Amazon Queenae Stepmom Blog Category:  Relationships Publisher: Xlibris Publishing ISBN-10:  17436323509 Type: Fiction Pages: 198 Copyright: May 2008 ISBN-13: 9781436323505 Relax, relate, and release with Carmen Fuller, a thirty-two year old mother of two and stepmother to nine year old, Junior. As she goes through the daily stress of being a full-time working mother and wife, she stumbles upon some life-changing discoveries about her stepson, her husband, and herself. Will Carmen's family life as she knows it survive the drama? Carmen Fuller is getting fed up with the baby mama drama, her medaling in-laws and her guilt-driven husband. Balancing her personal life and her job as a caseworker at the county’s Friend of the Court system is challenging. Stress levels run high for this thirty-two year old mother of two. Carmen keeps her family on a need-to-know status leaving her girlfriends- Tonya and Simone, who are dealing with their own family drama - as her only support. As she struggles with the feelings she is experiencing as a stepmother to nine-year old Junior, she discovers that she is not alone.           Her situation intensifies when she suspects her husband, Tyrell, of unfaithfulness. Although she felt the separation from her husband far before her suspicions of infidelity, Carmen’s dream family life is at-risk of crumbling apart. But she refuses to hand over her husband and family on a silver platter to anyone else. Meanwhile, her home and work life overlap when she receives “hate mail” from someone who obviously wants her husband. She keeps the letters a secret from her husband, but uses other tactics to feel him out. As she figures things out, she makes some astonishing discoveries about Junior that have been happening all along.           Tyrell shares with a marriage counselor that his feelings towards his wife changed when he noticed that she didn’t like his son anymore. Carmen is offended and shocked by his bogus accusations. After all of the drama she puts up with, this was the sorry excuse her husband had for treating her the way he did. While eluding their family members and Tyrell’s baby mama, the couple struggles with moving forward. As Carmen works on herself, she decides to choose her battles and accept things for what they are. She digs deep for some real soul searching to improve her roles as a wife, a mother, and a stepmother.  PREVIEW REALITY CHECK: STEPMOTHER CHRONICLES:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txf-xv7laK8 Excerpt "I’m going to love my man’s children as if they were my own." Ah, the thought of a good hearted woman who wants to make her relationship work and her companion happy. I believe most women in this situation start off feeling this way. However, some unexpected dynamics put a damper in my own efforts to be the woman I wanted to be. It cultivated feelings that I did not realize I had. A relationship is already hard work between just the two of us. So when the kids and other people are added to the mix, more conflict creeps in.

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"I enjoyed reading it and learning about the real challenges and struggles of a sensitive, caring, and frustrated young woman as she tries to do her very best as a stepmother while juggling the other balls in the air that include her marriage, her own two kids, her job, her home, her women friendships, and her sense of self. Your writing style is very alive and energetic so that I felt I knew the characters and was emotionally involved in their development, even though some of them didn't behave like we know they should have! The book also contains the anatomy of the real, day to day issues with stepkids, the exspouse and the divided loyalties that naturallyu arise but which we are loathe to confront."