Feng Shui and Charlotte Nightingale - Hardcover

2015 Finalist in the USA Book Awards

Category – Fiction: Chick Lit / Women’s Lit Category

Feng Shui and Charlotte Nightingale is an uplifting and hilarious fable about empowerment and perception, and the magical things that happen when we begin to see the glass as half full.

Charlotte Nightingale has the worst luck in the world. Her cluttered apartment is the poster child for “shar chi” – poison luck in the realm of feng shui. Her boyfriend’s a jerk, her job sucks, she’s broke and her own family seems to hate her. Every day is a bad hair day. Kwan, a handsome Chinese food delivery man and aspiring feng shui practitioner, takes pity on Charlotte. While Charlotte searches for the money to pay for the Emperor’s cashew chicken Kwan has delivered, he surreptitiously begins to move things around in Charlotte’s apartment in accordance with the ancient art of placement – hoping to improve her life. Charlotte’s luck subsequently appears to change in a big way. It goes from bad to worse – or so it seems.

Charlotte finds a photo of her boyfriend with another woman, her car dies, she is fired from her job, the plumbing in her apartment explodes, and making matters worse, Charlotte’s perfect perky designer-obsessed blonde sister is about to marry a square-jawed, richer-than-god, insanely handsome plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills and the entire family loves nothing more than to rub Charlotte’s nose in it.

Is it bad luck that sends Charlotte careening through calamity after calamity, or is it merely a matter of perspective? Without a loser boyfriend, beater car and crappy job, Charlotte is free to embark on a great adventure that will awaken in her a world of possibility where nothing is as simple as it seems. Until, in the end, Charlotte realizes that everything she ever wanted was right under her hose the whole time.

The reader might ask whether feng shui, luck, voodoo, prayer or magic can effect change in a person’s life, or whether an about-face is purely a function of attitude. Or better yet, whether perhaps it’s a combination of all these things.

“Feng Shui & Charlotte Nightingale” is a quick, fun read…the plot is engaging and readers will enjoy watching Charlotte’s transformation.
Anne Shaver, Roanoke Times