Book Tour – Lindsey Forrest and “All Who Are Lost”
Are Lost
man.Too many betrayals.Three women.
One last chance.
halfway across the world.
voice she has never forgotten, the voice she will remember with her last
breath…
do you dowhen the love of your lifeis the last person you should love?
estate in Virginia.
growing up in the shadow of their father’s obsessive drive to recapture his
lost muse, the woman he threw into the cold Irish sea.
old family, falling in love with the wrong sister, blind to the ice at her
core.
by a moment of blood and violence, when she reached out and took a man who
didn’t belong to her.
life of regret and sacrifice, given a second chance to claim the woman he
should have loved all along.
she toweled off, she heard his car. As she rummaged in the closet for something
to wear, the front door opened. As she covered up the last ravages of the
night, she heard him moving around the kitchen downstairs.
pretty floral sundress from her wardrobe, all white roses and violets on a
shimmery green background, and laid it carefully on the bed. Downstairs, she
heard him talking. Max, that traitor, must have run downstairs to hang out for
a while with another male. She wondered how long she could linger in the room,
but nothing, after all, could keep him from coming upstairs to find her there
hiding from him.
after. I don’t know what he wants or expects.…
know. She wanted to turn back time and tide, to make the great sea of their
adult lives still uncharted before them. Passion and blood, rage and adultery
and the most terrible of betrayals, all still ahead, and this time the iceberg
seen in time to prevent the tragedy….
wipe the slate clean, and her hands with it.
then, and marched back to her dressing table. Her eyes looked better now, not
so stretched-out. She said aloud, “All right now,” straightened her shoulders,
and walked downstairs to meet her lover.
get breakfast. A box of bagels lay open on the island counter, and he’d left a
cup of fast-food orange juice for her beside a container of cream cheese. But
the room, and the house, had an empty stillness. Not even the ghosts of last
evening lingered.
picture window, she saw an unexpected movement of a blue sleeve out near the
pool.
felt disconnected from all her knowledge of him, as if time had indeed run
backwards on her. He appeared as a stranger. He had a book open on the table,
and the sun glinted softly off his dark hair as he lost himself in his reading.
One hand absently crumbled a bagel. He seemed alone, self-contained, as if he
had nothing to do with a common past, a shared afternoon of blood and lust, a
past night of anguish and discovery.
how he appeared to the rest of the world.
page, and that gesture summoned up a small memory, tucked away all these years.
been long ago, a Saturday morning when she joined him for fishing or flying
models, and they ate a light breakfast first to satisfy Peggy. So many times
she had come across him like this, reading, lost in his own world, relaxed and
peaceful. So many times he had looked up with an offhand smile and a “Good
morning, Laurie.” Casual and careless always, dispensing the minimal attention
due a bit player in his life.
those years ago, and he wasn’t her secret crush anymore, and he wasn’t a boy
with all his life and loves before him. And she was no longer a girl content to
settle for a careless smile and the honor of cleaning his catches or watching
him crash a model into the lake.
changed.
she fixed a bagel and brewed a cup of tea. He lifted his head when she opened
the back door, and his eyes met hers as she came down the terrace stairs and
across the flagstones to the table.
immediately, silently, his book forgotten. In the morning light, she saw
further evidence that he was no longer a boy. She saw the remnants of their
broken sleep around his eyes, she saw his eyes flare with an awareness she
didn’t dare consider, and…
shifted again. He stood there before her, no longer Diana’s boy knight or
Francie’s young demon lover. In the darkness, this man had met her equal to
equal on the vast plain of desire.
husky, “Good morning, Laurie.” And he took the bagel and tea from her, placed
them on the table, and turned back to enclose her in his arms.
arms. Now you’re here, and you’re mine, and what do I feel? What do I say?
warmly against the small of her back, stroking her. That lovely, reassuring
gesture melted her body into his. She lifted her face to kiss him, and with
that he too relaxed. Perhaps he had wondered too about this first meeting,
perhaps for him also the world had shifted on its axis. She tasted coffee on
his mouth; she felt the warmth of his body along hers, and a sudden glorious
certainty glowed luminous in her blood.
you too,” she murmured against his shirt.
her. “I thought I was going to have to drag you out of bed. Did you get enough
sleep?”
admitted, and then it was all right. He guided her to the table with his hand
still warm against her back, and she knew in relief that he didn’t know, the
nightmare ending hadn’t happened after all. “But I got more than you did.
Richard – you look so tired.”
gaze and held it as he sat down opposite her, an aware, knowing look that told
her he well remembered the feeling of her body against his. “I’ll pay for it
later,” he said, “but it was worth it, by God, it was worth it indeed.”
creeping up into her face at the frank look in his eyes, and she wanted to drop
her gaze. But no, that was the reaction of a girl, and she had been a woman now
in this man’s arms. She had told this man that she loved him, she had confessed
her heart to him, she had welcomed him into her body. And in the light of day,
face to face with him, she was not sorry.
tea steadily. “Maybe you should grab a nap later today.”
night,” he returned, equally steadily. Oh, what a wonderful idea… an early
night together, and forget her failure of the night before. She’d make it up to
him tonight. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. We need to talk,
Laurie.”
going to tell her it had all been a horrible mistake, he’d changed his mind,
had second thoughts… Let her down easy, because she was still the friend of
his youth? But he was still looking at her gently, openly. It was worth it, indeed. He had meant that. He had kissed her this
morning in welcome, and not as a friend.
to panic.
keep looking at him. “I’m here, Richard.”
turn for silence. She watched as he bought himself time and space by pushing
his book away, tasting his coffee, brushing aside bagel crumbs. What was he
composing in his mind as he settled forward, shifting ever so slightly to get
the sun out of his eyes?
began, and paused. “When I came back here last night, I didn’t intend,” he
gestured, “what happened. That wasn’t my intention at all. I shouldn’t have
left you, Laurie. No matter what had happened between us, I shouldn’t have left
you alone, not after what you went through yesterday. I realized that once I
got home. I just left you here, part of the debris of – this whole damnable
mess, and I couldn’t let you face that by yourself.”
waited for her. She had to say something. And the honesty in him demanded the
same of her. “I thought,” she moistened her lips, “I thought – when you left –
I thought it was the end.”
was,” he said. “I realized that, if I didn’t come back, we were finished. We’d
never be able to survive the way we left things.”
of that. She’d laid too heavy a burden on him, she saw now, with that desperate
confession. She had made it impossible for them ever to meet again, except…
beating fast now. She took all her courage in hand. “Richard —”
and waited.
blindly, and to her horror she felt the burning of tears in her eyes. “But you
came back. And you – you said that there was no going back. That sex changes
things.” Oh, God, she was not going to cry! She was going to face this
squarely. After everything else she’d endured, she would face this. She said desperately, “Has everything changed?”
blinked away the sting in her eyes and stared hard at him, across the table,
across the whole of their lives, and waited for the answer she could not read
in his eyes.
“That’s up to you.”
painful breath.
closed around hers, and she surrendered to the warm, firm touch of his fingers
on hers. “I was wrong last night,” he said, “wrong for more years than I want
to think. You were right, I never saw you. But I do know I’m doing the right
thing, Laura, when I tell you that you can decide that last night changed
nothing. If you want to write off last night as an experiment —”
know.” He overrode her words, ignoring the way her fingernails were digging into
his hands. “We can decide that last night we laid some old ghosts, satisfied
some old curiosity. We grew up together, and it’s only natural that, after all
these years apart, our friendship has turned into attraction. But we can take
care of that. We can sit here rationally and decide that last night changed
nothing, and we put it aside and go on from there. And, I promise you, we can
make that work.”
continued, “we can decide that there’s no going back, last night changed everything.
We can go forward, see what we have to give to each other. Laura,” and his
voice made her look at him, “it is up to you.”
look away, but couldn’t. She whispered, “What do you want to do?”
Richard said, “is to do what you want.”
now she had to look away. She couldn’t stand to keep looking at his unflinching
gaze. “I don’t want last night to have been – some kind of casual sex – it
wasn’t, was it?”
above her bowed head. “I’ve never had casual sex in my life. I’ve never made
love with a woman I didn’t care about, and last night was no exception. Laura.
Look up at me, Laura. It wasn’t casual.”
voice. She had to say it; she
couldn’t let it languish unspoken between them. “Last night – last night I told
you I loved you.”
unclaimed… and did he claim it now? Or ever?
breath, and his eyes turned grave and distant. “I know,” he said, “and of all
the gifts you’ve given me, that one I deserve the least. I’ve abused your
feelings for me for longer than I want to remember. But, after all that, you
still love me. And – and of course you want it returned, don’t you? I wish I
could say it, Laurie. But I can’t. I just don’t have it in me anymore.”
still. She didn’t breathe.
once,” he said, “you know that. I’ve been in love with one woman in my life,
and what a disaster that’s been. I don’t trust being in love. I don’t trust
feeling that the world is well lost for love, because I nearly lost the world
for it, and it wasn’t worth it. Still —”
and touched her hair. She lifted her free hand and held it to his, and she felt
the lifeblood in his wrist against her face.
this morning.” And now the distance had dropped away from his eyes. “The world
has seemed very right for the last couple of weeks, ever since you came home.
Dear God, Laurie, I never realized how much I missed you, what a hole you left
in my life. Maybe I’ll never be in love with you, maybe I’ll never be able to
give you all that you want and deserve, but I do love you, you’re part of me
and part of my life, the best part too. When I think back to the best moments
of my life, you were always a part of those, you’re as interwoven into my life
as the air and the sun here in Virginia, and that’s worth a lot to me, and we
can build from there – if you want to.”
thought, a wisp of a thought to tuck away and take out later to ponder, that he
had laid his heart in her hands, no matter that he thought he hadn’t a heart to
lay.
vigorously, and held on hard to his hands.
voice, “we certainly owe ourselves a chance.”
her blood.
she stood up or that he pulled her towards him, but somehow she ended up in a
rush in his arms, on his lap, her arms around his neck, her cheek against his
hair, his head resting warmly against her breast. And for all that he could
never love her – he held her tightly against him, as if he could never let her
go.

lead writer/editor for an international information company, writes about
income tax but prefers to dream of heroes and heroines and grand romance. With
the publication of her trilogy, she checks off the top entry on her bucket
list. She lives in north Texas with her family and cat and has a five-year plan
for becoming a full-time novelist and editor of indie fiction. When she isn’t
working or writing, she amuses herself with reading, needlepointing, tramping
around historical sites and houses, and outbidding everyone who gets in her way
on E-bay.
- Who is your favorite author? I have two. First is Ruth Rendell, under that name and as Barbara Vine. From her, I have learned a lot about writing about a past that haunts the present and blights the future. One of the best books I have ever read was Anna’s Book (called Asta’s Book in some countries), and The Brimstone Wedding and The Blood Doctor are right up there. Hands down, however, the most chilling book she ever wrote was A Judgment in Stone, where you know who done it and why from the first paragraph.
My other favorite, who died recently, is Mary Stewart. A whole generation of romance and women’s fiction novelists owe her a debt of gratitude. She wrote strong, independent heroines before they came into fashion, and no one wrote description and setting better than Lady Stewart.
- How do you describe your writing style? Use no more than two sentences.
My writing is lush and emotional.
- Why should we read your book? How do you go on after a tragedy that you caused? How do you recover and live when you have wrecked your personal life in your twenties? How do you survive the guilt of lashing out at the one you love in a moment you can never take back? How do you learn to forgive – not only those who have hurt you, but yourself?
All Who Are Lost, Book 1 in the Ashmore’s Folly trilogy, follows a man and a woman picking up the pieces after great loss. As they struggle to go on, each rebuilds a new world and finds the last love of their lives.
- Have any of your characters been modeled after yourself? I’m sure that I have put part of myself into most of my characters. Both Richard and Laura are introverts, and I am very introverted. A major character, Diana, wants to run away from her everyday life, and like a lot of people, I often feel the same way. Lucy doesn’t suffer fools easily, and neither do I. Cam is logical and organized – so am I.
The only characters that I HOPE I don’t share traits with are the siblings of Cameron St. Bride. They are just insufferable.
- If you could exchange lives with any of your characters for a day, which character would you choose and why? I’d exchange places with Richard Ashmore so that I could spend the day living at Ashmore Park among the architectural treasures, soaking up the history as I walked through Peggy’s garden.
- What books have most influenced your life? I am going with two books that profoundly influenced my writing. One is now unfortunately out of print: The Writing of One Novel by Irving Wallace. I have never read a better narration of the process of writing, although Stephen King’s On Writing comes close. The other book that influenced me is the Gospel of St. Mark — not for its theology, but for its structure. Mark is perfectly constructed in three acts and epitomizes tight, concise writing; there are only two “stray” sentences or phrases in the entire gospel. We never do know who the young naked man was who fled into the night after Jesus’ arrest, and do we really need to know the names of Simon of Cyrene’s sons?
- If you could select one book that you could rewrite and add your own unique twist on, which book would that be and why? I can think of a lot of books I’d rewrite, but I’m an author, not a critic. After all, I don’t want someone deciding someday to rewrite mine! But here’s one work I would rewrite: Romeo and Juliet. This grand romance for the ages comes down to an immature young man in and out of love at the drop of a hat and a girl who has never lived and so has no perspective on life. What would have happened if the letter hadn’t gone astray, if Juliet and then Romeo hadn’t taken the poison? Think of it as a YA novel. They would have broken up in the space of two weeks!
In light of recent events, the violence of immature love makes me want to rewrite Romeo and Juliet even more than I did before. We must never let our young people think that one lost love is the end of the world.
- Beatles or Monkees? Why?
I’m a Beatles fan! I can’t remember a time when I didn’t listen to their music. To be honest, I really don’t remember much about the Monkees.
- Who should play you in a film of your life?
Julianne Moore, if she’s willing to become a brunette for the duration.
And here’s one of her characters, Dana (the heroine’s sister):
Character: Diana Ashmore, sister to heroine Laura St. Bride and estranged wife of hero Richard Ashmore
-
Where do you dream of traveling to and why? I dream of running off to Paris and playing in jazz clubs, drinking tons of cheap bad wine, and having meaningless flings with bad boys.
-
What was the scariest moment of your life? I can’t pick. You decide. (1) When that damn stick turned blue. (2) When I smashed Richard’s face in and he looked murder at me. (3) When I saw Daddy push Mama under the waves and swim away.
-
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? I’ll tell you what I did not want to be. I did not want to be Daddy’s captive soprano. I did not want to be the reincarnation of my mother, fifth-rate soprano and first-rate slut.
-
What are you passionate about these days? I don’t think I am passionate about anything. I wish I could be. I wish I could feel something again, besides being mad at Richard and feeling smothered by the unending sameness of my life.
-
If you could apologize to someone in your past, who would it be? I can think of a lot of people who need to apologize to me, starting with Mr. Perfect and including my tramp of a sister Francie. But I suppose I should apologize to Lucy, the only sister who has stuck by me through thick and thin. I know I’ve been a terrible burden on her, and I’m sorry about that.
-
What would we find under your bed? Dust bunnies. Or maybe my dreams. I’ve lost them somewhere.
-
What one word best describes you? Bored, bored, bored!
-
Do you have any special routines or rituals? Besides sticking pins into a voodoo doll of my darling soon-to-be-ex? Not that I can think of.






