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Sentimental Denial

by Toby Manzanares

445 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-1122; ISBN 1-55395-407-6; US$33.00, C$38.00, EUR27.50, £19.00

A young man tries to woe and persuade a beautiful girl to marry him. In his perserverance for conquest he entagles himself in some of the most hilarious events imaginable.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book There is a deep love for this young man as he gets off the mail truck in the small community in northern New Mexico. He has just been discharged from the U.S. Navy and he has returned to seek the love of the, once upon a time, unattractive girl that has now turned out to be a Cinderella. The small community is El Rito where this romantic comedy novel begins. It is a community inhabited by mostly Spanish speaking people who's ancestors were left there after the Spanish American War with mexico. The young man now tries to woe and persuade the beautiful girl, Tina Marie to marry him even though he had ridiculed her in her younger years. Tina Marie in retribution rejects him for the happenings of long ago past. In his perseverance for the conquest for Tina Marie, he entangles himself in some of the most hilarious events possibly imagined. This novel consists of perseverance of love, comedy, tragedy, an unspeakable double barrel shotgun wedding and ends with the most important word of all -- LOVE.

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About the Author Toby Manzanares was born in El Rito, New Mexico, a small mountain community in the northern part of the state. He graduated from high school in 1954 and ran away to join the Navy. Her returned to El Rito in 1968 seeking the love of Tina Marie whom he had seen two years previously when he was home on leave. In 1960, he went to work for the U.S. Government in Denver, Colorado, as a science technician after holding several jobs previously in New Mexico. He attended the University of Colorado at night where he eared a bachelor's degree in Geology. In 1967, he married Tina Marie; his long sought girlfriend. Toby and Tina had an only son, Steve James that is now married to his beautiful wife Lori Michelle. They in turn now have a beautiful daughter, McKenzie Nicole. Toby eventually retired from the Federal Government as a Geologist in 1989. This book is dedicated to Toby and Tina's beautiful granddaughter, Mckenzie Nicole.

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Excerpts

Page 4

    Floor-boards screeched, bent and squeaked as she walked with her number twelve heavy-duty size grimy shoes! She walked up to the post office window, waiting for it to open and looked back at all of us and gave us all a dirty despicable look! We all stood in silence pretending that we did not notice her presence. Out of the blue moon, Lucianito, the little half pint sized and half drunk rascal, left the counter he was leaning on, and staggered over and got behind Rosalita. He then turned his face around and looked at all of us grinning diabolically and then reached over and massaged Rosalita's bum and then pinched her good on the ass!
    Rosalita was shocked to death, positively knowing, previously, that no body would even dare to do something like that to her! She half turned around to see who was Lucifer the Chief enemy of God that had such a satanic mind to have done just that! When she saw that it was the evil and devious minded drunkard Luciano, she brought her one hundred and fifty pound arm around with a smooth sweeping swing and delivered a hell of a wallop across Luciano's face! It was a perfect lashing delivery rated to the equivalency of brushing a cat's ass with a perakeet's feather! Lucianito swallowed his wad of tobacco and coughing overwhelmingly, wobbled and staggered backwards and in doing so ran into the wood burning stove and almost knocked it over!

Page 11

Everybody else went on to pick up their mail and left. Suddenly Tina Marie walked in! My God, how she has changed, I thought! To think that in high school she was nothing but a bag of bones but now look -- Cinderella! I now remembered how her and I hated each other in school -- to the extreme! But now, look how exquisite and gorgeous she is and to think that she knows it! Because of her good looks, I very non-chalantly tried to captivate her interest, so I said to her, "Hi Tina, don't you remember me? I haven't seen you for two years when I came home on leave, how are you?" She turned her head towards me slightly and said, "Of course I know you, I've known you all my life. Excuse me," and she picked up her mail and went out the door. It was impossible to cease in seeing her wearing a pair of tight red shorts and low front neck tight sweater, which in turn showed her beautiful slim shapely legs, rounded hips and pointed breasts! Her beautiful melon like breasts bounced up and down gently as she walked away and her gorgeous wavy brown hair fluttered slightly in the gentle breeze! I watched her as she walked graciously away to her car and realized now more and more how lovely she was. Soon my dad arrived and took me home but all throughout that day and through the night there was a penetrating sensitivity in my heart for Tina Marie, even though she had snubbed me at the post office. There was a tingling sensation within my soul for her total lovely self.

Page 36

He ran over the torn off garage door and as we bounced down the cement steps I could see Enrique's and Susano's heads bob-bobbing up, down and side-ways as we thrashed down the thirteen steops! By an act of God and a warning from the Holy Spirit, I looked up to where the mechanic was standing and I saw him take a swing at us with the rubber mallet! I ducked down and the mallet zoomed over my head and hit the back window of the truck, smashed it completely and landed on top of the dashboard inside right up against the windshield in between Enriquez and Susano! I sat up cautiously and saw the mechanic hurled the tire tool at us as the truck hit the street! I ducked again and the tire tool came a flying, hit the cab of the truck and flew out and bounced all over down the street giving a loud bell pealing ringing sound! The truck finally hit bottom after barreling down the thirteen steps and Riquez was able to maneuber it into the right lane on the street without hitting anything even though a couple of cars came to tire screeching stops! As for the vagrant, who made his home among the fifty-five gallon barrels, heaven and hell or purgatory might know what ever happened to him! As far as I know he vanished into oblivious and into the twilight zone of the living or dead! I looked up to the garage area again and I saw the mechanic kicking dirt up in the air with his feet and whipping his dirty baseball hat on his knee, I'm sure cussing us good!

Page 174

She then gave a loud command, "Start the march, let those guitars crack!" Now, Sady's mother was a huge woman and her and her husband were at the very front of the column right behind the flower boys and flower girls. She had in her posession and waving in her hand and old Colt 45 solid steel revolver which she was trying to fire! However, every time she aim that thing up at the sky and pull the trigger, it would miss-fired, clip, clip! Because of the enormous size of the lethal weapon, everybody would put their hands to their ears whenever she point that thing skyward and then, 'sass', misfired! This went on and on through out the march and she must have tried to fire that cannon ball trust rusty equalizer a hundred times and a hundred times it tripped! As well all came close to the house, and were being crowded under the porch, Sady's mother, in a last minute of desperation and on a last effort pulled the trigger on that thing. Miraculously it exploded pointing heavenly and blasted a hell of a hole right through the porch ceiling and killed a bunch of innocent pigeons perched up on the roof! It rained feathers, bird feet, guts and what have you all over the marching party! Well, everybody laughed however, Sady's mother was pretty damn proud that the bazooka she had unsuccessfully tried to fire, finally exploded! The reception came and we started to do a little more drinking and pretty soon we were all feeling mighty fine again!

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Catalogue Information

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