What’s on my iPod: “Someone Like You” by Adele
What I’m reading: The Man Who Couldn’t Eat by Jon Reiner
The last person I followed on Twitter: @KarenAChase
1. Lisa Tucker on Psychology Today
Lisa Tucker was interviewed by Psychology Today on THE WINTERS IN BLOOM, faith and writing. Here is a highlight of the interview:
Jennifer Haupt: How did you come up with the idea for this story? Did you do much research?
Lisa Tucker: After I wrote my fifth novel, The Promised World, I was in a strange place psychologically. The book was the darkest thing I’d ever written. When my agent read it, she remarked that “this one could only have come from opening a vein”–and it certainly felt true. The process had been so excruciating that I found myself unable to write for almost a year. Then one summer day, while I was sitting on the back porch, five-year-old Michael came to me in a sentence: “he was the only child in a house full of doubt.” This became the first line of the new novel. I fell in love with his voice, and my hope was to free him from all that doubt.
About WINTERS IN BLOOM
Together for over a decade, Kyra and David Winter are happier than they ever thought they could be. They have a comfortable home, stable careers, and a young son, Michael, who they love more than anything. Yet because of their complicated histories, Kyra and David have always feared that this domestic bliss couldn’t last – that the life they created was destined to be disrupted. And on one perfectly ordinary summer day, it is: Michael disappears from his own backyard. The only question is whose past has finally caught up with them: David feels sure that Michael was taken by his troubled ex-wife, while Kyra believes the kidnapper must be someone from her estranged family, someone she betrayed years ago.
As the Winters embark on a journey of time and memory to find Michael, they will be forced to admit these suspicions, revealing secrets about themselves they’ve always kept hidden. But they will also have a chance to discover that it’s not too late to have the family they’ve dreamed of; that even if the world is full of risks, as long as they have hope, the future can bloom.
2. Ian James Corlett on Parent’s Magazine
Ian James Corlett – Author of children’s book E IS FOR ENVIRONMENT – offered some great tips on how families can go green to Parent’s Magazine readers. Here is one of his environmentally friendly tips:
ACTION #4: MEATLESS MONDAY
It doesn’t have to be a Monday, but make one meal a week without meat. Why? Did you know that cattle expel more harmful gas into the atmosphere than cars and that cows and pigs are the second largest polluters of gases on the planet. (peeyuu!) Families who eat a meatless meal once a week can make a dent in that statistic. One easy idea is veggie-dogs. Kids probably won’t even realize they’re not made out of meat. Not to mention that eating a vegetarian meal is tasty AND healthy for you!
More about E IS FOR ENVIRONMENT
Ian James Corlett changes gears from teaching kids ethics in his popular E is for Ethics book to now raising eco-awareness in our kids in his new book, E IS FOR ENVIRONMENT: Stories to Help Children Care for Their World—at Home, at School, and at Play(Atria Books; February 22, 2011). Brother and sister team Elliott and Lucy once again star in 26 refreshingly original stories as they discover ways to make our world a little “greener.” In the stories found within E IS FOR ENVIRONMENT, addresses issues such as recycling plastic bottles, carrying reusable bags, switching to litter-less lunches, and conserving water while brushing teeth, in an enlightening—utterly entertaining—way. Corlett’s warm and engaging writing style, combined with R.A. Holt’s wonderfully whimsical illustrations, will captivate kids and their parents alike.
3. J’ADORE NEW YORK on Making Magique
An AMAZING book trailer for Isabelle Laflèche‘s new fashion-forward novel J’ADORE NEW YORK was created and posted on Making Magique. Watch here
More on J’ADORE NEW YORK
When Catherine Lambert, an effortlessly chic Parisian lawyer, receives an offer to transfer to the New York office of her prestigious firm, she unhesitatingly accepts. A dedicated follower of fashion and everything stylish, she is determined to conquer the high-flying world of Manhattan law-and love. Catherine’s daydreams of glamour quickly fizzle, however, when she is faced with her new job’s hard realities. Between the pressure of billable hours, the demands of Catherine’s impossible bosses, the conspiracies of two malicious secretaries and the advances of a lecherous client, New York is more of a nightmare than a dream. Then she meets Jeffrey Richardson, a powerful and handsome client, and her life takes on the romance she’d hoped it would. Candlelit dinners and trips to the Hamptons make even the most outrageous assignments bearable-until an unexpected request brings her new world crashing down around her.
With its insider’s perspective on the dirty deals and intrigue that have darkened Wall Street’s reputation, J’adore New York is a bright and funny take on the lives and laws of Manhattan’s most powerful players.
4. Jon Reiner on WCSH 6
Jon Reiner stopped by WCSH 6 to discuss his new memoir THE MAN WHO COULDN’T EAT. Check out this great interview in full here
More about THE MAN WHO COULDN’T EAT
Imagine not being able to eat or drink a single thing. No lobster roll on the beach in Maine; no hot dog at the ballpark; no cool drink on a hot summer day; no birthday cake; nothing. In The Man Who Couldn’t Eat (S&S/Gallery Books: September 6, 2011), Jon Reiner – a James Beard Foundation Award-winning writer –chronicles his three-month struggle to live without food. Based on Reiner’s acclaimed 2009 Esquire magazine article by the same name, the book reinvents the foodoir, telling what happens when a man obsessed with food is denied the taste of it. A beautifully written chronicle of one man’s journey from plenty to deprivation and back again,The Man Who Couldn’t Eat will change the way you think about more than just your next meal.
5. Dr. Andrea Bonior on Match.com 
Relationships aren’t competitions; rather, they offer springboards for both partners to become more than they could on their own. Andrea Bonior, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, columnist for the Washington Post Express and author of The Friendship Fix: The Complete Guide to Choosing, Losing, and Keeping Up with Your Friends, says: “In a healthy, happy relationship, each person brings out the best qualities in the other while finding a way for your relative weaknesses to be neutralized and even embraced. Compatible mates are able to motivate each other to reach their full potential as individuals.” Dr. Maryanne Fisher agrees: “If you are in a relationship and are trying to decide if it’s a good one, think about how you feel. Does the person drain you or energize you? Do you like
We’ve heard the path to fulfillment has much to do with relationships. But while it’s often thought that for young women, it’s all about finding the right man, real women beg to differ: It’s friendships that are at the heart of happiness. Unfortunately, they’re also at the heart of drama, stress, and sometimes not-so-great escapades after that fifth martini. And, technology, from texting to Facebook, has made all friendships more complicated than ever.
At last comes The Friendship Fix, jam-packed with practical ways to improve your life by improving your circle. From dealing with friends-with-benefits to coworkers from the dark side, from feeling alone to being desperate to defriend a few dozen people, Andrea Bonior, Ph.D. helps you make the most of your friendships, whether they be old, new, online, or in person.
FRIDAY BONUS- THE LAST LETTER, AGORAPHOBICS IN LOVE and ALL IS BRIGHT were featured on Barnes & Noble
Check out this fabulous post on Barnes & Noble on great NOOK reads – featuring THREE of our authors and their books, including THE LAST LETTER (Kathleen Shoop), AGORAPHOBICS IN LOVE (Lisa Tucker) and ALL IS BRIGHT (Sarah Pekkanen). Check it out here
For any daughter who thinks she knows her mother’s story…
Katherine Arthur’s mother arrives on her doorstep, dying, forcing her to relive a past she wanted to forget. When Katherine was young, the Arthur family had been affluent city dwellers until shame sent them running for the prairie, into the unknown. Taking her family, including young Katherine, to live off the land was the last thing Jeanie Arthur had wanted, but she did her best to make a go of it on a domain of natural disasters, temptation, hatred, even death.
Ten-year-old Katherine had loved her mother fiercely, put her trust in her completely, but when there was no other choice, and Jeanie resorted to extreme measures on the prairie to save her family, she tore Katherine’s world apart. Now, seventeen years later, and far from the prairie, Katherine has found the truth – she has discovered the last letter.
More about AGORAPHOBICS IN LOVE
After the accidental death of her parents, Emily retreated to their home, where she freelances for an online greeting card company and tries to come up with words for feelings she can no longer feel. Jules climbed his way up to creative director of an advertising agency; he had power, a girlfriend, and a great apartment in New York, when he started having the panic attacks that would leave him in a tiny sublet, unemployed and alone. But when Emily and Jules both join an online board for agoraphobics, what begins as friendship quickly develops into something much more. Now if only they can find the courage to leave their “safety zones” and actually meet for the first time…
Witty, wistful, and deeply moving, “Agoraphobics in Love” is an O. Henry story for the twenty-first century. In sparkling prose, Lisa Tucker perfectly captures the miracle of two lonely people finding each other—and finding their way back to life.
Buy the short story for just $.99.
More about ALL IS BRIGHT
Thirty-year-old Elise Andrews couldn’t bring herself to marry Griffin, her childhood friend-turned-sweetheart, so she let him walk away. Eight months after their break-up, she arrives in her hometown of Chicago on Christmas Eve and hears a voice from the past calling her name in the grocery store. It’s Griffin’s mother Janice, who invites Elise over for a neighborhood gathering of eggnog and carols.
Walking into Janice’s house sends Elise tumbling headlong into memories of her relationship with Griffin — and with Janice, who exudes the kind of warmth Elise ached for after her own mom passed away when she was six. But Griffin has moved on, and suddenly Elise doubts her decision to give him up, and lose her chance at being folded into his wonderful family. Confused and reeling, she goes in search of an answer to a universal question: How do we say good-bye to people we’ve loved without losing everything they’ve meant to us?
Heartwarming and witty, All is Bright is a charming story about coming home for the holidays — and finding gifts in the most unexpected of places.
Buy All is Bright on Amazon.
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