Few things go better with evening reading than a great glass of wine, so we’re going to get smart about it. At first we were going to call these “lessons” Wine for Dummies, but no Book End Babe is dumb, so we’ll go with Wine for Smarties. Each week we’ll feature a wine fact so at your next soiree or book party, you can impress the crowd with your knowledge.
From here on out, Wednesdays are for Wine Tips. Let’s start with some common terms. Get these down because we’ll be using them in our wine & book chats once a month on Twitter.
Balance – wine in which no one characteristic is stronger than the others.
Complex – A wine with a number of flavors and qualities – all good.
Finish – the way the wine fades or leaves your mouth when it’s swallowed
Nose – the aroma of the wine
Palate – The way the wine feels in your mouth
Weight – The texture and “heft” of a wine. Wines can be thick or thin, heavy or light.
Mark your calendar! Our first BEbabes Wine & Book Chat will be on Twitter on THIS Thursday, September 17th at 7:30 pm EASTERN. Wine: ANY Mad Housewife wine (I’ll be drinking the Merlot or Cab Sav) – you go here for a location near you that carries it. Or if you can’t get your hands on that, just drink whatever and share that with everyone. Our chat is with our Top Pick author Kristina Riggle as we discuss her real life as a debut author and learn more about her novel (of which many babes are reading this month!) REAL LIFE & LIARS. If you prefer another beverage, go for it. (Like we’ll ever know!)
Plus one lucky participant will win this cute Impulse Prize from our Contest Closet: a small notebook with attached pen for your handbag, sure to make you smile.
About Tweet chats:
If you have a Twitter account, go to www.tweetchat.com to sign in. You’ll be following the hashtag #bebabes. It will put the hashtag at the end of your tweets for you so you don’t have to add it yourself! That way you can follow the stream more easily. It “blocks out” the rest of Twitter for you.
Our September Top Pick author Kristina Riggle, author of REAL LIFE & LIARS, dishes about girlfriends and great reads to kick off another fantastic week.
When I think of girlfriends, I think of books.
As a teen-ager, when my best friend Tonia and I had five bucks to spare, one of our favorite ways to spend that money (right up there with a couple pair of giant dangly earrings from Claire’s) was to go buy a paperback book. We both liked Christopher Pike, who wrote spooky teen thrillers.
When I get together with my girlfriends now, one of our favorite things to do is get a coffee at our local bookstore and wander the aisles, browsing, talking about our favorite recent books, books we’d like to read, and books we’re going to buy.
Whenever a group of my girlfriends get together, it’s not uncommon for the subject to turn to books. Like a great lipstick or movie, when we’ve read a great book we want everyone to know about it. I recently brought over a fistful of books to a teacher-friend on summer break for her to plow through before her school year madness started again.
And then there are books about girlfrends. LITTLE EARTHQUAKES by Jennifer Weiner springs to mind, as do the books of Emily Giffin. (LOVE THE ONE YOU’RE WITH is as much a story about friendship as it is about the men in the heroine’s life).
So it’s no wonder there’s been an explosion of book clubs lately including our very own Book End Babes. Girlfriends and books… a natural combination!
Well, to some of us. I was speaking to a group of new moms recently about an anthology called A Cup of Comfort for New Mothers, which included one of my essays. I gave away a copy of my novel to the group. The novel was received gratefully, but not before one of the mothers said in a rather biting tone: Raise your hand if you have time to read.
It is hard to feel like we can spare the time, I know. When my own babies were tiny, I honed the art of nursing-while-reading, though it gets trickier once a bottle enters the picture (we only have so many hands, after all). And with kids at any stage, you’ve got carpools here and there, volunteering, grocery shopping, perhaps a job with a boss who would probably frown on reading at your desk.
But reading gives so much, it’s one of those things I believe deserves space in our lives. It can be just for you! Imagine, something just for yourself! And when you combine it with a book club (in other words, girlfriends) then ta-da! A social life, too, where you get your own name instead of saying, “Hi, I’m Sam’s mom.”
So, what’s your favorite book to recommend to girlfriends? I’m all ears. My “to be read” stack has some space in it…
Girlfriends, this one’s just for you! Kristina was oh-so-kind as to do a special reading for our BEbabes Theater. REAL LIFE is one of our September Top Picks.
Be sure and come back Monday for a reading by Samantha Wilde.
Order our Top Picks to be ready to discuss them at your next BEbabe book party! Click on the book title to order and on the author’s name to go visit their web site! (Note: Linda Howard does not have a web site.)
In this riotously funny, ruefully honest, and irresistibly warmhearted debut, Samantha Wilde writes about one new mother who discovers the wonders and terrors of motherhood—one hilarious crisis at a time. For new moms, potential moms-to-be, and anyone who just wants to (wisely) live the experience vicariously… New mom Joy McGuire hasn’t changed her sweatpants since her baby was born. Of course she’s crazy about her newborn son; it’s her distracted, work-obsessed husband and his impossible mother she can’t stand. Joy turns to her own mom for support, but she’s too busy planning her fourth wedding to a suspicious self-help guru. Sure, Joy’s a woman on the brink, but it’s nothing a little sleep, sanity, and chocolate can’t fix.
Until her old college boyfriend shows up at their ten-year reunion. The one she was still in love with when she married her husband. It must be the lack of sleep, because Joy is starting to think she might have ended up with the wrong man. Not to mention she’s obsessed with her sexy yoga instructor, who might just be interested in her. Joy used to be single, skinny, and able to speak in complete sentences, but who is she now? As she’s trying to figure that out, her husband goes missing….
Frank, bawdy, and full of keenly self-aware observations, this novel tells the story of one new mother, three men, one marriage, and the baby love that keeps us up at night
About the Author
A graduate of Smith College and Yale Divinity School, Samantha Wilde is a yoga teacher and a minister. The mother of two born within twenty months of eachother, she lives in Belchertown, Massachusetts, where she uses nap times to work on her next novel for Bantam Dell.
The internationally bestselling author of The Wedding Officer delivers a stunning blend of exotic adventure and erotic passion that seduces from the very first page—and intoxicates until the last . . . a novel whose mystery begins with a single coffee bean.
A cup of coffee changed Robert Wallis’s life—and a cup of very bad coffee at that. The impoverished poet is offered the last thing a struggling young artiste in fin de siècle England could possibly want: a job. But the job Wallis accepts—employing his palate and talent for words to compose a “vocabulary of coffee” based on its many elusive flavors—is the beginning of an extraordinary adventure.
It’s an adventure that will lead Wallis across the continent and into the arms of two breathtaking women: Emily, the spirited daughter of his employer, and Fikre, the defiant, seductive slave of a powerful coffee merchant, who, in one unforgettable gesture, invites Wallis to partake of both the mysteries of coffee and a forbidden passion—a passion that will change the way he thinks about life, about fate, and especially about love. . . .
About the Author
Anthony Capella is a lover of all things culinary who lives in Oxfordshire, England. His previous novels, The Wedding Officer and The Food of Love, have been translated into twenty-two languages. He is at work on his next novel.
Sometimes you find happiness where, and when, you least expect it.
For Mirabelle Zielinski’s children, happiness always seems to be just out of reach. Her polished oldest daughter, Katya, clings to a stale marriage with a workaholic husband and three spoiled children. Her son, Ivan, so creative, is a down-in-the-dumps songwriter with the worst taste in women. And the “baby,” impulsive Irina, who lives life on a whim, is now reluctantly pregnant and hitched to a man who is twice her age. On the weekend of their parents’ anniversary party, lies will be revealed, hearts will be broken…but love will also be found. And the biggest shock may come from Mirabelle herself, because she has a secret that will change everything.
About the AuthorKristina Riggle lives and writes in West Michigan. Besides her debut novel, Real Life & Liars, she has published short stories in the Cimarron Review, Literary Mama, Espresso Fiction, and elsewhere. She’s hard at work on her next novel of complex family relationships, also due from Avon/HarperCollins.
It’s true what they say: Money changes everything. And in Linda Howard’s red-hot novel Burn, the changes come fast, furious, and filled with the kind of sexy suspense, heart-stopping romance, beautiful people, and risky business guaranteed to give you the most bang for your buck.
Money certainly changes Jenner Redwine’s life when she wins a lottery jackpot. But it also costs her plenty: Her father rips her off and disappears, her fortune-hunting boyfriend soon becomes her ex, and friends-turned-freeloaders give her the cold shoulder when she stops paying for everything.
Flush with new money, Jenner can’t imagine ever finding a place in the world of the wealthy. Seven years later, though, she’s rubbing elbows with the rich, despite the fact she still feels like a party crasher. Luckily she finds an ally–and a guide to the rarefied realm of privilege–in shy, kind-hearted heiress Sydney Hazlett, who quickly becomes Jenner’s confidante and surrogate sister.
When Sydney invites Jenner on a charity cruise aboard a luxury liner, Jenner reluctantly agrees. But while she’s expecting–and dreading–two weeks of masquerade balls, art auctions, and preening glitterati, what she gets is more like a Hitchcock movie than a Love Boat episode. Taken hostage by a menacing stranger, Jenner must cooperate in a mysterious cloak-and-dagger scheme–or else. With nowhere to run, and with Sydney’s life as well as her own at risk, Jenner is drawn into a game of dizzying intrigue and harrowing danger. But as her panic gives way to exhilaration, and fear of her captor turns to fascination, Jenner rediscovers feelings she hasn’t had in years–and realizes she’s found a life worth living. If she survives.
About the Author Linda Howard is the award-winning author of many New York Times bestsellers, including Up Close and Dangerous, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Cover of Night, Killing Time, To Die For, Kiss Me While I Sleep, Cry No More, and Dying to Please. She lives in Alabama with her husband and two golden retrievers.
Few things go better with evening reading than a great glass of wine, so we’re going to get smart about it. At first we were going to call these “lessons” Wine for Dummies, but no Book End Babe is dumb, so we’ll go with Wine for Smarties. Each week we’ll feature a wine fact so at your next soiree or book party, you can impress the crowd with your knowledge. 
Our September Top Pick author 