April 6, 2015 / giveaway / 13 Comments »

Spring Fiction Giveaway

Here’s a great way to begin the week! A multi-book Happy Spring giveaway. Secrets of A Charmed Life is in the mix, along with a bunch of books you are sure to love. There are a few historicals, some contemporaries, even one with a touch of magical realism. You can learn more about each book and author by visiting the individual author pages on Facebook and entering via the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post or on any of the participating author sites. Several authors are adding other goodies to the giveaway. Please visit the Facebook pages below of the authors involved & tweet about the giveaway for a chance to win one of the 9 books mentioned.

The Books & Authors:
PALMETTO MOON by Kim Boykin
WAKING UP JOY by Tina Ann Forkner
STILLWATER RISING by Steena Holmes
SECRETS OF A CHARMED LIFE by Susan Meissner
THE DELICATE NATURE OF LOVE by Wendy Paine Miller
THE GLASS WIVES by Amy Sue Nathan
BEFORE I GO by Colleen Oakley
THE VIRTUES OF OXYGEN by Susan Schoenberger
THE HATMAKER’S HEART by Carla Stewart

The Facebook Pages:
https://www.facebook.com/writercolleenoakley
https://www.facebook.com/carlastewartauthor
https://www.facebook.com/tinaannforknerauthor
https://www.facebook.com/susan.meissner
https://www.facebook.com/SteenaHolmes.Author
https://www.facebook.com/authorkimboykin
https://www.facebook.com/writerwendypainemiller
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Susan-Schoenberger-Author/140050966055510
https://www.facebook.com/AmySueNathan

Whomever wins the copy of SECRETS OF A CHARMED LIFE will also win from me a jar of the best British orange marmalade there is plus a tin of English tea. Here’s a bit about the book if you are new to my site: This story is historical fiction framed by a contemporary layer that links to a story in the past. An American college student named Kendra, who is studying abroad at Oxford, interviews Blitz survivor Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets she has kept all her life – beginning with who she really is. The story then takes the reader to England in 1940. An unprecedented war against London’s civilian population is about to take place and half a million children are evacuated to foster homes in the countryside. Fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, but Emmy’s burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia’s profound need for her sister’s presence. The sisters’ lives are forever changed when—acting at cross purposes—they secretly return to London on the first day of the Blitz.

HOW TO ENTER:

Click on the Rafflecopter below and follow the instructions. Nine books. Nine winners. I hope you’re one of them! Contest runs from today until April 20. Enter today!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Have a fabulous week!

March 20, 2015 / books, Gone With The Wind, Historical Fiction / 6 Comments »

Drum roll, please…

It’s always a thrilling day for me when I can reveal a new cover for a book that is headed your way in the months to come. I love the artistry of book covers and I am not the least bit ashamed to admit I put a lot of stock in a book’s cover.

The old maxim that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover is really more a call to appraise someone’s character by who she is on the inside (rather than her outward appearance) than it is advice about an actual book. A person can’t always help how she looks. But an artist is in full control of a book cover’s look. You can’t just say of a book cover, “Well, that’s just its DNA.” A book cover is the first visual connection readers make with a book; and usually the only one that’s handed to them. The rest of the visuals we come up with on our own as we read. So I expect a lot out of covers!

This one delights me.

My first reaction when I saw this beautiful cover for STARS OVER SUNSET BOULEVARD, which is headed your way in January 2016, was that the color palette is perfect, and that the lettering – which will be in shimmery gold – is wonderfully apropos for the golden age of Hollywood; the time period of the majority of this book’s storyline. This is a book about two studio secretaries who become friends while working on the set of most iconic film of all time, Gone With the Wind. One of them longs to be wanted, and the other longs to be needed. They both go after their desires against the backdrop of the most memorable movie ever made, and at times their desires collide, as the desires of two flawed people often do.

The amazing thing about true friends is it that theirs is a relationship that is chosen. Friends decide over and over again, as they grow and mature and seek out their life dreams, to remain close to each other. It’s the easiest relationship to walk away from, but we decide, again and again, to love our closest friends, despite all that is happening around us and inside us, despite hurt feelings and cross purposes. This is a book about friendship in a time a change, just as Gone With the Wind is a story – among other things – about the friendship of Scarlett and Melanie in a time of change.

This book is about Violet – who wants to be needed – and Audrey – who wants to be wanted, and this stunning woman on the cover above could honestly be either one of them. And because her face is mostly hidden from us, which I like so very much, it is up to each reader to decide who the woman on the front is, which I also like.

There will be much more about this book in the weeks ahead – I am hard at work in revisions on it right now – but in the meantime I’d love to hear what you think about this cover! And what you know of the book so far…

March 2, 2015 / Uncategorized / 2 Comments »

Happy Birthday to the good doctor

Every March 2, when Theodore Geisel’s birthday rolls around, we who grew up reading Dr. Seuss and who nourished our children on his stories get a little nostalgic. We suddenly want a Red Fish, Blue Fish fix or Hop on Pop, or – dare I say it – a little Fox in Socks. (Oh, how I remember my kiddos asking for Fox in Socks at bedtime after a long, hard day and, knowing I would never get through all the tongue-twisters, asking them if they wouldn’t rather have me read Are You My Mother? instead.)

We couldn’t keep all the books our kids had on their bookshelves when they were little, but we did hang onto all the Seuessian books. We hoped there would be a time when we would have grandkids and they would be at our house and we’d want there to be books for them to read or have read to them. Now that we are expecting our first grandchild in June, I see I must unearth Fox in Socks and get back to speed on the oral delivery of its pages.

In honor of the good doctor’s birthday, and to celebrate the recent announcement of a forthcoming Seuss book What Pet Should I Get, Barnes and Noble came up with a fitting hypothetical question: what if Dr. Seuss wrote the plots for other famous books? The first three are:

A Song of Ice and Fire series, by George R.R. Martin
One king, two king. Dead king, who king?

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
He has brains in his head. He has feet in his shoes. But the ducks just keep flying wherever they choose.

The Twilight series, by Stephenie Meyers
When you’re in a slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself requires sparkling in the sun.

You can find all the rest here:

How about you? Could you Seussify the plot of a famous book? Here’s my stab at it:

Gone With the Wind: The wind can take a lot of things, naivete and plantation kings…

Now you try!

February 20, 2015 / Movies / 3 Comments »

My favorite love story at 50

Of all the love stories that have been made into a movie, there isn’t one I adore more than The Sound Of Music. I don’t know if the romance between the real Maria and Capt. Von Trapp unfolded just like it did this film adaptation of their lives, but I will always believe it did (so please don’t give me proof that it’s otherwise!).

The movie celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year and I am happy to say I’ve probably seen it fifty times. I know all the songs, much of the script, and when I had the wonderful opportunity in the early ’90s to visit Salzburg, Austria, you can bet I was in movie-devotee heaven. The Sound of Music is a film about the restoration of joy, zeal for goodness and justice, finding your purpose in life, learning to sing (!) and finding the courage to do what your heart tells you is right.

But it’s first and foremost a love story.

I can watch the scene in the gazebo when Maria and Georg share their first kiss a million times and never get tired of it. It is achingly romantic. That’s probably why I love this photo of Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer that accompanies this article in Vanity Fair. (You must hop over and take a peek and then come right back!). It’s almost as if it’s a portrait of Maria and Georg fifty years after they fled the Nazis rather than a studio shot of the actors who portrayed them.

There is something so deep and pure about the way this love unfolded on screen, so subtly, so gently and yet so profoundly deep. One moment Maria is sadly contemplating a move back to the abbey and Georg, marriage to a baroness he is only merely fond of. And the next he is asking her to marry him! And no one in the audience thinks they are rushing things. It’s as though these two had always been meant for each other, from the moment he became a widower and she found she was desperate for a meaningful life. You can already tell in that moonlit gazebo that theirs is a love that iron-strong.

How about you? Did you grow up watching The Sound of Music over and over? What do you think of the love story between Georg and Maria? And how will you celebrate its fiftieth anniversary?

I think tea with jam and bread will be on the menu at my house…

February 17, 2015 / books / No Comments »

Too soon gone

It’s always sad when the talents of a gifted person collide with harsh reality, missed opportunities, and the frailty of that person’s own psyche. I wouldn’t say I am a devotee of F. Scott Fitzgerald; I’ve only read The Great Gatsby (who hasn’t?), but I read Stewart O’Nan’s latest, West of Sunset, because it is set in Hollywood in the late 1930’s – the era of the book I just finished writing. (As with so many historical places, you can only tour them in the pages of books. The Hollywood of today is vastly different than the the golden age of Tinseltown). The fact that the the story was a fictionalized account of the last few years of this celebrated novelist’s life was a bonus.

Prior to reading West of Sunset I knew only that F. Scott Fitzgerald died too young, and that when he left us, he wasn’t at the top of his game. The immediate glory of Gatsby was behind him, and he did not know that future generations of high school students would be reading his book year after year after year. I also knew his wife Zelda had been placed in psychiatric care and that he had come west to California to earn money for her care.

O’Nan dealt with finesse and artistry the material he had to work with. And while I wanted it to be a book that took me and all my senses back to Hollywood’s golden days, this was primarily a book about Fitzgerald’s struggle with an entire cast of inner enemies; the fact that he had to confront them on the glamorous streets of Hollywood was incidental. As one Goodreads reviewer put it: “This isn’t a book for lovers of the flickering, fleeting Lost Generation. It is a peek into the charred last years of Fitzgerald, his battle with writing, at war with his demons.”

Stewart O’Nan is an amazing writer, and since I had gone to hear him speak about this book and heard him read from its pages (he is also an engaging orator) I could hear his commanding voice in every line. The publisher’s blurb about the book says that this book is a“rich, sometimes heartbreaking” novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last years in Hollywood. I would have to agree. You read it wishing things could end differently.

When you already know the story’s outcome, and that’s it’s a sad ending, you need a skilled writer at the helm. O’Nan delivers. Narrative nonfiction or fictionalized history – whatever you choose to call it- is often only as interesting as the writer entrusted with the story can make it. For me, West of Sunset excelled where The Devil in White City did not. There was pathos here. And a wish for a magic wand to fix what was broken so long ago.

February 3, 2015 / books, WWII / 4 Comments »

Today’s the Day!

Today Secrets of a Charmed Life hits bookstore shelves! This WW2 story began first as just an image in my head of a teenage girl sketching wedding dresses in the tiny bedroom she shares with a younger half-sister. I could see Emmy in my mind’s eye imagining a life far different from the one she is living. She wants a happily-ever-after life where love and comfort are in abundance, and for her, that charmed existence begins with a wedding dress worn on that day a girl’s childhood dreams come true. I decided to set Emmy in London at the start of the war because I knew that even for a young woman not yet sixteen, war is a crucible. It is a tester of dreams and desires and determination. I knew the London Blitz was an opposition that would bring out the very best and the very worst in this girl, as war so often does.

Like many of my other novels, Secrets of a Charmed Life is historical fiction framed by a contemporary layer linked to the past. An American college student studying abroad at Oxford interviews Blitz survivor Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets she has kept all her life – beginning with who she really is. The story then takes the reader to England in 1940, where an unprecedented war against London’s civilian population is about to take place and half a million children are evacuated to foster homes in the countryside. Fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, but Emmy’s burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia’s profound need for her sister’s presence. The sisters’ lives are forever changed when—acting at cross purposes—they secretly return to London on the first day of the Blitz.

As always, if you decide to read this book, and I so very much hope you do, I’d love to hear what you thought of it. Your reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble are appreciated more than you know. Readers trust other readers, and your honest reaction to any book of mine is the best kind of word of mouth. If you haven’t already ordered a copy of Secrets of A Charmed Life, today would be a great day to do that!

As Iwrite this, Secrets of A Charmed Life is #44 on Goodreads’ Top 200 most anticipated February releases, and #20 on Amazon’s hot new digital releases for February! What a wonderful way to release a new book into the wild.

There are a number of drawings for this book on the web right now. Here’s one of them. There’s an interview there where I shared some of what I told you above, plus lots more.

Thanks so much for being a part of my life. You are the reason I write.

January 30, 2015 / books / No Comments »

The Thorn Birds and me

I’ve always had an itch to write; most people who know me already know that. But there have been books in my long-ago past that served to assure I would never – must never – grow desensitized to that itch and every now and then I am reminded how grateful I am for those books. Charlotte’s Web was one, so was The Island of the Blue Dolphins, and The Grapes of Wrath. And so was Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds.

When I heard yesterday that Colleen McCullough had passed away, I felt like I’d lost a friend and mentor even though we’d never met. Plus, I had only ever read the one book by her. I know she wrote other novels but I never read them. She stands out as a pillar on my path to having become a novelist, so perhaps I subconsciously chose to read nothing else by her so that her mark on me couldn’t possibly be sullied by a book not on par (at least to me, anyway) with The Thorn Birds.

I am not alone in my admiration of this book. It has sold 30 million copies in paperback, 3 million in hard. It was made into a TV mini series that I still hunger to re-watch from time to time. including right now.

I was probably a senior in high school the first time I read The Thorn Birds, in my twenties the second. In my thirties, the third. I loved how she wove the story over the decades, how she parceled the story out to us by sections separated by names. And oh, the names.

I fell in love with the names Meghann (with the h and the two n’s), Padraic, Fiona, Justine, and Dane. And I’ve never forgotten the shade of the dress Meggie wore when everything was suddenly different: ashes of roses. Such a hauntingly, metaphorical, foreshadowing description of a hue that would’ve been pink if life was easy.

I am not altogether sure why some books stay with you, decades after you’ve read them, other than there is something special about those books that touches you in a place where you are most deeply you.

I was a novelist who hadn’t written anything yet when I first read The Thorn Birds. And then I was a wannabe when I read it again. Then I was a “will I ever be?” And now, I am going to read it again as dear Colleen’s much-lesser-known colleague in the trenches.

Thank you Colleen, for laying kindling on the little fire that would be my offering back to the world…I am forever grateful.

January 23, 2015 / writing / 3 Comments »

It’s National Handwriting Day!

I am presently spending every second in the Cave of Wonders (that’s an euphemism for the Dreaded Deadline Abyss) but I can’t let this day go by completely without mentioning that it’s National Handwriting Day.

While society probably doesn’t need National Middle Child’s Day or National Polka Dot Day or National Doughnuts for Dinner Day, we unfortunately need this one because a few years back, public schools collectively decided kids don’t need to learn how to write in cursive; a decision I still have to pinch myself over. It’s a bad dream, right?

A couple days ago I posted a link on Facebook to a great article that appeared in the New York Times on what those same kids are losing out on by NOT learning how to write in cursive. I’ve heard that apparently teachers aren’t given enough time to teach penmanship and how to write a signature that doesn’t look like your cat wrote it and the finer details of learning how to write in longhand on an actual piece of paper. Cursive handwriting was eliminated as a subject without much thought – as far as I can tell – as to the implications down the road. It’s a very telling article that if you haven’t read already, you will want to.

What do you think of the demise of cursive handwriting? I would really like to know. If you are a school teacher, I’d especially like to know. Thoughts?

January 9, 2015 / books / 3 Comments »

A different kind of book club

We’re doing something new and fun at Women’s Fiction Writers that I am pretty jazzed about. We’ve put together a different kind of book club that is all about the word “BEFORE” instead of “after.” This online club will “get together” over on Facebook to talk about books BEFORE we’ve read them – without giving away any spoilers of course. It’s a book club to talk about out what fabulous new book TO read instead of a club for great books you just read.

That means you can get in on the club anytime and come to the online club meetings – which we are calling Fiction Cafe – and it will never matter if you haven’t read the book, because no one is expected to have read the book. Cool, right? I don’t know about you but there have been times at my physical book club when I’ve not been able to get to the book we’ve chosen. I have always felt like a flunkatoid when that happens. Not so with this one. Our Fiction Cafe weeks will happen twice a month and will introduce you to new books by great authors and lots more. There will be a drawing of the book, a Q and A with the author, behind-the-scene looks at how the book came to be, photos of historical significance or current day locales or maybe even recipes inspired by the story. Best of all you will get to know the author because you will have the fabulous opportunity to chat together on our Facebook event page.

The first Cafe Week is coming next week, January 12 through 16, and the book we are showcasing is Michelle Gable’s stunning debut, A Paris Apartment. Here’s a little teaser:

When April Vogt’s boss tells her about an apartment in the ninth arrondissement that has been shuttered for the past seventy years, the Sotheby’s continental furniture specialist does not hear the words “dust” or “rats” or “decrepit.” She hears Paris. She hears escape. Once in France, April quickly learns the apartment is not merely some rich hoarder’s repository. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque, Giovanni Boldini. And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. Suddenly April’s quest is no longer about the Louis-style armchairs that will fetch millions at auction. It’s about discovering the story behind this charismatic woman.

Library Journal gave it a starred review and said this: “With its well-developed, memorable characters and the author’s skillful transitioning between story lines…this stunning and fascinating debut will capture the interest of a wide audience but particularly those interested in stories about women behind famous men like Melanie Benjamin’s The Aviator’s Wife or Nancy Horan’s Under the Wide and Starry Sky. Highly recommended.”

All the fun starts on Monday at our Facebook page for this event. Come on over as you start your day, then pop in from time to time as your schedule allows. Michelle will be telling us all about the book without giving away anything, and there will be a book giveaway, and of course, photos of Paris. If you are not a part of Facebook, you might want to join just to be able to come to these fun, free, and fabulous events. Did I mention a drawing for the book??

I will be hosting this first Fiction Cafe Week and I sure hope to see you there!

Have a great weekend and see you Monday at the cafe… Oui?

December 19, 2014 / Ann Voskamp, Christmas / 1 Comment »

Not your average baby gift

My nephew and his lovely wife became parents for the first time almost a week ago. Little Dylan Olivia is the first baby of the next generation in my immediate and local family; my son and his sweet wife will bring us the next one come summer.

It’s always a treat to shop for a new little one, everything on the shelves and racks is so sweet and charming: Spend a few minutes in the baby aisle and you’re soon thinking the world isn’t such an awful place. It’s actually filled with tiny reminders that life is a wonderfully renewing force and should be treasured.

At Christmas time when I am getting out my nativity scene or listening to carols that describe the gifts the Magi brought to Jesus, I am nearly always reminded of what strange presents they brought to welcome him to the world. And yes, I know it is highly likely Jesus was a toddler by the time they arrived since the gospel of Matthew describes the event like this:

And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Jesus is called a child here, and the wise men from the East came to a house, not a stable. But all those details aside, they did bring very interesting gifts, none that I would call sweet and charming. They were strange gifts, and I admit when I was a little kid, I was flummoxed for a little while there regarding Frankenstein at the nativity.

Interestingly enough, the gospels don’t explain the meaning of the gifts. Scholars say that those three items: gold (a precious metal), frankincense (a fragrant perfume), and myrrh (an anointing oil), were the standard gifts given to royalty in the ancient world. Apparently, King Seleucus II Callinicus offered these same three gifts to the god Apollo at the temple in Miletus, 243 years before Jesus was born.

I doubt the Magi knew then what we now know about the symbolic appropriateness of those gifts. Gold is symbolic of Christ’s divinity—God in flesh. GotQuestions.org tells us frankincense is obtained from a tree by making incisions in the bark and allowing the resin to flow out, an allusion to Christ’s holiness and sacrifice. And myrrh, a spice used in embalming, was also sometimes mingled with wine to form a numbing, pain-killing drink, the same beverage which Jesus was offered on the cross and that he declined.

These strange gifts weren’t the usual baby gifts, but Jesus wasn’t the usual baby, and I think this is what still amazes me about Christmas. Nothing about the way Christ came was typical or ordinary or expected. The circumstances surrounding his coming were radically different than anyone would have expected them to be. (Note to self: God sometimes does things very different than you would).

We’ve cloaked Christmas in such an array of lovely, comfortably nostalgic traditions that it’s easy to forget how audacious the first Christmas was. Maybe we do need to see Frankenstein at the manger if only to force us into a double-take. This is no ordinary moment…

“He who carved the edges of the cosmos curved Himself into a fetal ball in the dark, tethered Himself to the uterine wall of a virgin, and lets His cells divide, light splitting all white. He gave up the heavens that were not even large enough to contain Him and lets Himself be held in a hand. The mystery so large becomes the Baby so small, and infinite God becomes infant.” – Ann Voskamp.

Look again, friends… What do you see?

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