Book Junkie On The Loose

Reader beware! I am a confessed book junkie. I’ve been known to spend part of my grocery money on a book instead of a pot roast. Who needs to eat? So choosing just one book to yak about is nearly impossible. I picked two. I began 2012 by reading Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch and Tuesday Night Miracles by Kris Radish. One memoir, one novel.

Tolystoy and the Purple Chair is the first book I have read on my new Kindle Fire. Matter of a fact I was coaxed into using the Kindle because this book was downloaded on it as part of my Christmas gift from hubby. Ultimately he pushed me into the future. Nina Sankovitch’s book is about reading. Now, being a hardcore book junkie, I thought this had to be for me. I began with the expectation that I would gain a list of new books to feed my addiction. Ms. Sankovitch did not disappoint me. While there were plenty of books she read that I love, she provided me with many to search out. A treasure indeed. But inside the cover is more than a list of books. She writes about how she came to her personal goal of reading a book a day for a year, three-hundred-and-sixty-five books. Now, that’s hard enough when you have tons of free time, but this woman has four boys and a household to run. What I love is her determination to give herself this year of recovery, of honesty. A job of reading. And next to writing this is the best job in the world. Why read a book a day for a year? What kind of healing was she searching out? Nina Sankovitch had lost her sister to a rare aggressive cancer. The loss was immense and she needed to allow herself time to work through the grief. She’d been there for her family during this devastation but somehow let her own needs fall to the side. And now it was time for her. This memoir is touching, sensitive, inspiring, and enlightening. Through her reading and reviewing, what does Ms. Sankovitch find?

Choosing Tuesday Night Miracles and settling in for a serious read is like taking a long, brisk walk on a crisp, cold day. This novel revived me and pulled me into the lives of characters with problems many of us can relate to. Not since How To Make An American Quilt by Whitney Otto have I been so interested in a group of women and their stories. This is a novel about anger and the miracle of empowerment after finding one’s true voice. There is a fine line between anger and bad choices, and all of Radish’s characters cross it.

Instead of traditional anger-management meetings, these women are given assignments that defy all reason. As a result, they all face the ultimate choice: should they change and move forward or remain in the past? I fell in love with the author’s intricately layered characters and storytelling. Her ability to capture problems so prevalent in women’s lives today is uncanny. This book is so much more than just another story about women’s issues. The readers will go on a journey and discover a lot about in the process. Miracles still manifest in the most outstanding ways.

And because I am a book junkie I’m adding a list of my favorite books from 2011 in no particular order.

Witches On The Road Tonight by Sheri Holman

Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman

The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew

The Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

The Orphan Sister by Gwendolen Gross

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

Coming Up For Air by Patti Callahan Henry

I Gave My Heart To Know This by Ellen Baker

The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen

Pictures of You by Caroline Leavett

And dear readers I could go on and on.

Ann Hite has written short stories, personal essays, and book reviews for numerous publications and anthologies. Ghost on Black Mountain, her first novel, was released by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in September 2011. Ann lives Smyrna just north of Atlanta.

www.annhite.com

Looking for Ms. Vadino by Jess Riley

I didn’t really make any year-end lists beyond Things I Need at Festival Foods for a Cozy Buzz while the Ball Drops, but if threatened with a two-day Kardashian marathon with my eyelids propped open with toothpicks, I’d say my five favorite books read in 2011 were as follows:

The Passage by Justin Cronin, which I resisted for a full year until I heard an interview on public radio. Read this one at the salon with my hair in foils, in front of the stove while stirring risotto, even while driving. Okay, not while driving, but I thought about it while driving. I am completely prepared to pay full price for the sequel the minute it’s released. (On my Kindle. It was a bitch trying to read the first and final pages of the 750+ page hardcover while lying in bed.)

The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta. Again, I had this one for more than a year until I plucked it from my shelf on a whim this summer. Devoured it in a matter of days. If you or anyone you know has ever tried to make it in a band, you will recognize nearly every character within.

The End of Everything  by Megan Abbott. Dear LORD did this one suck me in…disturbing subject matter, but handled so elegantly and honestly. Another red-eyed book bender until I hit the final page.

Ready, Player One  by Ernest Cline, which mildly piqued my interest until yet another interview on public radio pushed me over the edge. Anyone who enjoyed Family Ties, War Games, Pong, and Pac-Man in the eighties will enjoy this one.

Throw Like a Girl by Jean Thompson—I had this one on my shelf for over a year. Inspired by a glowing blurb from David Sedaris (oh, the holy grail of blurbs!!!), I picked it up on an end cap at Target and promptly forgot about it until this summer. Jean Thompson is one of those writers who can take seemingly mundane scenes and characters and infuse them with life until you can see, smell, and touch them. She effortlessly captures people you know (yes! you truly know them!) with a few select gestures or descriptive phrases and for this you love her deeply, but if you’re a writer and prone to mild peer envy like me, you also secretly hope that she pees just a little whenever she sneezes.  

Then there are the authors I stalk, constantly wondering if they’ll have a new book out—Shannon Olson, Jill A. Davis, Diane Vadino, Jennifer Belle---they aren't necessarily active self-promoters, and it’s becoming a little Searching for Debra Winger, although instead of a documentary about the pressures actresses face in youth-obsessed Hollywood, it’s just my impatience for new books by my favorite female authors. Authoresses, if you will.

Speaking of which, isn’t that a demeaning word? Authoress. We’re lucky nobody really uses that term anymore. But hearing some yahoo on American Restoration refer to a veterinarian as a “lady doctor” got me kind of fired up last night. Stewardess, waitress, and even secretary have mostly disappeared from the general lexicon, but actress probably won’t go away until The Academy dumps the category, which will happen when someone with a vagina is elected President and The New York Times reviews more books written by women than by men and my five favorite books in a given year are written mainly by women. *sigh*

So. Paging Shannon Olson….Are there any authors you love who seem to have evaporated? Who do you wish would release another book tomorrow?

~~~~~~~~~

Jess Riley has a book out on submission right now and is trying not to obsess about it. She's here or here when she's not here. And the rest of the time she's searching for Debra Winger.

When Truth Meets Fiction… or Is it The Other Way Around?

by Saralee Rosenberg

It is the greatest joy to catch someone in the act of reading one of my novels (especially if they are not related). Unfortunately, reader-stalking is not the best way for a novelist to endear herself...

Too bad. I'd love to ask them to answer a short survey when they finished.

Did the story resonate with them? Were they fully engaged in the outcome of the characters? Most important, did they believe the story?

As an emerging author, I didn't expect that it would be such an enormous challenge to carry readers over the I-believe-you threshold. How hard could it be when every day, the most improbable, crazy, and inexplicable stories made the news? When our first reaction was to ask ourselves, did that actually happen?

Of course it is only human to adore the stories that make us laugh or at least thank God that it didn't happen to us! But what about the stories that trigger deep sadness and instill fear?

Heartbreak alert: Take the recent Christmas-day fire in Connecticut that took the lives of three beautiful, young girls and their grandparents. This was an unfathomable tragedy and it continues to haunt me as I'm sure it does many others.

Question is, with all its tragic implications, wouldn't this story have all of the elements of a riveting novel? It could explore pain, guilt and love, and also hopefully redemption.

And yet, the more improbable the story, the more likely that readers, reviewers and editors would revolt. There is nothing they seem to hate more than a contrived or preposterous premise.

So ironic. Thanks to 24-hour news cycles, we are subjected to the most surreal and mind blowing stories. What about the sordid and bizarre tales involving politicians, athletes and Hollywood stars? In fact, where would all the late night comics be without Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian?

Yes, truth is stranger than fiction. I've never heard of a character in a novel that almost ran for President in order to help boost the ratings of his reality show. Or one that got paid millions for marrying on network television and then filed for divorce seventy-two days later.

But why should novels be excluded from the crazy parade? Other than science fiction and vampire-inspired fantasies, there seems to be this unspoken rule that in order for a novel to succeed, the premise cannot suspend believability.

Hollywood, of course, has no such restrictions. Anything goes and actually, the more insane and contrived the plot, the better. Bridesmaids comes to mind. But were I to write a scene in one of my novels in which the bridal party got group diarrhea and had to defecate into ladies room sinks, I’m pretty sure I would get my own ass kicked.

So why are novelists held to a different standard?

I think it has much to do with the fact that as children, our first sense of connectedness with the world came from storybooks. They kept us company when we were lonely, entertained us when we needed cheering up, kept us guessing when we wanted to escape our surroundings, and mostly, they assured us when we yearned for faithful companionship.

Our favorite books traveled with us, got tucked by our bedsides, and didn’t need to be "on the schedule" like a movie or TV show. They became familiar and beloved, like friends and family. But they also shared an inherent truth.

Though the stories were make-believe, the feelings and emotions were not. We could experience fear and hurt, but also joy and love. We could learn about relationships, trust, honor and devotion. We could witness the outcome of not giving up in spite off insurmountable odds. We could root for the good guys and be delighted over the demise of the bad guys.

In fact, that happy ending was the most satisfying element of all. We needed our heroes to be victorious, for it gave us hope that we too could enjoy happy endings.

As a novelist, I have never lost sight of this emotional connection between the reader and the characters. This sense that beneath all the antics and surprises, a character's fears and feelings must resonate. In other words, it is not only the final destination that matters to readers, it is the journey.

That is why if I am lucky enough to encounter someone reading one of my novels, I only need to see a smile or hear a laugh to know that I did my job. And if they ask for an autograph, I am forever indebted.

Saralee Rosenberg is the author of four novels from Avon including, DEAR NEIGHBOR, DROP DEAD; FATE AND MS. FORTUNE; CLAIRE VOYANT; and A LITTLE HELP FROM ABOVE. She is at work on her first novel for middle-grade girls, HOTLINE TO HEAVEN.

Visit her website. www.saraleerosenberg.com

Writerly New Year's Resolutions

by Malena Lott

Be as smart as Seth Godin? Get the bod of Lindsey Vonn? Cook like the Pioneer Woman? Pfft. My only New Year’s Resolution is to go easier on myself and enjoy the ride. But if you twisted my arm, I could probably come up with a few writerly New Year’s Resolutions that might make those “soft goals” a little more doable.

1.     Don’t check your Amazon ranking every half hour. Okay, I’ve never been that bad, but if you add up how many times you do an innocent check in to see how your book is stacking up against the Jack and the Beanstalk rankings, you’re killing time and your presh ego all at once. You’re only up against Nora Roberts and Stephen King’s latest behemoths as well as their backlist plus the thousands of new books going up each week, so, umm, wouldn’t that time be better spent writing? Or, in my case, doing the dishes, which nearly reach Jack and the Beanstalk heights.

2.     Connect more, spam less.  You know how much I adore tweeting, if my 17 thousand plus tweets tell you anything, but back in the early days, Twitter was a bastion of quips and intelligence and new friends and conversation. Nowadays, it smells like New Orleans after Mardi Gras. Sure, tossing links to your latest helpful blog post is a given, but remember the 3 to 1 etiquette ratio I read somewhere – talk and tweet about others more than you do yourself. And maybe make some of those entertaining and not just more links. As a reader, I want to get to know the author, not just the author's books. Key difference. Remember, a baby bird falls from the nest and dies every time you use the word “buy” in your tweet. RIP, birdies I’ve killed.

3.    Get real. If I’ve been told correctly, each human is a unique creation, kind of like snowflakes, yet somehow our online presence can look like my instant mashed potatoes – bland and unappealing. Do you want to be writerly mush? Do you want to write mush? I don’t. When I catch myself saying something that sounds like something someone else would say, I force myself to hit delete and try again. I can do better. We can do better. We can go deeper, be more authentic, push ourselves to write better stories and to live the life we uniquely were meant to live. If that last part sounds like Martha Beck and Oprah, then you know where I’m spending my time instead of cooking real mashed potatoes. You get my drift. We were one-of-kind snowflakes when we came down to earth, were we not? Yet we landed on the snowdrift and got stuck. Time to get back to being ourselves.

Malena Lott is the author of Life’s a Beach, Dating da Vinci and Fixer Upper. Her story, “Snowflakes and Stones” was featured in Sleigh Ride: A Winter Anthology and she'scurrently updating her first novel, The Stork Reality, to release as an ebook in 2012, and writing young adult fiction under the pen name Lena Brown.  www.twitter.com/malenalott and www.facebook.com/malenalott

Lauren Baratz-Logsted and Gayle Brandeis talk ebooks

Lauren Baratz-Logsted and Gayle Brandeis met close to 10 years ago on the dearly-departed forum Readerville.com, right around the time their first novels were coming out. Now, several books later, they each recently decided to release novels as ebooks. Lauren’s, THE BRO-MAGNET, tells the story of Johnny Smith, who has been "Always a Best Man, never a groom". It is a rollicking comedic novel about what one man is willing to give up for the sake of love. Romantic Times calls it “an absolutely charming, feel-good read.” Gayle’s, THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES, is the eagerly awaited sequel to her Bellwether Prize-winning novel, THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS, and is an electrifying novel about identity, love, and family secrets. NY Times bestselling author Peter Nichols calls it “A dark, funny novel of singular and heartfelt characters, in a story that moves as swiftly and true as the flight of a hawk.” Lauren and Gayle came together to discuss the process of bringing their ebooks out into the world.

GAYLE: You have had great success in the traditional print world, publishing numerous books for children, teens and adults. What made you decide to release THE BRO-MAGNET as an ebook?

LAUREN: By the end of the last decade, authors of Chick Lit - which is how many of my adult novels were published - had become persona non grata in publishing, even though readers still wanted books that would make them laugh, because it was believed that the market had become saturated. Add to that the fact that my career had become focused on teen and children's books, when I came up with the idea for THE BRO-MAGNET and just had to write it - because I needed to know how it turned out - I didn't really consider going the traditional route. Doing it as an ebook made sense to me and I'm glad I did. Your turn! What made you decide to do THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES as an ebook?

GAYLE: I wrote THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES back in 2002, during National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo helped me get back into my own writing flow after the discombobulation of being published and winning Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for my first novel, THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS. It was such an exciting time for me as a writer, but I found myself dealing with writers' block for the first time in my life--I was suddenly feeling the weight of external expectation, and internalized it to the point that I couldn't write at all. Writing THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES was very healing and cathartic for me, but I never thought I'd share the novel with readers--it was almost like my little secret, although I did mention its presence at some of my book events and it always raised a lot of interest. When I realized the 10th anniversary of the Bellwether Prize was coming up (the latest winner is my friend, Naomi Benaron--her novel Running the Rift is brilliant; a must-read!) I thought it could be a good time to give THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES some air. I released it as an ebook because I wanted to bring something fresh to the current Bellwether conversation, and ebooks are the best way to get something out quickly, plus I wanted to experiment with digital publishing, since it seems to be where we're headed as a culture (as much as I continue to adore physical books and hope there will always be a place for them in our world.) What have you done to promote THE BRO-MAGNET and how has the process been different from promoting your other books?

LAUREN: I've let everyone in my contact list that I think might be interested know about it, because unlike a book with New York publisher support, if I don't start the horn blowing, who else will do it? But other than that, it's very similar: guest blogs, interviews, etc. One thing that is different: When I score something and see a direct result in sales, it's very satisfying to know I created that bump through my own efforts. Your turn! How has the promotion process been different for you? (Hey, this is easy being me! You have to do the work of coming up with the questions and I just have to parrot them back at you! Will you forgive me for that if I mention here how much I've always admired THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS?)

GAYLE: Promotion does not come naturally to me, I'm afraid, but I know how important it is for authors to spread the word about our own work, especially when we are publishing it ourselves! I released the book in the fall, but feel as if I am really just now starting to kick my promotional butt into gear--doing more guest blogs, sending out emails, etc. I hired a wonderful publicist to help out, since I knew she could get more muscle behind the book than I could on my own; she usually publicizes traditionally published books and has found that the outlets she regularly approaches just aren't that receptive to self-published ebooks, even by an established, award-winning author--we are learning together how to get the word out in this new digital world.

Thank you so much, by the way, for your kind words about THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS. I hope you'll enjoy THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES! I should let readers know that you don't have to have read DEAD BIRDS to enjoy LIVE WIRES. Even though I'm calling it a sequel, it's a very different book, narrated by Darryl, who had been Ava Sing Lo's love interest in DEAD BIRDS. It's interesting to me that both of us took on the male perspective in our ebooks--I'd love to hear how it felt to you to write a guy's story. Any challenges getting under his skin?

LAUREN: You know what's really weird, Gayle? I'm beginning to think I may be better at writing male POV than female! My most successful YA novel to date was CRAZY BEAUTIFUL which is a he-said/she-said story told in alternating male/female POV. Readers by far preferred the male POV there. And so far, readers of THE BRO-MAGNET seem to be really just purely enjoying Johnny, whereas the female main characters of my previous books weren't always easy to like. Maybe I'm a guy at heart? Maybe it comes from having an older brother and growing up in a neighborhood with mostly guys? Maybe it's from my years shooting pool against mostly guys? I'll tell you one thing, I just have so much fun channeling a guy when I write...even the sex scenes! How about you - any challenges writing from a male POV?

GAYLE: I am definitely not a guy at heart, but I really enjoyed letting Darryl's voice carry me along. When I wrote THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS, I struggled with my right to tell Ava's story, since her ethnicity is so different from my own (but ultimately the experience reminded me that fiction is such a beautiful way to approach the experience of "the other"--and, in the process, realize there is more that connects us than divides us.) Men are definitely "the other" in many ways, but somehow when I was writing Darryl, he didn't feel "other" to me, and I don't think it's just because we share a similar Jewish Russian heritage. Getting under his skin felt very natural. Perhaps I had stretched myself so much with DEAD BIRDS, I felt limber enough to bend myself into a new point of view (I had written in guys' voices in short stories before, but never at such a sustained length.)

It's been such a pleasure to talk with you about our ebook adventures, Lauren. Is there anything we haven't touched upon that you would like to share with readers?

LAUREN: Just two things. 1) I didn't know you were of Jewish Russian heritage - me too! (And I'm not just making that up in order to suck up to you because you did all the heavy lifting here.) 2) I hope everyone buys THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES! Aaaaaand...your turn! Any last words?

GAYLE: Maybe we’re distant cousins! I hope everyone will buy THE BRO-MAGNET, too. :)

Three of the best books I read in 2011 by April Henry

The older I get and the more I’ve written, the harder it is for me to get engrossed in a book. Instead, I find myself editing the book as I read it, or even delivering an imaginary lecture to the author (“Show, don’t tell!”)  For most of my life, my favorite thing has been getting lost in a book, so this a huge loss.

However, I still occasionally find books that enthrall me from start to finish.  Here are three of my favorites from 2011. They’re all fiction, but that’s about all they have in common. That, and for some reason they all start with the letter A.

A Visit from the Goon Squad 

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a marvel, written not only in first and third, but also in second person. It also bounces back and forth in time a lot - characters might be 40 in one chapter and 14 on the next. Part of it is even set in the future.  A chapter is even presented in Power Point.

The publisher’s description does a better job of describing it than I could: “Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.”

If you ever get a chance to see the author in person, go! Jennifer Egan is an articulate and interesting speaker.  She also gives good interview, and she’s been interviewed plenty about this book. And I understand that she used to date Steve Jobs in college.  Even then, Steve had good taste.

After I finished the book, I wrote Jennifer a note. I told her that each time I started a chapter, I would try to orient myself and ask “Which now is it?” because each of the nows was equally valid, whether a chapter was set in the 1980s or even twenty years from our current now. I found that concept comforting, because my friend [Lisa Madigan] was dying, and it was reassuring, somehow, to think that all the various times of her life, including so many when she was healthy and happy, were equally valid.

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

About the only thing Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick has in common with A Visit from the Goon Squad is that they both start with the letter A.  This is a funny, fast-paced, and high-concept young adult novel. I loved the concept so much that when I first saw the deal in Publisher's Lunch I found a way to send a note to author, Joe Schreiber, telling him what a great idea it was.

When Perry’s parents host a foreign-exchange student for a year, he pictures a sexy French girl. What he gets is Gobi, a shy, glasses-wearing Lithuanian girl who wears shapeless clothes and covers her greasy hair with a scarf. Then Perry’s mom insists he take Gobi to the prom - even though it’s the same night that his band had a real live gig in Manhattan.

Gobi turns out to have been hiding a number of secrets. For one, there’s a beautiful girl underneath all those acres of fabric. And for another, she’s a trained assassin.  She needs Perry to help her complete a deadly mission the night of the prom - and she’s won’t take no for an answer.

You’d think a book this good would have sold to the first editor who saw it. But take heart: the book actually got rejected by eight publishers before it found a home - and a two-book deal - at Houghton Mifflin. The movie rights were auctioned off a week later, and it got starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

Each chapter begins with a question from an actual college admissions form, which serves as a sort of sardonic commentary about what’s coming up.

Ashes

Hm, is there a pattern here?  My third favorite book of 2011 also begins with an A: Ashes, by Ilsa Bick. It is dark book that combines a post apocalyptic world with zombies.  I picked it up after a week of slogging through and/or abandoning many so-so books. It was a Friday night and I intended to read for only an hour.

Four hours later, I was still reading. And on Saturday, instead of writing, I just gave in and finished the book. And then I feel sad and empty, because the next one (it’s a trilogy) isn’t due out until September of 2012. I am not joking: I was honestly depressed that it was over!

Ashes begins when an electromagnetic pulse wipes out all electronic devices and also kills most adults. Only a few people under the age of 25 and over the age of 65 are left, and most of the younger ones have been turned into flesh-eating monsters (like zombies, only the bite of one doesn't create a new monster). The main character is 17-year-old Alex, who was hiking when the pulse hit. She had just met an eight year old named Ellie as well as her grandfather. The grandfather drops dead during the pulse, and Alex and Ellie reluctantly team up. Later they meet Tom, a young solider on leave, and the three of them are left to figure out if it’s possible to stay alive in this new world.

One of the best things the author does is fantastic cliff-hanger chapter endings, ie:

- No, she thought. No, please, Go, I’m not seeing this.


- Much later, she would think all that talk of food was to blame for what happened next. 


- Something slammed against her back as a bright orange flash erupted out of the dark, and a shotgun boomed.


- “Promise me that if I change,” Tom said, “you’ll kill me.” 


- The woman was sallow and pinched with a frizz of gray hair. Maybe in another life and before this nightmare, she’d baked chocolate chip cookies for the grandkids, but not now.


She sighted her rifle on Alex’s chest. “Don’t.” 


So that's it.  Three great books I read in 2011. What did you read that you loved?  I need more great books.

The One Book Everyone But Me Has Read

I have a confession: I’m afraid of The Help.

I bought a copy months ago (joining 10 million other people in this purchasing choice). It perches expectantly on my bookshelf, with its bright cover and fetching little birds that seem to watch me as I move across the room. I even cracked the cover once and read the first line. Then I put it back down.

So many people I respect adore The Help.  Many have told me they cried while reading it. I know I’ll love it too; it’s exactly my kind of book. So why am I putting off reading it?

Part of it, I think, is that I’ll only be able to read it for the first time once. There’s so much hype surrounding this novel (which, by the way, was turned down by dozens of literary agents) that I suspect I like the anticipation of knowing I can read it any time I want as much as I’ll actually enjoy reading it.

But I’m also a little scared. I think I’ve built it up a bit too much in my mind. What if it disappoints me? What if I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t get The Help? (I haven't seen the movie either, by the way).

But here are some fantastic books I’ve devoured lately, when I haven’t been reading The Help:

The Drop by Michael Connelly.  If you haven’t read Connelly yet, you’re in for a treat. He’s a master at underwriting, building tension and creating memorable characters. And he’s one of those authors who just gets better and better with time.

The Violets of March by Sarah Jio. I’ve never met Sarah, but we connected on another group author’s blog a while back, and immediately discovered we’re living similar lives: We both have three boys and both write for magazines. When she asked me to read her debut manuscript a few months before publication. I loved it so much, I offered up a blurb, calling it a “gem of a novel, perfect for reading at the beach or under a cozy quilt.”

 The Silver Linings Playbook/A Pinch of Love. I paired these books because they were written by my favorite husband/wife writing duo. Matthew Quick authored The Silver Linings Playbook, and Alicia Bessette wrote A Pinch of Love. Both novels are quirky, passionate, and compulsively readable.  Bonus: Look for The Silver Linings Playbook to hit movie theaters within the next year!

Sarah Pekkanen is the internationally-bestselling author of Skipping A Beat, The Opposite of Me, and the upcoming These Girls. Visit her website at www.sarahpekkanen.com