, Traveled and Wrote This Story...

I am so excited to announce my first book, "I Got Laid Off, Traveled and Wrote This Story" is in the final stages of formatting and soon will be available online!

My fun cover of my first soon-to-be-published book!

This is a work of love based on my travels and humorous, personal stories over the course of one summer in Europe.
Here is a small snippet and I hope you enjoy and come back for more!


From the chapter, "This Vodka Tastes Like Sorrow":

When I rounded the charming corner, I saw him outside, leaning against a tiny car parked sideways and partially on the curb. How dare he entice me with his smoking? In any normal circumstance, this would have been a complete deal breaker. I don’t smoke and, for the record, never really have. Well, cigarettes, that is. Once in the eighth grade— yes, age thirteen—I pretended to smoke at a friend’s party. I really just held a lit cigarette, and when someone walked by whom I desperately wanted to impress, I faked an inhale. My favorite part, after careful observation of others, was flicking the ashes and then smothering the cigarette on the ground with a swirling, side-to-side ankle movement. I had observed this move from scrutinizing Olivia Newton-John’s character, Sandy, during the final song and dance number in Grease. Even though my Candie’s heels weren’t as high and my pants weren’t nearly as tight, it garnered enough attention for my petite eighth-grade self.              But the smoking actually raised Etienne’s lust quotient by two to three notches. It really was a bitch to remove the smoke stink out of my hair, however. Small sacrifices all in the name of a dreamy Frenchman. He smiled, blue eyes twinkling, and nodded at me as I opened the front door. Before I walked inside, I rotated my head ever so slightly, so my long hair did a meager flip. I viewed this move on a commercial for a popular French shampoo. Somehow the girl with the cascading blonde locks attracted every man in the supermarket with one modest turn of her head. Shopping carts slammed ferociously into one another. Stacks of shiny apples tumbled to the ground. The deli man was completely distracted and handed the appalled customer some sort of unusual-looking meat product. This was overboard, of course. But, still, I was bold enough to give it a try. I practiced earlier in the day in order to create the intended effect without inflicting whiplash on myself. I think it worked, even though some of my strands of hair attached to my sticky, cherry lip gloss. But this was undetectable to anyone but myself... I am looking forward to sharing more stories with you all, -shari