October 19, 2022 | Issue #115 |
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Latest News From "The Fab Four"
Kristin Harmel is so grateful to all of you who spread the word about the 10th anniversary relaunch of The Sweetness of Forgetting and helped make it a USA Today bestseller in the first week of its release! She enjoyed talking about the book in Rockville, Maryland last week at the annual Brandeis National Committee Book & Author Luncheon and this week at the Valencia Reserve Women’s Club Book & Author Luncheon in Wellington, Florida, and she’s looking forward to the Amelia Island Book Festival 2022 Celebrity Author Luncheon in Amelia Island, Florida next Thursday, Oct. 27. (A few tickets are still available here.) She’s bummed she’ll have to miss tonight’s episode–but she’ll be back next week!
What Kristin is Reading: Her Lost Words by Stephanie Marie Thornton for a blurb.
Mary Kay Andrews knew she’d turned a corner after her total knee replacement when she managed to get the Halloween decorations scattered around the house! She is doing twice-a-week physical therapy for her new knee, and working away at the ending for her book for fall of 2024. She’s also got lots of in-person events this fall, so check those out HERE.
Patti Callahan Henry had an eclectic week with a photo shoot (more on that soon), an office decluttering (she survived), a wedding and reunion of old and beloved friends in Atlanta (she danced!), and a drive up to North Carolina through gold and red woodlands where she is for a week of writing, family-time, and gorgeous mountains! Oh, and soon she will have a huge announcement about the Friends & Fiction LIVE launch event for The Secret Book of Flora Lea – you won’t want to miss this gathering!
What Patti is Reading: Dawnlands by Phillipa Gregory
Kristy Woodson Harvey is so excited that her new book THE SUMMER OF SONGBIRDS will have a brand new summer-camp-inspired pub date: July 11. Yes, that’s right, 7-11. And, incidentally, her birthday week. What a perfect present! Her tour is shaping up to be so fantastic, and she can’t wait to share it with you soon. In the meantime, she is starting something new that she just loves—and recovering from a fun-filled four-day mountain trip with twenty (yes 20!) friends all under one roof.
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Get to Know Our Friend, Lisa Jewell!
What would you be if you weren't a writer?
If I’d never been a writer, I suspect I’d have carried on being a secretary/assistant/PA and then maybe stopped to have babies and gone back afterwards into something else entirely, possibly midwifery. But if I had to stop writing now, I’d want to be an editor. I love editing my own work and I love offering editorial advice to others.
When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
I wanted to be a writer when I was a child, and then in my early teens I became obsessive about music and then decided I wanted to be a music journalist, but I wasn't at all studious or academic and went off on a completely different trajectory that led me into working in offices in administerial roles for most of my 20’s. It wasn't until I was in my mid 20’s that I started thinking about writing again, and I started writing my first novel when I was 28.
Tell us about the first piece of fiction you ever wrote.
I started writing a novel when I was about ten. I can't remember the title, but it was about a young girl in India who goes out to the shops to buy some milk for her mother, and while she's out she sees a ‘mysterious man’ and starts to follow him. I then got completely distracted with doing illustrations for it and never got any further with the story!
Do you have any writing rituals?
I don’t have any weird rituals, no, but I am a creature of habit. I like to write in the afternoon, once my decks are cleared of all my domestic duties and any other jobs like replying to emails and doing my social media. I write at the kitchen table if there's no one at home, or at a fold-out desk in the corner of my bedroom if there are people at home. I have lots of bad habits while I’m writing like checking my email every few words, but have stopped fighting against these tics now as they don't seem to get in the way of me writing a good book every twelve months!
Tell us about your work-in-progress.
I’m only three thousand words into my latest book and frustratingly I can’t really tell you about it because it’s a special project contracted to a different publisher in a different genre and the announcement is embargoed until January. But I can tell you that so far it is the most amazing fun to write and that readers will be surprised-slash-amazed when they find out what it is. It will be published some time in 2024, probably early summer. In the meantime, my newest novel, finished just last week, will be published in summer 2023 and is called None of This is True.
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Listen to the F&F Podcast!
Coming this Friday, October 21st—Ron and Patti talk to Alyssa Cole and Jean Kwok about their essay contributions to the new Miss Marple collection published by William Morrow, Marple: Twelve New Mysteries.
Out Now! WB_S4E11—Ron & Kristin talk with #1 New York Times bestselling Swedish author Fredrik Backman about his latest novel, THE WINNERS, the third in his acclaimed Beartown series. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S4E10—Ron talks to Kristin Harmel all about the brand-new 10th Anniversary Edition of her novel THE SWEETNESS OF FORGETTING. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S4E9—Ron & Kristin talk with bestselling novelist Ruth Ware about her latest book IT GIRL. LISTEN NOW!
Listen, download, subscribe, rate, review & share wherever you get your podcasts!
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News from the Friends &Fiction
Official Book Club with Brenda & Lisa
We are excited to announce that the F&F Official Book Club has been nominated for a Zibby Award in the Best Virtual Book Club category. Brenda and Lisa are NYC-bound for the awards on October 28! For a full list of categories and nominees, click here.
We’ve got some great events coming up! Take a look at our book club schedule and be sure to save the dates. All events begin at 7pm Eastern unless otherwise noted.
Due to unforeseen circumstances our 10/17/22 book club chat with Stacy Willingham about her book A Flicker in the Dark is now rescheduled to take place on Monday October 24th at 7pm ET.
Grab these books and start reading now!
If you missed our fabulous book club discussion about The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare with Kimberly Brock on Monday September 19th, please view it on our YouTube channel HERE.
The Friends & Fiction Official Book Club is on YouTube! You can view previous book club discussions and happy hours at your leisure. Please subscribe to our channel HERE!
Not a member of the Friends & Fiction Book Club? Join us. We would love to have you!
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Join the F&F 2022 Reading Challenge!
Join us in 2022 for a fun 12-month reading challenge. We will challenge each other all year long to read books in a different category every month. This will help all of us broaden our horizons and read books in different genres we may not have chosen for ourselves. This is a fun way to join with the rest of the F&F community and share a fun reading experience. And the F&F Reading Journal makes the perfect companion piece to this challenge, helping you keep track of all the books you read all year long. Grab your reading journal HERE.
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F&F is on YouTube!
Subscribe Today!
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Did you miss the October 12th episode with Veronica Roth & Gabrielle Zevin? If so, you can watch it on our YouTube channel HERE. We air our show on YouTube every Wednesday night at 7pm ET. And every episode since our show’s inception can be found there too. So if you ever miss one, or in case Facebook is being difficult, check us out on YouTube. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode and get alerted every time we post new content. We also have book trailers and highlight clips on our channel, too! Watch the October 12th show HERE.
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Join Us on Fable!
Introducing Friends & Fiction: Behind the Book
Have you joined F&F on Fable yet?! We are taking our immersive reading experience a step further by partnering with this unique social platform to form the “Friends & Fiction: Behind the Book” Premium Book Club! Let’s discover, read, and talk about great books together! Download the FREE Fable app for your phone or tablet. Join MKA, Kristin, Kristy & Patti as they talk about their own books, the books they love, and books they're just discovering together. They’ll feature a new book selection every month, plus special club events, exclusive content, and more! Join our Premium Club for just $5/month! JOIN TODAY!
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Friends & Fiction Merchandise
SHOP THE F&F MERCH STORE!
NEW! Ask and you shall receive! We have finally made the souvenir posters from the Summer 2022 F&F Live Tour available online for purchase. Visit our pals at Oxford Exchange to buy yours now. These mini-posters are a full-color original design printed on glossy heavyweight card stock and individually packaged in a protective sleeve. Every single poster has been hand signed by each one of the Fab Four. They are priced at a flat rate of $15 including all taxes, postage, and handling, shipped with care anywhere in the continental US. Get your keepsake poster now while supplies last! ORDER POSTERS HERE!
Stay on track with the exclusive Friends & Fiction Reading Journal, featuring 52 book entries (one for every week of the year), a lending library, reading list, and books you put down. With a cloth cover, gold foil embossing, a satin ribbon page marker, elastic band, heavyweight paper, and a back pocket to store notes, this is the perfect gift for the book lover in your life—or for yourself! ORDER READING JOURNALS HERE.
Cozy cotton with a flattering v-neck and our signature Friends & Fiction logo, these comfy t-shirts are the perfect way to show your Friends & Fiction pride! ORDER T-SHIRTS HERE.
Friends & Fiction wine sippies are available and shipping now from Oxford Exchange!
But that’s not all! We also have F&F 20oz travel tumblers for on-the-go coffee or drinks!
We can’t wait to see you model your merch!
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CONNECT WITH THE FRIENDS & FICTION HOST AUTHORS! |
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