Published By: Advantage Media Group, 1 January, 2014
Author Connections: Site | Twitter | Facebook | GoodReads
Converse via: #SafeandSound
Genres: Fiction | Women’s Fiction | Contemporary Romance | Life Shift
Available Formats: Softcover and E-Book
Page Count: 312
Biography for T.S. Krupa:
T.S. Krupa was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Krupa and her younger sister were raised in a Polish household with a blended American culture by her parents Stan and Krys; she is fluent in Polish and frequently travels to visit family abroad. Growing up in Clinton, Connecticut Krupa attended The Morgan High School. She started playing field hockey in the seventh grade after being cut from the soccer team. She was accepted to Franklin Pierce University (College then), where she continued playing field hockey for four years. She made it almost all ten years of her field hockey career without any injuries only to break her nose playing during her senior year.
After college, Krupa traveled cross-country for a job at Texas Tech University. While there, she earned her Master’s and became a Red Raider (Guns Up!) and college football fan. It was there that she started coaching club lacrosse and found an instant connection with coaching. The next chapter in her life took Krupa from Texas to be with her then fiancé in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She continued coaching club lacrosse and then began coaching club field hockey. She is now in her seventh year of coaching club field hockey. In 2009, she finally started work on her childhood goal and began work on her Doctorate of Education from North Carolina State University.
Her dissertation topic focuses on ethical decision-making. Krupa plans to graduate in May 2014. Krupa now lives in North Carolina with her husband and dog, Chase. Chase came into her and her husband’s life after a neighbor found him at a gas station. Krupa’s husband brought him home and told her that he had a surprise and if she wanted to keep it she needed to buy dog food. It was love at first sight and Chase is now spoiled rotten.
Along the way T.S. Krupa has always written in journals and enjoyed writing. It was only recently when the stories could no longer just run through her daydreams that she felt the need to put them down on paper. Safe & Sound is her first novel.
Acquired Book By:
My path crossed with Ms. T.S. Krupa whilst checking Twitter, seeing what was new and finding that a wicked sweet Indie author had found me! She asked me to check out her website and the premise of her début Indie novel “Safe & Sound”. I was offered to receive the novel in exchange for an honest review as well as host a special feature to coincide with the book if I elected to. I received a complimentary copy of the novel “Safe & Sound” direct from the author T.S. Krupa. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
My Connection to the Author:
Although we only tweeted a few times and exchanged preliminary emails to have this special showcase of her novel Safe & Sound featured on Jorie Loves A Story, I feel as though I have had the pleasure of getting to know her a bit better in the process! And, by extension her publicist Ms. Caitlin O’Brient Bauer (of Royal Social Media). As you will see as you retreat back to the Author Interview & Live Author Q&A threads of conversation, you will find Ms. Krupa to be warm, engaging, and inspiring! I am blessed twice over for our paths to have crossed and I have my Jorie Loves A Story Twitter account to thank for bringing us together! I am hopeful I can continue to work with her on future book releases as well as with Ms. Bauer on forthcoming new clients. I appreciate both of them as they give book bloggers their time and grace.
On a side note: the mere fact that Ms. Krupa is published by an Indie Publisher who generally focuses on all subjects outside the realms of Women’s Fiction / Contemporary Romance, one could say she has enough moxie to make her mark in the literary world quite memorable indeed! Hence, why I called her a ‘rebel with a cause’ during the Live Q&A! The fact that Advantage Media Group believes in the principles of tree-neutral publishing practices warmed my heart as well! I had spoken about my passion for green publishing practices whilst Ms. Leesmith was enjoying a spontaneous conversation thread erupting underneath her Cover Reveal for “Love’s Promises”!
I am disclosing this, to assure you that I can formulate an honest opinion, even though I have interacted with her ahead of reading her début novel. I treat each book as a ‘new experience’, whether I personally know the author OR whether I am reading a book by them for the first time.
Book Synopsis for Safe & Sound:
When great love is lost forever, what does it take to find the courage to move on?
When Jill met Jay Greenfield she knew she had found her forever love. She was a kindergarten teacher, he was a high-powered attorney and their lives were perfect. But when a tragic accident takes Jay’s life, this young bride is left to pick up the pieces.
Jill finds herself a young widow facing multiple decisions she thought she had a lifetime to decide. With support from her childhood best friends, Lanie and Stella, Jill attempts to piece her life back together. With nightmares plaguing her dreams and the struggles of constant grief over Jay’s passing, Stella and Lanie keep near constant vigilance over her. In the process of settling the estate, Jill learns that her husband was not quite the man she thought he was. She finds herself transported to the small beach town of Oak Island, North Carolina but the fairy tale ending she envisioned no longer exists. She must face the reality that Jay is gone as she finds herself having a chance at love one more time.
Safe & Sound follows a yearlong journey of love, loss, friendship, and conquering the
unexpected.
On death, loss, and the aftermath of grief:
One the hardest events in our lives is the acceptance of the death of a loved one we hold most dear. None of us are ever prepared for the passing of someone whose full essence is stitched and tied to our own reality. We cherish those who take up residence in our hearts, as they are the guiding lights who pepper our days with memories full of joy. Accepting our mortality is one of the marks of our human condition and a reminder that despite how deeply we affirm our time on earth, all of us are living off of a clock of allotted days. It’s how we choose to face tragedy in the hardening hours of its unwanted presence that will determine our strength as much as our resolve.
Being that I grew up in an industry surrounding death, I have had a front row seat on grief and sorrow, to where I found it quite remarkable how others might not be as aware of the end of life arrangements that are necessary. As I was watching over Jill struggle to understand why a death certificate was needed to pay her bills as they were in her husband’s name, it helped me see life from another point-of-view of someone who hadn’t grown up in the field like I had. There are a few things I suppose I took for granted, as everything you can think of that could happen or go wrong in a person’s life is something I have known about for a long time. The scenes in the hospital brought back reflections of being in waiting rooms as loved ones either had surgery or were recovering from illnesses.
The bits and bobbles I could relate to directly were the instability of the hours as you walk through the motions of your life prior to when the death occurred. Numbed by the instant disconnection and shocked to be awake when you’d rather be asleep. Voiding out the world and the emotional onslaught of memories which shift into focus as soon as your heart catches up to your mind. The transitions are the worst in grief because everyone grieves differently and goes through the stages at different intervals. No two losses are alike, and even if we become adaptable to loss we can never fully resolve the measure of sadness welling into our spirits where the person’s presence is wanted.
My Review of Safe & Sound:
Jill’s life as she knows it to be unravels from the moment her lips consume the fresh coffee in her cosy and quaint cuppa whilst she attempted to shake away the deepness of her sleep. The eclipsed scene enveloped the Jill who was mirthfully happy in marriage and the Jill whose heart shattered the moment she realised the police were calling her cell phone. Her anger is well placed given the circumstances surrounding her husband’s accident, and I even liked the clever way of having one of her best friends active in the field of psychology, because it helps play into her emotional reel of disbelief. No one wants to receive advice when their world collapses at their feet. Even the nudgings of a well-meaning friend can irk one’s ire if you’re not in the right stand of mind.
In some ways, this story feels as though its genre-bending between the worlds of mainstream and inspirational fiction markets. There is a key reference to a poem quoted outside an edition of Chicken Soup for the Soul which provide inspiring poems and short stories to uplift those who are seeking a jolt of positivity in their life. We all can use encouragement from time to time and books like these are blessed editions standing ready when we need them most. Krupa touches on the gracefulness of faith and the inconsolable moment where Jill has to determine how she is going to proceed; not only with her life, but her approach to the future.
As her best friend Lanie’s life erupts with the joyous nuptials of marrying her long-term girlfriend, Jill finds herself in a place of near-bliss. She truly comes alive during the process of planning the wedding, and within the tender moments of her own marriage in reflective pieces stitched into her work on Lanie’s wedding, we start to see that she can carry forward with the hope of the future. Rather than being consumed by grief which would not allow her to enjoy happiness as it alights on her path. I felt this was a strong turning point for her character, giving her a keen insight that despite the hardships, there are ways in which our heart starts to feel happy again.
Stella is a no-nonsense ally of a friend, who doesn’t take kindly to interferences on Jill’s private life by an intruding friend of Jay’s. The best bit of Stella and Lanie is how they merged their lives into helping Jill overcome her grief. Krupa describes the sorrow her main character feels in ways in which anyone who has experienced loss will recognise. From the little touches of memories which wash over you in unexpected hours to the feelings of emerging out of the darkness and stepping back into the light. I loved the undercurrent stitchings of hope, where Jill makes an intent to latch onto what she shared in life with Jay as a building block towards where to place her future’s foundation. His affirmative love for his wife strengthened her in death.
Jill’s inner sanctuary was lit inside the words she imparted inside her journals, as she was always the most at peace whilst caught up in the thoughts she laid to rest on the printed page. Her world felt balanced and tethered to harmony when she pick up a pen and scribbled out what was most important for her to fuse together with ink. I liked the addition of this thread of her tapestry, because it goes into the inner workings of a writer on the verge of discovering herself and the talent of which she was unwilling to see until life presented her a glimpse of who she could be.
Humans like to nestle into themselves like turtles tucked into their shells. We need this breathing space away from the realities of our everyday lives to heal and recover when we feel overwhelmed. Krupa has a gift for writing this ‘tucked in’ state of healing repose. Cocooning and resuming life within an arm-stretch of the lulling ocean and tides, is what encouraged my own spirit reading Jill’s story. The ocean resonates with me as much as the mountains, where time itself is happily suspended and only the peace of nature is your constant companion. Easing back the layers of your unease and gliding you back into a state of living.
It is only when we allow ourselves to fully recognise what is holding us back (emotionally in this case) that we are granted the freedom to choose our next path. We can become haunted by whisperments of fear if we allow the whole of our beings to thrash against the unresolved angst. Instead of facing the darkness head-on and truly giving ourselves the courage to walk out of the shadows. Safe & Sound is a journey back into living on the hope of tomorrow. As hope is our surefire reassurance of dreams and the infinite pathways we walk as we embrace the uncertainty of the future.
Jay and Ross: the blokes of whom loved Jill:
Jay only lives in the story through flashback memories and a brief presence in the opening chapter of Safe & Sound, yet his presence in Jill’s life is one of support. He is supporting her throughout her grief and her journey out of sorrow. His unwavering love for his wife is showcased in a key moment of the story where Jill is too gobsmacked to even acknowledge the full depth of Jay’s devotion to her well-being. In this section, I truly rallied for Jill to find the ability to embrace life and being willing to participate in her own story as it begun to create new memories. Ross on the other hand is the unassuming calm spirit who walks into your life at your most devastating hour only to find his compassion warms the fires of your broken heart. He’s the type of bloke who moves in rhythm to your own internal clock, without needing to be asked how to ‘fit’ because he compliments your lifestyle. Ross has a set of purely deep green eyes which had me beckoning back to the days where I spent near the shores of the Gulf off the coast of Mexico, where the white-surf waves crashed in crescendos of emerald-green ripples of foam.
Each of the men in Jill’s life loved her equally and without elicitation of removing her from what was familiar and comfortable. They each had a way of encouraging her to where she had the grace at arriving at the conclusions they had already known. They were her guide, her teacher, and truly mentors on how to live a life with passionate devotion. I was on bated breath wondering if there was an Epilogue to help me say good-bye to Jill & Ross, as their story had only just begun as the passages of the novel turnt to a close.
A notation on Krupa’s writing style:
The gentleness in which Krupa introduces her readers to her lead character is knitted together in such a way as to reflect back our own recollections of doing the same ordinary things in our own lives. She does not elude to the fact that most of us would long for the kind of slow waking in the resplendent morning hours Jill is indulging in when Safe & Sound opens into view. She captures the blissfully unaware feelings of being ‘caught’ in the tranquility of our everyday worlds on the apex of sudden change unforeseen. In this, she has a style of graceful story-telling which readers of romance will appreciate because she innately shifts us into Jill’s inner world.
I truly appreciated how she had written Lanie’s character as she did not overly empathise Lanie’s romantic life, but rather celebrated her character’s romance whilst giving us a perspective on one of Jill’s best friends. It was naturally written into the story where it wasn’t forced or felt like an addition for the sake of having it included. She has a calm spirit in acknowledging relationships and the differences therein. I appreciate the gentleness and the compassion of presenting uniquely defined characters who live outside of convention!
Her website includes an additional scene for Page 212, Chapter 22
After reading the inclusion of a letter to her mother in this excerpt, I now realise that that was one of the missing bits I had noticed as I read the story. Jill is always reflecting on her journal, but she never allowed the reader to listen to her innermost thoughts and to view her internal sanctuary of how she was working through her emotional turmoil. The absence of the journal snippets, I felt reflected well on behalf of her insecurities of having outside eyes judge her words as they were written, but in this glimpse back into a draft extension of this section of the book; I must wonder why it was not left in? She even disclosed the key clue to her nightmaric traumas which I think might have felt a bit more real than always disclosing she had no memory of them at all. No outward acceptance that she had experienced terrors during the night even though everyone around her vouched that she had.
Not Quite an Epilogue : Chapter 36 (posted on her website)
Although I was happy for Jill & Ross at the conclusion of Chapter 36, I had a few issues with how the chapter was written overall. Part of me felt as though Chapter 36 truly didn’t fit in line with the novel, as the tone of the characters felt jaded and off-kilter from the ones who have healed and transitioned through “Safe & Sound” as contained in the published version. I think the rift for me was ill-placed and it would have been better if it had showcased how Jill took up writing whilst Ross was travelling on the road. Inspiring her to pursue her dream as he lived his and how their lives intermingled from there. It’s the first time I could not commit to an Epilogue!
Fly in the Ointment:
Normally, I do not mind a bit of stern language if I feel the insertion fits the story-line and in this particular case at the moment you’re accessing your life without your soon-to-be deceased husband, I gave Jill a bone. The explicit words flying out of Harry’s mouth on page 40 pushed me a bit. I am not used to such rough language in Women’s Fiction &/or Romance, at least not the novels I gravitate towards reading on a regular basis. Therefore, on this one note alone I would only say that if you do not flinch by the strongest of the words used, you will not find this to be as unsettling as I did. A few strong words flitter throughout the narrative but its the main threads of one woman’s plight of having to decide where she wants to take her life which held me captured in the story rather than the few blighted words which raised my eyebrows!
This book review is
courtesy of T.S. Krupa and:
Announcement of LIVE Q&A was cross-posted on T.S. Krupa’s GoodReads Page!
Reader Interactive Question:
You are still encouraged to drop by the Author Q&A post to ask Questions for Ms. Krupa! Especially if you’re a writer on your own road towards publication. She is more than open to dropping back to give feedback and responses which will help you on your path!
Likewise, I encourage you to leave notes in this review comment threads to let her know what you have enjoyed about her début novel! And/or what was said on this post to inspire you to seek out a copy to read if you have not yet picked up one! What do you appreciate about romances which dig a bit deeper and give you something to ponder after the story ends!? Do you prefer traditional endings or do you like writers to paint portraits of realism which are relatable to today’s world?!
**UPDATE** 4th August, 2014
I was truly excited about learning that a novel I had read and reviewed during my first year as a book blogger was on the brink of winning an award! To find that the award nomination was on behalf of an Indie Published novel and a debut author of whom I have considered blessed to befriend simply warmed my heart! I am so very excited for Ms. Krupa, understanding the pins she must be on a bit whilst she awaits the reveal of who wins the award this September!
Safe & Sound will always hold special place in my heart for many reasons, as it was the first widow novel I read and reviewed, as much as it was my first LGBTQ novel as well! I have always supported our beautiful differences and individualistic personalties, as each of us have gifts to impart on each other. Love and friendship are at the heart of the novel Ms. Krupa penned, and it was an honour to read a story where everyone is treated with acceptance, equality, and compassion. I cannot wait to see what she has been working on since Safe & Sound was published and will delight in watching her career sprout wings and take her to new horizons that she perhaps had not thought to dream into reality for herself, but those of us who read her words know that she has an endurance for writing convicting narrative with an emotional heart at it’s center point.
****
{SOURCES: Author photograph of T.S. Krupa, author biography, book cover art for “Safe & Sound”, book synopsis, Author Q&A banner badge for Live Q&A event, and the Reader’s Favourite Award Nomination badge provided by Royal Social Media and used with permission. Book Review badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Tweets were able to be embedded by the codes provided by Twitter. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.
Comments via Twitter:
@JLovesAStory @CathyRy Interesting discussion. Adding SAFE AND SOUND to my reading list.
— Cynthia (@MozartandBanjo) March 28, 2014
An extremely thoughtful & in-depth #review of #SafeandSound by a woman I’m proud to call my friend! http://t.co/geybjE5W47 @JLovesAStory
— TS Krupa (@TS_Krupa) March 28, 2014
@JLovesAStory I did enjoy. I’m very new to the literary world- self published a week. Also my first week on twitter!
— Glenn Haigh (@GlennHaigh) March 29, 2014
Book Discussion for Safe & Sound:
What happens when two #booklovers appreciate the depth of #SafeandSound!? Spontaneous #bookdiscussion: http://t.co/uQ1863NnDg!! via @CathyRy
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) March 28, 2014
Fellow book blogger & reviewer Cathy Ryan @ Between The Lines & I started to talk about our reader reflections on her blog! There were a few points I had purposely omitted from my review as I wanted to leave those bits for the reader to discover for themselves! Which is why I had a bit of a dance to dodge around a few things I wanted to impart to Ms. Ryan in our conversation; however, she was gracious enough to understand exactly what I was trying to say! Also, we each realised that the heart of the life lessons stitched into Safe & Sound distracted us equally on the level of not mentioning how much we appreciated the small towne setting near the ocean! I welcome all readers & visitors who find our reviews of Mr. Krupa’s début novel to leave notes for us on our respective blogs allowing the conversation to continue! Of course, this is an open-ended offer as all of us have TBRs and time can slip away whilst we try to get to the new books we want to read! Whenever you are able to drop by her blog & mine, we’ll celebrate the conversation! Thank you!
Jorie immediately thought of the song “Safe & Sound” by Capital Cities when Ms. Krupa first contacted her to read the novel. After posting her review of the novel, she found a curious cover version of “Safe & Sound”:
Webisode2 #SafeandSound CaptialCitiesCover http://t.co/grytgGEadp via @OfficialHTGR Listen 2the soothing words &read http://t.co/q8fpgBGiR8
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) March 28, 2014
What a deep and entertaining book review. Very interesting, loss of a loved one means so many different things to individuals. So much depends if the death was expected or a shock and it takes every person on their own journey of grieving.
Thank you, Ms. Rosie Amber!
I love the sound of your name, by the way! :) Thank you for appreciating my observations on “Safe & Sound”! I felt Krupa dealt with the sensitivity of the subject very well, as she gave Jill the flexibility to feel her way through her grief and emerge out as a butterfly would a cocoon when the first year emerged into view past Jay’s tragic death. I completely agree with you on each individual’s reaction and coping mechanisms to grieving! This is one woman’s journey and it was written where you were not overwrought with her own grief but rather the hope of what her life still held for her to discover.