Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter)

1 Celebrate July 4th with Super Duper Extra Special Low Price on Part 1 of Since You Went Away series

July 1, 2020
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Books · Family · fiction · Military life · Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter)

July 1st through midnight July 6th only

Planning to stick close to home this weekend? Here’s your chance to purchase the paperback edition of Since You Went Away, Part One: Winter for only $4.99. Normally $7.95 on Amazon (and $14.95 in bookstores), this is a super duper extra special deal.

What better way to celebrate the July 4th holiday than immersing yourself in this unputdownable story of a modern-day military family? Featuring a deeply human cast of characters and written in McCarthy’s trademark epistolary style, the book is easy to read in small chunks—but don’t be surprised if you find yourself reading late into the night to find out what happens next in the lives of the fictional Mahoney family.

Set against the backdrop of the Iraq war in the year 2008, Since You Went Away portrays in intimate detail the effects of a distant war on the families and returning veterans at home. At once poignant and darkly funny, it is a fly-on-the-wall account of the innermost workings of a military family—their fears and hopes, their struggles and disappointments, their unexpected moments of joy and comfort and laughter.

“Touching, funny, thought-provoking, heartwarming, engrossing, and humorous” are just a few of the words readers use to describe McCarthy’s latest series. And now you can join in the fun for less than the cost of a venti iced matcha latte.

This offer applies to the paperback edition of Part One, this weekend only, exclusively through Amazon.

Click here to order the paperback.

about the author:

Nan McCarthy is the author of the Since You Went Away series, Chat, Connect, & Crash, Live ‘Til I Die, and Quark Design. A former magazine editor & tech journalist, Nan founded Rainwater Press in 1992 and began selling her books online in 1995. Nan and her husband, a veteran who served 29 years in the Marine Corps, are the proud parents of two adult sons. Nan wrote Since You Went Away after taking a ten-year break from full-time writing to care for the family during her husband’s frequent military travels.

Cover design by David High.

Cover art by Larry Jacobsen.

Since You Went Away, Part One: Winter
Nan McCarthy
(Rainwater Press, 2017) 172 pages
F I C T I O N
Part Two: Spring and Part Three: Summer now available. Part Four: Fall available later this year.

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2 How I Got the Idea for Since You Went Away

April 12, 2017
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Books · Family · fiction · Military life · Publishing · Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) · Titles · Writing

A lot of people ask writers where we get our ideas. Here’s how I came to write my latest novel, Since You Went Away.

Nan McCarthy

In 2008, my husband was on a year-long deployment to Iraq. Staying home on a Friday night, I happened upon a 1944 film on Turner Classic Movies called Since You Went Away. Produced by David O. Selznick and starring Claudette Colbert, it’s about a mom and two daughters fending for themselves on the homefront while the dad is off serving in World War II. The film is at once poignant, lighthearted, and somber. I immediately fell in love with the story.

Further research led me to the 1943 novel (of the same name) by Margaret Buell Wilder, on which the movie is based. Discovering Wilder had written the book in epistolary form (one of my favorite genres), I couldn’t help but fall even more in love with the story.

My first thought was, why has no one updated this story for modern times? Since You Went Away is an unusual kind of war movie in that it focuses completely on what’s happening with the family back at home. You could say it’s a war story without the war. I loved the idea of creating a modern-day story that gives readers an intimate glimpse of contemporary military family life in a way that’s accessible and—above all—entertaining. That’s what I set about doing when I started writing the four-part series in 2012.

(Parts One & Two are available now; Part Three will be out sometime this year. I’ll let you know when Part Four comes out after I get Part Three out the door!)

Click CreateSpace to order Nan McCarthy’s Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) in paperback.

Click one of these to order Nan McCarthy’s Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) in ebook.

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2 Buy: Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter)

April 6, 2017
by Nan McCarthy
· Books · fiction · Shop · Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter)

Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) by Nan McCarthy (Rainwater Press, 2017) is now available from these online booksellers:

Click one of these to order the ebook.

Click CreateSpace to order the paperback.

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5 Since You Went Away, Part One: Winter

April 6, 2017
by Nan McCarthy
· Books · Family · fiction · Military life · Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) · Titles

Since You Went Away, Part One: Winter
Nan McCarthy
(Rainwater Press, 2017) 172 pages
F I C T I O N

Set against the backdrop of the Iraq war in the year 2008, Since You Went Away portrays in intimate detail the effects of a distant war on the families and returning veterans at home. With an undercurrent of suspense, it is a fly-on-the-wall account of the innermost workings of a military family—their fears and hopes, their struggles and disappointments, their unexpected moments of joy and comfort and laughter.

When her husband Liam leaves on a year-long deployment, Emilie Mahoney strives to be a source of strength for Liam and their two sons. Yet she doesn’t always succeed. Holding down a full-time job, raising two teenage boys, and running a household with a menagerie of pets—all while hosting an Iraqi combat interpreter who comes to live with them as he acclimates to life in the U.S.—Emilie frequently finds herself retreating to her bedroom with a Party Size bag of Lay’s to watch back-to-back episodes of Snapped.

Featuring a deeply human cast of characters ranging from Wade Miller, a charming, charismatic retired Marine officer who watches over the family in Liam’s absence as he struggles with secrets of his own, and the amiable, enigmatic combat interpreter Fakhir al-Azzawi who worries about the safety of his family back in Baghdad as he comes to terms with trauma from his past, to the wacky and bothersome neighbor Agnes Hawkins who always manages to say the wrong thing and whose favorite pastime is watching the goings-on at the Mahoney house from her living-room window, Since You Went Away is at once darkly funny, poignant, and un-put-downable.

This is Part One of a novel that will be released in four parts.

C O M I N G S O O N: Part Two: Spring.

about the author:

Nan McCarthy is the author of Chat, Connect, and Crash, Live ‘Til I Die, and Quark Design. The Chat, Connect & Crash series, originally self-published, was released in trade paperback by Simon & Schuster in 1998 and has been widely translated. Nan regained the rights to the series and published new editions in 2014. A former magazine editor & technology writer, Nan founded Rainwater Press in 1992 and began selling her books online in 1995. Nan and her husband, a veteran who served 29 years in the Marine Corps, are the proud parents of two adult sons. Nan wrote Since You Went Away after taking a ten-year break from full-time writing to care for the family during her husband’s frequent military travels.