Kindle Edition Amazon Amazon Author Central Category:  Literary Fiction Publisher: Amazon Direct Publishing ISBN-10:  1481211285 Type: Fiction Pages: 250 Copyright: Dec 4, 2012 ISBN-13: 9781481211284 A Vietnamese woman and an American man find hope and each other from 12,000 miles away.  "My heart sank. I dumped my father’s ashes in the heart of communist Vietnam – over a thousand miles from the death of his comrades – over a thousand miles from the smile of that girl. How could I have been so stupid?" Only the bumbling, overweight, thirtyish, stay-at-home Martin Kinney could have mistakenly flubbed his dying father’s request with such gusto. This thousand mile mistake awakens the ghosts of long-held family secrets and puts Martin on a fateful course with an unlikely romantic interest – a young, beautiful, yet troubled Vietnamese woman named My Phuong. With its cross-cultural setting and unlikely romance, the 61,000 word novel Beauty Rising creates a powerful, unique voice in today’s literature. In a swift-moving, dialogue-driven prose which is funny, honest, tragic and unpredictable, Beauty Rising explores the depths of culture, family, and love as the Vietnam War, a generation removed, continues to hang on the periphery of society, cursing families and causing destruction.

"Beauty Rising" Kindle Book Review - Marilou George
Author Mark W. Sasse has written an emotionally charged and engrossing story that had me so invested in the characters and circumstances that I read it in one sitting. The writing is thoughtful, gripping and extremely moving as readers become observers in the lives of a dysfunctional family firmly embroiled in a bitter existence and the struggles that overwhelm them.

Martin is called to the bedside of his dying father, a father that has verbally abused and ignored him much of his life, to hear his final wishes. In order to carry out these wishes Martin must stand up to his mother, a bitter and verbally abusive woman, and for the first time in his 30 years go against her by standing firm and taking control. He travels to Vietnam to spread his father's ashes and has a disturbing encounter with a beautiful Vietnamese girl named My Phoung. This encounter will thrust him into circumstances and events that will be life changing.

The two main characters, Martin and My Phoung, are portrayed with great depth of emotion and their quest for redemption and self-acceptance is stunning. The characters in this story all play an important part in the feeling and complexity of the story and are woven together with compassion and grace.

The descriptive writing of the places and people of Vietnam is colorful, informative and written with great feeling and intelligence. This story brings to the surface the emotional struggles that Vietnam Veterans faced not only while in Vietnam but also when they returned home.

I highly recommend this book, it is a tremendous story and I never wanted it to end. I can't say enough about this book; it's a story that you don't want