My novella entitled Sessions With a Cheater’s Wife  will be published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company, and we have a projected release date of December 8, 2008.  A novella, simply put, is a work of fiction that is longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel. You can get a discount on the price of the book if YOU ORDER ONLINE DIRECTLY FROM MY PUBLISHER BEFORE December 1, 2008.  The Advance Sale Discount only applies to ONLINE orders.  Click on the cover (above) for ordering information. 

I’m very excited about the novella.  It will be my first longer work of fiction to be published, so it is a big first step for me.  I appreciate your support, as does my publisher, Main Street Rag Publishing Company, an independent small press publisher.  My decade-long association with MSR has been a special part of my writing life.  I encourage you to peruse all their titles, on the “Coming Soon” page, and also on the other “Bookstore” pages.  

Summary:  Jessica Stanley is a first grade teacher who is convinced her husband is having an affair.  She also speculates incessantly about the possible “secret activities” of her teenage children.  “Jess” will make you laugh, she may make you cry, but she’ll definitely make you want to scream.  Travel with her as she goes further and further into her own thoughts and, perhaps, further and further away from those whom she loves most.  Can she ever come back? 

To read an excerpt,

[Excerpt from Sessions With a Cheater’s Wife, a novella by Suzanne Baldwin Leitner]
          1.

I know my husband is cheating on me. The same way you know your Uncle Joe is drinking again. Everything looks normal. Everyone around you is trying hard to act like nothing is wrong, but the signs are there. In the way he walks, in the way he can’t quite focus on you when he’s trying to look at you. In the way other people turn away from him, people who used to embrace him when he was on the straight and narrow. I haven’t smelled another woman on my “Uncle Joe’s” breath yet, so to speak. Still, I know she’s there.
I don’t know when it started. I only know when I think it started. I think it started last year, after Christmas. My husband seemed to be invigorated by the new year in a way he hadn‘t been before. I couldn’t figure out why. Everything was still the same. His job. His house. His car. His wife. Suddenly, out of the blue, he’s hugging me in the kitchen before dinner. He’s playfully punching Gary, our son, in the arm each time he passes. He’s winking at our daughter, Rhonda, from across the dinner table. Nothing else is changed. There’s no reason for this new exuberance. Hugs before dinner for me, but not after dinner, because after dinner he’s always running back to the office or going to play cards at James‘ house. And what am I supposed to say? What reason can I give him to declare he has to stay home? The kids are here, there and everywhere now that Gary has his license and Rhonda has a boyfriend. There’s no Little League or basketball or dance recitals anymore to stop him from leaving the premises. There’s only me. And the continuation of last week’s storyline from “Frasier.”