June 29, 2022 | Issue #101 |
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Latest News From "The Fab Four"
Mary Kay Andrews enjoyed a brief trip to North Carolina's Outer Banks with Mr. MKA. She had an event in Manteo on Monday night with tonight's guest, Jamie Brenner, hosted by Downtown Books. She squeezed in some writing and a sunset cruise before hopping a flight to NYC today for a Thursday morning television appearance on Good Day New York with Rosanna Soctto to talk all about The Homewreckers. Pray that the travel gods are ever in her favor so she can arrive safe and sound at her Manhattan hotel room in time for tonight's show!
Kristin Harmel enjoyed a whirlwind trip to New England with Jason and Noah, visiting the Freedom Trail in Boston, the Mayflower in Plymouth, her extended family in the Boston suburbs, and the Cliff Walk in Newport—all culminating in the wedding of her good friend Megan, overlooking the ocean in Newport. All was going perfectly until her flight home yesterday was canceled…. She is rebooked on a flight today but will likely have to miss Friends & Fiction tonight.
Kristy Woodson Harvey is so excited to be hosting Friends & Fiction this week and that Jamie Brenner will be with her, live in real life, this week for in-person events. She is savoring every second of summer in her favorite place and soaking up all the special moments with her family and friends. (Has she mentioned that summer is her favorite season??) She is finishing a round of edits on THE SUMMER OF SONGBIRDS this week and can’t wait to share this book with you next April!
What Kristy is Reading: A Manuscript of ONE SOUTHERN SUMMER by Heidi McCahan
Patti Callahan Henry has spent a beautiful week with blue waters and blue skies thinking up new stories (don’t tell the people she was with that they might be fodder for a story). She has finished her copy edits for The Secret Book of Flora Lea and can’t wait to start talking about it with all of you! Check out the most recent issue of Patti’s newsletter with some of her summer favorites from podcasts to music! And if you don’t want to miss a thing as we start to talk about the new book (out May 9, 2023) don’t forget to SIGN UP FOR HER NEWSLETTER!
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Get to Know Our Friend, Jamie Brenner!
What would you be if you weren't a writer?
If I wasn’t a writer, I would find a way to be a professional reader! Either that, or work in a knitting shop.
When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer. Literally. When I was in elementary school I had one of those old manual typewriters and I used to write “novels” and I would rip the paper I used in half so it was closer to book size and wrote that way.
Tell us about the first piece of fiction you ever wrote.
I was twelve when I wrote my first “book:” a female version of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. I think I was still sobbing from seeing the movie when I started typing. Sadly, my feminist version (with characters named after Prince and Duran Duran songs) didn’t have quite the same cultural impact of the original. Probably because it’s still in my parents’ basement.
Do you have any writing rituals?
I always outline in the same format, with the same font (Arial) and with a superstition of trying to end the book on an even chapter. (Did I just admit that?)
Is there a particular independent bookstore or library you'd like to shout-out?
East End Books in Provincetown, Massachusetts is very special to me because it’s the bookstore in the town where I’ve set half my novels. And it’s owned by a very passionate book-lover named Jeff Peters. My hometown book store, Main Point Books, in Wayne, PA is one of the absolute best. And I have a special affection for Sparta Books in Sparta, NJ. Those ladies know how to sell a book!
The last book you raved about:
I just re-read Outer Banks by Anne Rivers Siddons. I first read it thirty years ago, when I was in college. I’d remembered it, all these years, as a very special book. It didn’t disappoint.
Tell us about your work-in-progress.
I’m working on a novel about a woman who created a famous perfume brand, whose entire identity revolves around her special ability as a “nose.” And she wakes up one morning and realizes she’s lost her sense of smell. She summons her three grown children to their summer home to find out which one of them can step up and act as a “nose” during the crisis. It doesn’t go very well…
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Spotlight on Robyn Carr!
We are so pleased to welcome Robyn Carr back to the show! Watch Robyn’s first appearance on Friends & Fiction from December 2020 HERE. Robyn Carr is an award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than sixty novels, including highly praised women's fiction such as Four Friends and The View From Alameda Island and the critically acclaimed Virgin River, Thunder Point and Sullivan's Crossing series. Virgin River is now a Netflix Original hit series. Robyn lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. She joins us to talk all about her newest women’s fiction release A FAMILY AFFAIR which was just released in April and is a USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller. Follow her on Facebook & Instagram and sign up for her email newsletter.
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Featured Bookseller
Bookshop.org
Find all the books by every F&F guest, past and present, in the F&F Bookshop.org Shop! Portions of all sales placed in our shop help fund F&F and support our guests! Proceeds from every sale made anywhere across Bookshop go straight into the pockets of indie booksellers nationwide. Since its inception, Bookshop.org has raised more than $21 million for indie bookstores! Find THE HOTEL NANTUCKET by Elin Hilderbrand, GILT by Jamie Brenner, and A FAMILY AFFAIR by Robyn Carr—as well as recent books by all of our guests and hosts—on our Friends & Fiction Spring/Summer 2022 Guests list!
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Listen to the F&F Podcast!
Coming this Friday, July 1st—Ron interviews Jacinda Townsend about her powerful new book, Mother Country.
Out Now! WB_S3E11—Ron interviews Kate White about her newest thriller, The Second Husband and about her years as editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan Magazine! LISTEN NOW!
Listen, download, subscribe, rate, review & share wherever you get your podcasts!
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News from the F&F Official Book Club
We have a lot of fun 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.
August 19: Happy Hour with Ron Block
Grab these books and start reading now!
The Official F&F Book Club was lucky to host the premiere cover reveal on Saturday for The Woman With The Cure by Lynn Cullen click HERE to see the cover!!
If you missed our book club discussion with Mary Kay Andrews about The Homewreckers on Monday, June 20th, catch it HERE.
If you missed the May 16th book club meeting with Wiley Cash where we discussed his book When Ghosts Come Home, catch it HERE.
If you missed our May 6th Happy Hour with Ron Block and Patti Callahan Henry, catch it HERE.
Did you hear? The Friends & Fiction Official Book Club is now on YouTube! You can view previous book club discussions and happy hours at your leisure. Check it out 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 June 22nd episode with Julie Clark, Erica Ferencik and Karen Cleveland? 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 June 22nd 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! 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 of 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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