Girlfriend author April Henry

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Malena Lott

Welcome, girlfriend April Henry, here to dish on her new book HAND OF FATE.

Hand of Fate cover If Oprah invited you on her show to talk about your book, what would the theme of that show be?
Unintended consequences.

What was the most fun scene in your book to write? The most difficult?
The most fun was the crazy mayhem when downtown Portland was evacuated. The most difficult was what happened with Allison’s pregnancy

Do you have a muse, good luck charm, writing vice?
My vices are all not writing related. They usually involve food.

What do you write on (type of computer, or notebook, etc.) and where do you write?
On a MacBook Pro, often on my couch.

Have you had a “rock star” moment regarding your writing career? If so, what was it?
I was loading towels in the dryer when I got a call from our publisher. A bunch of folks were on a speaker phone yelling, “You’re on the New York Times bestseller list!” I jumped up and down and squealed and felt unreal – and then I kept putting towels in the dryer.

What do you do to celebrate your writing successes?
I am very bad about celebrating.

Describe your personality with five adjectives that would make your 5th grade English teacher proud.
Persevering, impetuous, assiduous, benevolent, convivial.

ABOUT HAND OF FATE:

When the host of a popular radio talk show is murdered, the suspects almost outnumber his millions of listeners.
Outspoken radio talk show host Jim Fate dies he opens a package and releases poisonous gas while his polarizing show, “The Hand of Fate,” is on air.
In the ensuing panic, police evacuate downtown Portland. Soon the triple threat of FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedges, crime reporter Cassidy Shaw and Federal Prosecutor Allison Pierce begin piecing together the madness, motive, and the mystery that lie behind Fate’s murder.
While Lis has worked with Bill O’Reilly for years (often serving as the voice of reason or his liberal foil, depending on your point of view), the character is NO WAY based on O’Reilly.
This is the second in the Triple Threat mystery series, which has been optioned for TV. The first, Hand of Fate, one was on the New York Times bestseller list for four weeks! And in April 2011, readers can look for Heart of Ice, which traces the path of a destruction left by a sociopath – and based on a real-life case Lis prosecuted.

Get the book here.

About the authors
April Henry grew up in a little town in Southern Oregon where the main industries were timber and pears. When she was was 12, she sent Roald Dahl a short story she had written about a six-foot-tall frog named Herman who loved peanut butter. He not only wrote her back – he showed it to the editor of an international children’s author, who asked to publish it.

Since then, April has written nearly a dozen mysteries and thrillers for adults and teens, with seven more on the way. Look for her young adult thriller – Girl, Stolen – in October 2010.

Lis Wiehl is a former federal prosecutor who is now a legal analyst for FOX-TV.

What the critics are saying
“Exciting… readers will identify with these very real women as they try to uncover Fate’s killer, and each battles a personal demon—Allison her fear of miscarriage, Nic her fear of her daughter’s criminal father, and Cassidy her prescription drug addiction.”
–Publishers Weekly

“The second book by Wiehl and Henry featuring the Triple Threat Club ratchets up the excitement and suspense to another level. Realistic characters with authentic dilemmas will appeal to a wide array of mystery lovers.”
–Romantic Times, four stars

The Language of Secrets: Backstory

Posted on March 30, 2010 by Malena Lott

As readers we love to hear where authors get their ideas. For Dianne Dixon’s novel THE LANGUAGE OF SECRETS, an actual event haunted Dianne and it spawned the idea for her novel. -ML

language-cvr Here’s the backstory, excerpted from her website. The book is high on my reading list.

The Language of Secrets was inspired by an actual event: In infancy, a friend of mine was abandoned by her parents. They were a “respectable” couple, with other children; and their marriage and family remained intact after they removed her from their lives. From the moment I heard her story it haunted me. What strange secrets would make a parent erase a child?

The first draft of Language of Secrets was completed in less than a year. I think that’s because I was writing about a character (Justin Fisher) trying to decode the secrets of an unusual, and complex, family. I’m familiar with complex families: When referring to our extended family, a British cousin once said: “They’re all quite mad, you know.”

And as the old saying goes—write what you know—my own family experience, my friend’s story, and an article by a Cornell Medical School professor about Dissociative Identity Disorder (a psychopathology related to severe, early childhood abuse and trauma—whose symptoms can include disturbances in both identity and memory) dovetailed to give me a story I’d been waiting to write.

Before The Language of Secrets, I was a television writer who knew I was supposed to write a novel. I promised myself, again and again, I’d do it—someday. Then, when I was barely out of my 30s, the lenses in both my eyes were replaced with artificial implants—a surgery usually done on octogenarians. All I could think was: If my eyes are this bad now, they’ll never last until I’m eighty. I told myself I’d answer the wake-up call and start the novel. But there were television writing jobs—tantalizing paychecks—I assumed I had a lot of ‘somedays’ still ahead. The somedays had rolled into years when I returned from a writing assignment in the UK feeling so ill that I went straight from the airport to my doctor. For no apparent reason, I’d lost 24 pounds in less than three months. An avalanche of tests began, including one for ovarian cancer. And I realized time might have run out—I might have already passed through my life and not done the thing I was meant to do.

The doctors never figured out what had happened to me; and that worried me. But I was absolutely at peace with the non-medical part of it: the warning that I’d burned through too many somedays. I had a successful screenwriting career—comedy for Howie Mandel and Damon Wayans, ideas in development with Jennifer Lopez’s and Kate Hudson’s production companies, and the creation of a drama series in England—but I knew it was time to do what I was supposed to do—resign from scriptwriting and begin The Language of Secrets. The house got downsized; two cars became one; and, often, my husband and I were in a race to see which would land first—bills in the mailbox—or the money in the bank to pay them with. But at the end of it all there was a book; a marriage tested, and surviving to tell the tale; and a life lesson so obvious, and yet so profound: Whatever it is you’re called to do, don’t wait. Do it. Don’t waste even one of the days you’ve been given.

For me, being able to tell Justin’s story as a triumphant one—as one that might make readers look for the stories behind the stories in their own families, and thus see their families in a new way—turned out to be the most rewarding writing I’ve ever done. A joy beyond description.

Get the book here.

Pieces of Happily Ever After

Posted on March 5, 2010 by Malena Lott

Our Book in Bloom feature a spunky little girl, her broken-hearted mama and a husband-stealing starlet. (So *that’s* why her husband turned in his six-pack for six-pack abs!)

The funny, well-written Hollywood tale is a great one for anyone who enjoys Jennifer Weiner and Beth Harbison.

PIECES OF HAPPILY EVER AFTER by Irene Zutell

From the publisher:
What happens after “happily ever after”? Alice Hirsh is about to find out…

Alice, a former New Yorker who thought she’d never feel at home in the bizarre world of the San Fernando Valley, was adapting, raising her 5-year-old daughter while trying to keep her job and make her new house a home. When her attorney husband lands a trophy client – box-office queen Rose Maris – things begin to look up. Then Alex starts working late – a lot. He crunches his paunch into a six-pack and trades his Gap ensembles for Armani everything.

Soon, Rose and Alex’s affair blazes in the tabloids and Alice is plunged into trash-gossip hell. Her life crumbles around her as she navigates her newly single self through suburban LA –a place rife with porn stars, psycho soccer moms and nutty neighbors.

Is there a chance to wrest Alex from the Sexiest Woman Alive? And if so… would Alice want him back? And what about George–her college sweatheart? Or Johnny, a walking charm-bomb paparazzo? As Alice inventories the rubble of her life, she desperately searches for her bearings and is forced to ask herself what she really wants from life, love and herself.

About the Author
Irene Zutell began her career as a journalist. She has written for People, Us Weekly, The New York Times, the NY Daily News, Newsday, USA Today and others. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. You can visit her at www.irenezutell.com.

Girlfriend Megan Crane

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Malena Lott

Megan Crane Author Photo Welcome, Girlfriend Megan!

If Oprah invited you on her show to talk about your book, what would the theme of that show be?
The unrealistic expectations women place upon themselves because they think others will only love them if they are the perfect friend, wife, mother, daughter.

What was the most fun scene in your book to write? The most difficult?
The most fun scene was definitely the alley scene. I will say no more! The most difficult was probably the hard-won conversation between Meredith and her former best-friend toward the end of the book, when all the truths have been aired. That was a tough one.

Do you have a muse, good luck charm, writing vice?
I am pretty sure my extremely fat and ill-behaved cats feel that they are both muses and charms; they are not. I don’t really have either, I don’t think. Though I have written every single one of my books on this very same desk, and I’m kind of attached to it, if that counts.

What do you write on (type of computer, or notebook, etc.) and where do you write?
I write on my desktop computer with the giant screen that I can’t do without, sitting at my desk in my office, which is finally a separate room in my house–a huge step up from when it was shoved in the corner of the kitchen.

Have you had a “rock star” moment regarding your writing career? If so, what was it?
I’m not sure what a “rock star” moment means, but it was pretty cool to hit the USA Today Bestseller list. That still feels great!

What do you do to celebrate your writing successes?
I try to enjoy them. I say “try” because I am really, really bad about living in the moment. But I’m working on it!

Describe your personality with five adjectives that would make your 5th grade English teacher proud.
I asked my husband and he said: precocious, empathic, challenging, inquisitive, enthusiastic. So there you go!

Thanks, Megan. It was fun getting to know you better. Now we’re ready to read your book! Babes, see below…

Everyone Else’s Girl is the critically-acclaimed second novel by author Megan Crane, out now in the UK.

About the book:

Everyone Else's Girl UK Cover Meredith does things for other people. She irons clothes for her boyfriend, she attends her ex-best friend’s horrendous hen party for her brother (who’s about to marry the girl) and she moves back to her parents’ house to look after her dad when his leg is broken. She’s a good girl and that matters. But when she gets back home, all is not as Meredith remembered. Especially Scott, that geeky teenager from her old class at school. He’s definitely different now. And so, it seems, is she. One by one, her family and old friends start to tell her some home truths and Meredith begins to realise she’s not so perfect after all. Maybe it is time she stopped being everyone else’s girl and started living for herself…

Praise for Everyone Else’s Girl:
“Megan Crane rules! Cancel your evening plans: You won’t want to stop reading until you’ve devoured every delicious word.” —Meg Cabot
“Amusing, heartfelt and emotionally sophisticated chick-lit.” —Kirkus
“Crane prevails with refreshingly real human emotions and reactions. In this book, actions have consequences, and no one gets off easy, despite appearances.” —RT BookClub
“I suspect a lot of readers were like me – desperately seeking fiction with a romantic edge, realistic stories, and smart writing (oh, for more smart writing).
I suspect a lot of readers were like me and dropped out of chicklit game because finding the good was damn hard work. I dedicate this review to those readers. There is hope…Everyone Else’s Girl is a good book.” —Kassia Krozser at paperbackreader.com

About Megan Crane:

USA Today bestselling author Megan Crane has written five women’s fiction novels, many work-for-hire young adult novels, and five category romances (under the name Caitlin Crews) since publishing her first book in 2004. Her novel, Frenemies, was a BookSense Notable in July 2007.　She teaches various creative writing classes both online at mediabistro.com and offline at UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Program, where she finally utilizes her MA and PhD in English Literature. Megan lives in　Los Angeles with her comic book artist/animator husband and too many pets. For more info visit her at　www.megancrane.com or www.caitlincrews.com.

You can find Megan on Twitter: http://twitter.com/megancrane

At her journal: http://megancrane.livejournal.com/

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/megan.crane
An excerpt from Everyone Else’s Girl is here: http://www.megancrane.com/eeg.html

You can buy the book here.

Wine + Book Pairing: A Top 10 for under 20

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Malena Lott

To tie along with our Happiness Project, BE Babes thought it would be fun to show some adventure in our wine selection. We decided to feature wines UNDER $20 from the Wine Spectator Top 100 list of 2009 and pair them with a new book! Very cool. To kick things off, we’re starting with the wine that made #10 on the list: Brancaia Toscana Tre 2007, from Tuscany, Italy.

TOP-10-09_10-bra Tre, the label’s third wine, is a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from all three Brancaia vineyards. Retails for $20.

We think a blend like this would pair very well with a familial suspense/thriller like:

THE THINGS THAT KEEP US HERE by Carla Buckley

Product Description
How far would you go to protect your family?

Ann Brooks never thought she’d have to answer that question. Then she found her limits tested by a crisis no one could prevent. Now, as her neighborhood descends into panic, she must make tough choices to protect everyone she loves from a threat she cannot even see. In this chillingly urgent novel, Carla Buckley confronts us with the terrifying decisions we are forced to make when ordinary life changes overnight.

A year ago, Ann and Peter Brooks were just another unhappily married couple trying–and failing–to keep their relationship together while they raised two young daughters. Now the world around them is about to be shaken as Peter, a university researcher, comes to a startling realization: A virulent pandemic has made the terrible leap across the ocean to America’s heartland.

And it is killing fifty out of every hundred people it touches.

As their town goes into lockdown, Peter is forced to return home–with his beautiful graduate assistant. But the Brookses’ safe suburban world is no longer the refuge it once was. Food grows scarce, and neighbor turns against neighbor in grocery stores and at gas pumps. And then a winter storm strikes, and the community is left huddling in the dark.

Trapped inside the house she once called home, Ann Brooks must make life-or-death decisions in an environment where opening a door to a neighbor could threaten all the things she holds dear.

Carla Buckley’s poignant debut raises important questions to which there are no easy answers, in an emotionally riveting tale of one family facing unimaginable stress.

About the Author
Carla Buckley was born in Washington, D.C. She has worked in a variety of jobs, including a stint as an assistant press secretary for a U.S. senator, an analyst with the Smithsonian Institution, and a technical writer for a defense contractor. She currently lives in Ohio with her husband and children. The Things That Keep Us Here is her first novel. Bantam Dell will publish Buckley’s next novel in 2011.

Get THINGS here and read an excerpt.