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The Longest Nine Months: A Getting To Mr. Right series
In Getting to Mr. Right, Campbell debunked the Prince Charming myth, only to meet a special man who turned all her assumptions upside down. Now she’s married to Chand. But Happily-Ever-After turns out to be another illusion. Campbell deals with job burnout and struggles to find her place in the world. An unexpected pregnancy and its complications undermine her relationship with Chand and take her to a difficult crossroad. No matter which way she decides to go, nothing will ever be the same!
132 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 4, 2017
About the author
Carol Balawyder
16 books20 followersMy dad was born on a farm town in Rama, Saskatchewan and my mom in Montreal. I was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec but currently I live in Montreal. I first came to study Early Childhood Education at McGill. It was a lonely time for me. Away from home for the first time. My parents didn’t believe in summer camps.
I didn’t like teaching kindergarten. All that discipline and yelling and screaming all at once…no I had the book first…he hit me…Patty peed in her pants. So I went on to get a B.A. in Education so I could teach high school. My first teaching job was teaching poetry to a group of drop-outs who were no older than I was and even some of the boys in my class were my brother’s friends. It was weird. Teaching High School didn’t turn out to be the be all and end all of saving the world.
After that, I got a neat job teaching English as second language for this company run by a really old woman who let me do practically whatever I wanted. I got to create a lot in those years.
And then I needed to travel. I did some research at The British Museum Library on my own grant. It was on Alice in Wonderland. The real reason why I wanted to do this research was that I just wanted to read from the original Lewis Carroll manuscript. Man, did they ever survey that manuscript. You’d think I was taking out Russian spy material.
Fast forward. I went back to study Applied Linguistics at Concordia University in Montreal where I almost got an M.A. degree if it weren’t for this professor (Gosh I wish I could remember her name…she was ancient) who didn’t think that using music to teach a second language was cool to use with adults. Although, a year later she kind of got with it and delivered a speech at an ESL convention using my material! Really. Now, that’s not fair.
Okay, so bad things happen to good people. I write a few ESL books that sell fairly well. Maybe you’ve heard or even used some of them: Open For Business and Windows on Sci-Tech. These were under my married name Carol Ann Fournier.
So I have my Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame and now what?
Oh, I know… I want to write crime novels. But don’t I need some kind of credibility, like maybe having been a criminal myself or a detective (which really, really would have been super cool, if in my good old days they’d accepted women in the police force).
I went back to university to get a M.Sc. in criminology and then ended up teaching Police Technology and Corrections for eighteen years in a college in the north end of Montreal. How’s that for credibility?
In the meantime, I got divorced and found myself side tracking from crime writing and writing about dating. Horror!
Here I am, years later and too many dates to keep track of but with a collection of dating stories and a novel.
Now you know my sad story of how I became a writer. But wait, that’s not all. I’m only beginning.
I didn’t like teaching kindergarten. All that discipline and yelling and screaming all at once…no I had the book first…he hit me…Patty peed in her pants. So I went on to get a B.A. in Education so I could teach high school. My first teaching job was teaching poetry to a group of drop-outs who were no older than I was and even some of the boys in my class were my brother’s friends. It was weird. Teaching High School didn’t turn out to be the be all and end all of saving the world.
After that, I got a neat job teaching English as second language for this company run by a really old woman who let me do practically whatever I wanted. I got to create a lot in those years.
And then I needed to travel. I did some research at The British Museum Library on my own grant. It was on Alice in Wonderland. The real reason why I wanted to do this research was that I just wanted to read from the original Lewis Carroll manuscript. Man, did they ever survey that manuscript. You’d think I was taking out Russian spy material.
Fast forward. I went back to study Applied Linguistics at Concordia University in Montreal where I almost got an M.A. degree if it weren’t for this professor (Gosh I wish I could remember her name…she was ancient) who didn’t think that using music to teach a second language was cool to use with adults. Although, a year later she kind of got with it and delivered a speech at an ESL convention using my material! Really. Now, that’s not fair.
Okay, so bad things happen to good people. I write a few ESL books that sell fairly well. Maybe you’ve heard or even used some of them: Open For Business and Windows on Sci-Tech. These were under my married name Carol Ann Fournier.
So I have my Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame and now what?
Oh, I know… I want to write crime novels. But don’t I need some kind of credibility, like maybe having been a criminal myself or a detective (which really, really would have been super cool, if in my good old days they’d accepted women in the police force).
I went back to university to get a M.Sc. in criminology and then ended up teaching Police Technology and Corrections for eighteen years in a college in the north end of Montreal. How’s that for credibility?
In the meantime, I got divorced and found myself side tracking from crime writing and writing about dating. Horror!
Here I am, years later and too many dates to keep track of but with a collection of dating stories and a novel.
Now you know my sad story of how I became a writer. But wait, that’s not all. I’m only beginning.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 24, 2017
I really enjoy this series. After coming together for a research study (the concept behind "Getting To Mr. Right"), four women formed a close friendship, and each novella since then features one of them. Their stories go well beyond romance, and instead dive into real-life issues like chronic disease, betrayal, and--in The Longest Nine Months--a complicated pregnancy in which the husband is not on board. The issue of abortion is a delicate one, and the topic is handled well in this novella. The characters are likable and the prose fluid. A quick and enjoyable read for fans of contemporary fiction.
December 18, 2017
Carol Balawyder's The Longest Nine Months (2017) starts with a million dollar question, one every woman I know has faced at least once: Is my life going as I wish it would? Forty-two-year-old Campbell Jones, at the top of her career as a therapist, courageously arrives at the answer I had always wanted to: I quit!! And then, she moves on, taking the steps required to make that choice a reality despite detractors, the most painful being her husband, Chand. Chand doesn’t like change so treats Campbell's decision as a phase, something she'll get over, until she adds the exclamation point and becomes pregnant. This he argues against, suggests an abortion, kindly and then aggressively, especially when Campbell finds out that there are complications to the pregnancy. For a long nine months, Campbell addresses the problems of a pregnancy she wants and her husband doesn't, the worries of raising her child alone, and how to reinvigorate her career in a way that better-serves her changed attitudes.
The gift of this book is that we are with Campbell as she goes from shock over the pregnancy to the joy of a new life. It’s written in a personal first person, present tense, which makes it as intimate as it gets.
This is the final installment of her exceptional women's fiction series, Getting to Mr. Right, though it stands alone with no problem.
The gift of this book is that we are with Campbell as she goes from shock over the pregnancy to the joy of a new life. It’s written in a personal first person, present tense, which makes it as intimate as it gets.
This is the final installment of her exceptional women's fiction series, Getting to Mr. Right, though it stands alone with no problem.
October 31, 2017
Carol’s book is a twist on the normal romantic books as in this novella she explores life for Campbell and her husband Chand a few years after their marriage. In this thoughtful and enjoyable book, Campbell is in the midst of a mid-life crisis, unhappy at work as a therapist and considering new career prospects when she falls pregnant.
The happy news becomes one that threatens to devastate her marriage to Chand as he withdraws further from her upon realising the problems of the pregnancy and the possible side-effects on the child. At times I was frustrated with his reaction but Carol wrote about it convincingly and provided the context of his reaction with realistic ease.
As Campbell struggles to stand up for what she wants and to learn to live life fully I became whole-heartedly involved in the story, her thoughts and whirlwind of emotions. The first person perspective of Campbell is ideal to win the reader’s trust and understanding and quickly I felt as if I was one of her close friends!
Throughout the book, the mantra of ‘prepare for the worst, expect the best’ helps Campbell find her inner strength through the pregnancy and the words form a perfect foundation for the novella.
Although this is the final book in Carol Balawyder’s Mr Right series it reads very well as a stand-alone and without having read the others in the series. Having said that, I can’t wait to learn more about Campbell and her friends and look forward to reading the earlier books!
The happy news becomes one that threatens to devastate her marriage to Chand as he withdraws further from her upon realising the problems of the pregnancy and the possible side-effects on the child. At times I was frustrated with his reaction but Carol wrote about it convincingly and provided the context of his reaction with realistic ease.
As Campbell struggles to stand up for what she wants and to learn to live life fully I became whole-heartedly involved in the story, her thoughts and whirlwind of emotions. The first person perspective of Campbell is ideal to win the reader’s trust and understanding and quickly I felt as if I was one of her close friends!
Throughout the book, the mantra of ‘prepare for the worst, expect the best’ helps Campbell find her inner strength through the pregnancy and the words form a perfect foundation for the novella.
Although this is the final book in Carol Balawyder’s Mr Right series it reads very well as a stand-alone and without having read the others in the series. Having said that, I can’t wait to learn more about Campbell and her friends and look forward to reading the earlier books!
December 17, 2017
A wonderful last book to the - Getting to Mr. Right series. This book takes us into the marriage between Campbell and her husband Chand and gives us reasons to pause and reflect on how we would handle the news if we found out our unborn child may be born with a birth defect.
We don't often take into consideration what's involved with the choices parents must make when faced with consequential decisions. In this story, a mother's love for her unborn child champions any challenges she'll have to face, but we'll learn about the father's indecision as well, and why. We're taken through the rollercoaster of emotions Cam must face about the future of her unborn child and her marriage.
Balawyder has a knack for developing rich characters, in this series friendships were formed by four women who each have a story about her life and love to share. I love how she brought the end together with a most satisfying conclusion - almost unexpected after the dilemmas presented in the story. A beautiful series of books I've enjoyed each book and am very much looking forward to Carol's next book!
We don't often take into consideration what's involved with the choices parents must make when faced with consequential decisions. In this story, a mother's love for her unborn child champions any challenges she'll have to face, but we'll learn about the father's indecision as well, and why. We're taken through the rollercoaster of emotions Cam must face about the future of her unborn child and her marriage.
Balawyder has a knack for developing rich characters, in this series friendships were formed by four women who each have a story about her life and love to share. I love how she brought the end together with a most satisfying conclusion - almost unexpected after the dilemmas presented in the story. A beautiful series of books I've enjoyed each book and am very much looking forward to Carol's next book!
December 13, 2017
A satisfying ending. That's what I like most about Carol's stories. Not only this one but the other books in this series. Carol is an expert at writing engrossing stories that are full of believable characters and challenging story situations and did I already mention, emotionally satisfying endings? Her stories present characters in all age groups and include cultural references that add interest and freshness. I am so happy to have discovered her line of books and I encourage you to buy "The Longest Nine Months" or any of the stories in her series. You'll be glad to meet Felicity, Campbell, Missi and Suzy - four women who struggle but come out on top as they seek "Mr. Right.".
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews