February 9, 2022 | Issue #80 |
|
Five Facts From Our Friend, Fiona Davis
The one thing you’ve learned you can’t live without during the pandemic:
Van Leeuwen Brown Sugar Honeycomb bars
Your perfect day:
Finishing the final chapter of a manuscript, reading all afternoon in a hammock, and then having friends over for cocktails and dinner outside.
Your favorite independent bookstore:
The last book you raved about:
Your next book in ten words or less:
Radio City Music Hall/Rockette/1950s
|
|
Five Facts From Our Friend, Marie Benedict
The one thing you’ve learned you can’t live without during the pandemic:
My family. The more time I spend with them, the more I appreciate and love them. Even though it’s been a lot of family time!
Your perfect day:
My perfect day would absolutely consist of a sunny beach, a comfortable lounge chair, and a stack of books, with family and friends around to take long walks with during reading breaks.
Your favorite independent bookstore:
There are so many amazing bookstores that I adore and that I had the great fortune to visit before the pandemic. But if I had to select my favorite, it would be my local bookstore, Penguin Bookshop. They’ve been around for ninety years, and they are such a community hub.
The last book you raved about:
The Yellow Wife, by Sadeqa Johnson, was such a powerful, unique look at a crucial motion in the terrible history of slavery, as told through the character of brilliant, educated, tenacious Pheby Dolores Brown, and the lengths mothers will go to protect and benefit their children.
Your next book in ten words or less:
The Mitford Affair — Mitford sisters, high society, fascists, Nazis, spies.
|
|
Spotlight on Brenda Janowitz
We are so excited to welcome Brenda Janowitz to the show! Brenda Brenda is the author of six novels, including The Grace Kelly Dress. Her seventh novel, THE LIZ TAYLOR RING, was just published last week. The former Books Correspondent for PopSugar, Brenda has contributed writing to such outlets as The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Real Simple, Redbook, and The Forward. A graduate of Cornell University and Hofstra Law School (where she was a member of the Law Review), Brenda has worked for the law firm Kaye Scholer, LLP, and did a federal clerkship with the Honorable Marilyn Dolan Go in the Eastern District of New York. We can’t wait for you to meet Brenda on the aftershow tonight!
|
|
Spring Subscription Box
Subscribe Today for Signed Books & an Exclusive Gift!
Friends & Fiction co-hosts & co-founders Mary Kay Andrews and Kristy Woodson Harvey have teamed up with Oxford Exchange to offer this fun Spring Reading Box! Order the box from Oxford Exchange to get a signed copy of THE WEDDING VEIL when it releases in March, a signed copy of THE HOMEWRECKERS when it releases in May, and this fun, exclusive Friends & Fiction notebook with sticky flags for marking all your favorite parts! (We hope there are tons!) Get more information and place your order with Oxford Exchange HERE.
|
|
Latest News From "The Fab Four"
KRISTY WOODSON HARVEY can’t believe she leaves on her THE WEDDING VEIL tour! Check out her full tour dates here. Seeing F&F friends is one of the best parts of being on the road. She is so grateful to her friend Kristin Harmel for calling THE WEDDING VEIL “a sparkling, fast-paced joy of a book that celebrates love, family, and the right to shape one’s own destiny.” Pure magic!
What Kristy is Reading: Gilt by Jamie Brenner
PATTI CALLAHAN is writing in the cold morning hours and counting the days until the Savannah Book Festival. As we near the paperback publication of Surviving Savannah, Patti has just posted last year’s LAUNCH EVENT VIDEO with Mary Kay Andrews. And that holler of happiness you heard this week? The HUGE news that Patti’s Audible Original of WILD SWAN narrated by Cynthia Erivo is a finalist in the Audie Awards!
MARY KAY ANDREWS did cartwheels–sorta, after turning in first pass edits for The Homewreckers. Now it’s time for the fun stuff—planning the book tour, and oh yeah, starting the next book project. She is also ever so grateful for all the prayers and kind words of support for her daughter Katie—and to her sisters in crime at F&F for carrying her weight while she needs to step away.
KRISTIN HARMEL just turned in the first draft of her 2023 book, and thank goodness she did, because now she has to gear up to celebrate both her husband’s and her son’s birthdays in the next week! Let’s just say her head is spinning and she needs a very long nap.
|
|
The F&F 2022 Reading Challenge
Join the Fun in Our 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.
|
|
Sponsor Spotlight
The Friday Feb 11th episode of the Friends & Fiction Writers' Block podcast is brought to you in part by bestselling author Vanessa Riley, whose latest novel, Island Queen, is on sale now, for a limited time, for just $2.99 in ebook. Island Queen is a remarkable, sweeping historical novel based on the incredible true life story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, a free Black woman who rose from slavery to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the colonial West Indies. The New York Times calls Island Queen “riveting and transformative, evocative and immersive...by turns vibrant and bold and wise.”
Longtime Friends & Fiction viewers may recall Vanessa was a guest on the Wednesday night live show on July 21, 2021. Watch her interview on the Friends & Fiction YouTube channel here or listen to it here on the podcast.
Meanwhile, download Island Queen by Vanessa Riley from your favorite online retailer. Available now wherever e-books are sold.
|
|
Listen to the F&F Podcast!
Coming soon! Out this Friday, February 11th—Ron & Kristy sit down with Robert Dugoni, the author of the phenomenal novel The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, to talk about the staying power of stories.
Out Now! WB_S2E5—Ron & MKA interview Linda Ketron, the founder of the wildly successful longstanding author luncheon series with Litchfield Books in Pawley’s Island, SC. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S2E3—Ron interviews Rachel Hawkins about her latest work of Gothic suspense, Reckless Girls. LISTEN NOW!
Listen, download, subscribe, rate, review & share wherever you get your podcasts!
|
|
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.
Grab these books and start reading now!
Are you going to the Savannah book festival? RSVP HERE! Join Lisa, Brenda, and Annissa at the Savannah Book Festival to support the Fab Four.
If you missed our wonderful happy hour on Feb 4th with our favorite librarian Ron Block and author Nancy Johnson please click HERE.
If you missed our Jan 24th book club discussion with Wade Rouse (aka Viola Shipman) about The Secret of Snow, catch it HERE.
Not a member of the Friends & Fiction Book Club? Join us! We would love to have you!
|
|
F&F is Now on LoCo+!
Come join Friends & Fiction on LoCo+, a brand-new streaming platform that launched just a few days ago. The platform specializes in locally produced content and will eventually include channels from all over the country, but this is your chance to get in on the ground floor with us; we're part of the platform's rollout, and we'd love for you to be there, too. Eventually, it will be a paid subscription (like Netflix or Hulu), but if you sign up now, you can get the first month free--and you can see past and current episodes of Friends & Fiction as well as lots of other great, independently produced content, including the "Good News Lady" show from our friend (and former F&F guest) Daryn Kagan. Sign up for your free trial here and check it out: https://golocoplus.com/.
|
|
F&F is on YouTube!
Subscribe Today!
|
Did you miss last week’s episode with Alafair Burke and Allison Pataki? You can watch the whole thing on our YouTube channel HERE. We air our show live 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 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 February 2nd show HERE.
|
|
|
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!
|
|
CONNECT WITH THE FRIENDS & FICTION HOST AUTHORS! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
