Manchester by the Sea is as wild and blue as the sea itself

Manchester by the Sea is now available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and streaming on Amazon.com

I finally got to see Manchester by the Sea, with a couple of my girls, at a small independent campus theater in either Cleveland, Ohio to Covington, Kentucky. (I don’t remember which because I don’t remember which side of the river we were on.)  manchester-by-the-sea

No wonder it was nominated for six Academy Awards. I may even watch the awards this year, just to see if it wins.

Exquisitely drawn vistas of coastal Massachusetts and New England in winter, along with the accents of the major players, firmly establish a sense of place (which is what drew me to the movie in the first place), but even these are secondary to the heart of the story revealed largely in the mind and memory of Lee Chandler.

The secondary characters, particularly nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges), ex-wife Randi (Michele Williams), and older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler), are well drawn and sympathetic. As Noel Murray said in the LA Times online yesterday, “writer-director Kenneth Lonergan’s film is also very funny at times and filled with the stuff of life: banter, lust, familial affection and personal renewal.” It is, and that’s part of our way in, because we can identify with, and shake our heads over, that “stuff of life.”

But what makes that wild and blue feeling in your chest is Lee Chandler. Casey Affleck is absolutely stunning as Lee, inhabiting the character with a depth and richness that makes him, at the same time, larger than life and just another ordinary, flawed person.

No spoilers from me (there’s a reason they’re called “spoilers”), but I will say this:

The heart of Manchester by the Sea wasn’t at all what I expected, and it didn’t end the way I wanted it to, but what occurs in between sinks into your chest and takes your breath away. You feel your heart try to tear itself out of your chest . . . especially if you’ve ever wished with everything in you that you could, just this once, turn back time and take back just one mistake.

Watch Manchester by the Sea on Amazon here

FREE eBooks: You Still Have Until Midnight

My patience with Hostgator’s technical snafus is running out (don’t ask) ~ but YOU still have until midnight tonight to claim your FREE copies of the last four ebooks in my serial novel Shadows Present . . .

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Ordinarily, you would be seeing this post on my website: RenaissanceWomanInk.com. Unfortunately, my hosting program ~ after seven years ~ has decided to be glitchy (any suggestions for a more reliable and user friendly hosting program are welcome!)

This is the post I created and launched yesterday after the problem was “fixed”: Read below, or click the link to download the pdf with live links (renaissancewomanink-com-free-stories-weekend-just-because).

Now, I think I’ll go research hosting programs . . . Happy Sunday, everyone!

See you on the beach.

Rebecca

Free Stories Weekend: Just Because

renaissancewomanink.com /free-stories-weekend-just-because/

Yes, my 90 days of Free Story Friday (or Saturday, or you know, whenever ) has ended, but here’s the thing:

All the of the ebooks in my serial novel Shadows Present, will be moving out of Kindle Unlimited next week, and it occurred to me that the last 4 had two unused days that they could be offered for free. Seemed like a waste not to use them. Then I thought ~ well, that would be weird, offering the last 4 for free when the first three are out of free days.

Still, I reasoned. There may be people who downloaded the first 3 at some point and missed the days when the last 4 were free. Out Christmas shopping, perhaps ~ and too exhausted from fighting the Black Friday weekend crowds to remember that, oh, shoot, I was going to download the rest of that serial novel that looked so good!

So, in case that was you ~ and just because I hate wasting opportunities to get a great story in front of more people for free ~ here are the links to the last 4 ebooks of Shadows Present. Download them for FREE from the links below.

Whether you’re new to the novel or this just reminds you that you were going to read it and haven’t gotten to it yet ~ I hope you do read Shadows Present, either via the free downloads, or before it goes out of Kindle Unlimited on the 6th.

Here are the last 4 to get you started.

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