Dear Reader Column 03-27-12

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Muffins and Mayhem, Recipes for a Happy (if disorderly) Life

AUTHORBUZZ: Discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win: Goto: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

Dear Reader,

How to Bake a Perfect Life was a Target Club Pick, The Lost Recipe for Happiness won the RITA in 2010 (bringing this author's total number of RITA awards to six). This author lives on the skirts of Pikes Peak, she loves gardening and all big dogs, and she's a long distance walker who's traveled a portion of the Camino de Santiago Compestela, with plans to finish the walk in the near future--and that experience led her to write The Garden of Happy Endings (which will be released in April 17th).

A talented author, with an amusing combination of favorite foods (olive oil, peaches and good ale), let me introduce today's Dear Reader Guest Columnist, Barbara O'Neal. Send Barbara an email, she's waiting to reply, and read about her giveaway at the end of today's column. Welcome to the book clubs Barbara...

Last year, my beloved gave me a stupendous Christmas present: he paid a landscape designer to help me create a plan for food and flowers in a gigantic garden in my backyard. Then, he hired a crew of workers to dig and place the beds according to the plan, and in March, he set me loose.

It was one of the best summers I've had in decades. I grew corn and squashes, roses and lavender, tomatoes and petunias and a whole lot more. Every morning, I wandered outside with the cats to see how things were doing. Every evening, we puttered--weeding or plucking or deadheading or harvesting.

And all through the spring and summer, I wrote a book about a woman who finds herself coming back to life after a bitter season of loss by working in a garden. At summer's end, both book and garden were put to bed. The cats and I went back inside, peering hopefully at the frozen ground every so often. We finished off the potatoes, then the butternut squashes.

Over the past week, a vigorous row of daffodils has popped up from the bare ground. They took me by surprise, as they do every year. It seems like it's January forever, blah and dull, with no color or cheer anywhere around, and the dark closing in early. I would hibernate with a pile of research materials and the internet if it were left to me--however a certain dog insists we have to walk even if it is blustery and freezing. January lasts forever, and February is merely cruel--teasing me with a shift in light, a hint of possibility, only to send a blast of winter again, snow and freezing winds.

And then March blows in, and all at once, it seems like every branch in the neighborhood is swollen with pregnant buds, and crocuses are scattered over someone's lawn, and there are the first green shoots of spring bulbs announcing the official news that there is LIFE in that ground. Even if it froze to nothingness, here it is again, showing up.

Just like my garden is waking up, I realize that my book is almost ready to bear fruit, too. It will arrive in April, telling the story of Elsa Montgomery, a woman who has lost her faith after an unspeakable tragedy. Hibernating all winter with an old friend who has become a priest, Elsa begins to awaken in the spring when the priest talks her into heading up a community garden. THE GARDEN OF HAPPY ENDINGS was born as surely in my garden last year as perhaps new gardens will be born out of the book. Which is just like the cycles of summer and fall, winter and spring, isn't it?

I will be giving away several copies of my books. One lucky reader will win an Advance Reading Copy of THE GARDEN OF HAPPY ENDINGS. I will also give away five copies each of HOW TO BAKE A PERFECT LIFE, and THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS. Good luck, and happy reading!

Barbara O'Neal
http://www.barbaraoneal.com/
email:  http://www.barbaraoneal.com/contact-me/

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
www.muffinsandmayhem.com

* This month's Penguin Classics book is THE LIFE OF JOHN THOMPSON, A FUGITIVE SLAVE by John Thompson. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March12Classics

AUTHORBUZZ: THE SEDUCTION OF LADY X (Fiction) by Julia London

The shocking news that the dashing steward, Harrison Tolly, the illegitimate son of the Earl of Ashwood, is the rightful heir to his father's estate comes at an inopportune time. With a wedding on the horizon and a baby on the way, a new life of privilege and prestige would be a blessing but for one problem: He is desperately in love with a woman he cannot have.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE SEDUCTION OF LADY X to find out more about the book and the author, Julia London. Send her an email, she'd love to hear from you.

Comments

[Robena Grant]

What a lovely interview. I'm looking forward to the read, Barbara. I have your name and title and April 17th circled on my calendar. Yes, Im a huge fan. : )

The Garden of Happy Endings is not only a great title, but the concept appeals to me. A woman almost destroyed of faith and getting down in the soil, digging, planting, watering, and nurturing it's so much about creating new beginnings, life. I want it now.

[aida alberto]

Can't wait for it's release because I love all of your books.

[Laura]

I so enjoy Barbara's works - can't wait for the newest one! I too am a gardening freak - mostly herbs and edible flowers, and my heart is so enriched by reading books where the garden comforts and enchants.

[Sonny]

I'm eager to read how Elsa comes out of her desperation and renew her life - what elements feed her soul to help her understand there is always something to help her (us) move forward. Thanks for the thought-provoking words.

[Stephanie]

This sounds fascinating. I love the interconnectedness.