Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column 03-29-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

(Suzanne is on holiday today. Enjoy one of her favorite columns.)

There's a tree in my yard, that used to be a weed. Four years ago when I first noticed it, my immediate instinct was to yank it out of the ground. But for some reason, I decided not to pull it. The weed seemed to look like it felt at home underneath my big oak tree, like it had a purpose. For days I walked by that weed. Pretty soon the days turned into weeks, and by then the weed had grown so tall, that I felt if I pulled it out of the ground I'd be destroying a thriving plant. In a way it had become my friend.

I realize I'm a bit of a strange bird. I get a little too melancholy feeling about things sometimes. But then again, that itty-bitty weed turned out to be a fast growing Scheffera tree, whose branches seem to have befriended the old oak tree in my yard, and now I understand why. My big oak tree (that I imagine is as old as the 1926 house I live in) is dying. The horticulturist I called to stop by and look at it, said there wasn't anything I could do to save the tree. "It's really just old age," he said, "the cycle of life."

I was sad to hear the news about my old oak tree. But isn't it wonderful that now it has a friend, an "itty-bitty misplaced weed" to hold it up and keep it company.

To see my tree and to watch it grow, go to: http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/grow.html

* Congratulations to Gay Mathewson, the winner of my Spring Apron Giveaway.

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 TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

AUTHORBUZZ: WOLF WITH BENEFITS (Fantasy) by Shelly Laurenston

Ricky Lee has no plans of getting serious about anyone, but he will protect Toni Jean-Louis Parker. Not just because he's been hired to do so, but because it's the right thing to do. And that means travelling around the country with one complicated She-jackal...Toni doesn't know how she keeps getting herself into these situations. But even she has to admit there's something about Ricky Lee Reed that she finds kind of interesting...and downright sexy.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on WOLF WITH BENEFITS to read more and to email author Shelly Laurenston, you'll get a reply.

Dear Reader Column 03-28-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

Today's guest columnist, author Therese Anne Fowler is an Illinois native and a graduate of North Carolina State University, where she earned a BA in sociology and an MFA in creative writing. She taught undergraduate fiction writing and was an editorial assistant for the literary magazine Obsidian III before leaving to write fiction full-time. Therese has two grown sons and two nearly grown stepsons, and currently lives with her husband in North Carolina.

Therese is touring this week and not available to answer email, but please send her a welcome note at: ThereseAnneFowler@gmail.com

I have five copies of Therese's new book, Z to give away to lucky readers. To enter, send an email with your mailing address (in case you win) to: enter-to-win-smp@emailbookclub.com

Take it away Therese. . .

Do you believe in ghosts? While I'd always allowed for the possibility of them and had experienced some things that assure me some kind of spiritual realm co-exists with "real" life, I'd never been directly influenced by a force beyond myself--until I was struck by the idea to write Zelda Fitzgerald's story.

Zelda grew up in the Deep South, where ghosts are, for many, as common and expected as Spanish moss. My upbringing was much different in the common-sense, show-me Midwest. Any discussion of an afterlife focused on either angels or the devil. I didn't believe in any of it.

But on a day when I was working out new story ideas in my journal and trying to decide which of them merited full-time attention for the next year of my life (the time it would take to write the book), I was literally stopped mid-sentence by the brand new, never-before-entered-my-mind thought of Zelda.

My first reaction: No. She was, I believed, F. Scott Fitzgerald's crazy, jealous wife. Selfish. Unstable. Unsympathetic. But--I was curious. After all, I'd been accosted, so surely that meant the idea merited some consideration. I went to my computer to look her up what got my attention that first day was this: Zelda and my mother both died during the overnight hours of the same date--many years apart, but even so, the coincidence was as uncanny I was compelled to learn more.

The further I got into the research and writing process, the more I understood how mistaken my original impression of Zelda was and how badly the record needed to be set straight. At the same time, strange coincidences kept occurring--small things, but they gave me encouragement to press on despite my fear that I might fail utterly. It was when the manuscript was done, though, and my literary agent had sent it out to publishers in the US and abroad, that I began to truly believe I'd done right: the first publisher to buy the book did so on April 10--which is the same date The Great Gatsby was published in 1925.

Last fall, I visited the cemetery where Zelda and Scott and their daughter, Scottie, are buried alongside other Fitzgerald kin. It's a small, oak-sheltered churchyard bordered by busy roads and a commuter train track. No one else was there on that cool, damp morning, and I was glad, because unbidden tears were streaming down my cheeks.

I lingered a while despite the cold and drizzle, my mind filled with images from their lives. When I finally turned to leave, I felt a hand on my left shoulder, and heard Zelda's voice in my ear.

Was it her? Who can say for sure? But I do enjoy the idea that it might have been--and I hope you will enjoy the book.

Warmest wishes,
Therese Anne Fowler

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

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

AUTHORBUZZ: OBJECTS OF MY AFFECTION (Fiction) by Jill Smolinski

A personal organizer who has fallen on tough times is hired to work with a reclusive artist on her hoarded home. As the women struggle to clear away years of clutter, both get a lesson in what's worth keeping--and when it's time to let go.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on OBJECTS OF MY AFFECTION to read more and to email author Jill Smolinski, you'll get a reply.

*Fun, free books and meet authors. Ask questions, they'll reply and read samples from their books. Visit AuthorBuzz at: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

(Fiction)
ALL THE LIGHT THERE WAS by Nancy Kricorian

(Thriller)
THE MONEY KILL by Katia Lief

(Fantasy)
DEADLY STING by Jennifer Estep

(Fiction)
OBJECTS OF MY AFFECTION by Jill Smolinski

(Fantasy)
WOLF WITH BENEFITS by Shelly Laurenston

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

* This month's Penguin Classics book is TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

 

 

Dear Reader Column 03-27-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

* I'm on holiday today. If you're looking for a great cake recipe for this coming weekend, try this one. Even though I had a few problems the last time I made it, it's still one of my favorites. Hopefully you won't make the same mistake I did. But not to worry, if you do, I've shared the "fix-it" remedy in the recipe too.

Enjoy...

Two little eggs. Who would've dreamed what a difference they could make. I was mixing up Grandma Hale's Red Velvet Cake recipe for Easter dinner, but when I poured the batter into the pans, it was stiff. Granted, I hadn't made this recipe for a few years, but something didn't seem quite right.

Hmm, shortening, sugar, vanilla, eggs--whoops--I forgot to add the eggs. I knew it was too late. The old adage "better late than never" does not apply to baking. I was amazed at what two little eggs could do (or not do) to a recipe.

A pastry chef on television the other night was going on-and-on about how you should only use large-sized eggs in a recipe, "Remember that you're adding liquid when you add eggs. A large egg is about 1/4 cup. Don't use jumbo, or extra-large..."

And she continued her egg sermon with what I thought was some hoity-toity, trying-to-impress-me advice. Well, okay, so now I'm impressed. The pastry chef is right. The liquid in eggs does make a difference, and it also makes a difference when you add them to the recipe.

Because I ended up with two, dry, 9-inch round cakes--one with a bunny-hill ski slope on the left side. But I decided to push forward anyway and frost the darn thing. I used Grandma Hale's frosting recipe and followed it to a tee. But after I filled in the ski slope, I ran out of frosting.

Okay, let's take inventory. Company's coming in one hour. There isn't any time to mix up another cake. The stores are closed, so I can't buy a replacement dessert. Presentation counts a lot in how food tastes, (another quote from the friendly pastry chef). Since she was right about the eggs, I decide to take her advice and concentrate on presentation.

So I set the 2-layer cake on top of a white paper doily, added some colored sprinkles and jelly beans, stuck three pinwheels on the top and then turned the cake around so the bare backside--where I ran out of frosting--didn't show.

But presentation alone does not make up for lack of taste. My dinner guests all took a couple of bites, agreed that it wasn't my best work, and decided the rest should go in the garbage. But when I was just about to toss the cake in the trash, my 96 year-old father-in-law, bless his heart, insisted that he wanted to take the masterpiece home.

If you'd like to see a photo of my "masterpiece," and get a copy of the recipe--really, it is a wonderful cake but don't forget the eggs--go to: http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/cake3.html

* Congratulations to the winners of Guest Columnist Owen Laukkanen's new book, Criminal Enterprises: Gayle Skeens, Heidi Zoll, Beverly DeBenedictis, Mary Neville, Patti O'Keefe, Donna Nehdar, Pat Harmer, Rick Conley, Barbara Kocik and Suzanne Knapp.

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 TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

AUTHORBUZZ: DEADLY STING (Fantasy) by Jennifer Estep

Gin Blanco, the semi retired assassin known as the Spider, finds herself in trouble once again when a group of giants decide to rob an art museum, putting her friends and family in danger.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on DEADLY STING to read more and to email author Jennifer Estep, you'll get a reply.

 

Dear Reader Column 03-26-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

Today's guest columnist, author Amy Brill, is a writer and producer who's worked for PBS and MTV. The Movement of Stars is her debut novel.

Please welcome Amy to the book club, and if her column "sparks" an idea, you can enter-to-win one of ten Advanced Reading Copies of her book. You'll find Amy's email at the end of today's column. I hope you're a winner. I think you'll enjoy her book. You can visit Amy's website at: http://www.amybrill.com/

Take it away Ms. Amy Brill...

Most books begin with a spark, and mine did too. But my spark--a girl astronomer on Nantucket in the 1840s--was super-hardy, a literary mutant. It burned for a decade and a half before finally becoming an actual book. What was the holdup? Well, aside from lack of confidence, discipline, and time (and the addition of two children), I was determined to novelize a true story--emphasis on true--taking place in a distant era I had not lived through, on a remote island I'd only visited once, in a religious community I knew little about. Oh, and then there was the astronomy part...

I researched whaling, Quakers, Nantucket, and antebellum New England life at libraries and archives up and down the Eastern seaboard. Whole days went to chasing down factoids like the name of the bridge over the Charles River from Boston to Cambridge in 1846. I wrote the first 100 pages over and over. I turned thirty, then thirty-five.

And then...(cue harps and cupids) I fell in love. A year into my romance with my now-husband, we traveled to Barcelona. There were tapas and wine, museums and wine, squabbles over maps and make-ups over more wine. Finally, there was the plane home. For reasons I won't bore you with here, I had a backpack full of research with me. All of my notebooks, dog-eared books I'd highlighted and annotated, handwritten copies of primary sources too delicate to Xerox, my pencils, my journals--you can guess what happened next, right?

I stood in JFK's baggage claim watching the empty belt go around and around, like a whirlpool sucking up my lifelong dream. There were tears and angry letters, the promise of reparations that never arrived. I let my books and binders gather dust in a corner. A year or so later, when I worked up the nerve to read the book I'd begun so long before, I found that I'd done a fine job of depicting the culture and science of the era. But that spark--a vision of a determined young woman, scanning the night skies for something that would change her life--was muted. Something was missing. I started over. This time, I wrote the story I'd wanted to tell all along: an invented tale of ambition and perseverance and, yes, love, informed by history but not driven by it.

My awesome publisher, Riverhead Books, is gamely giving away 10 ARCs of The Movement of Stars. If you'd like one, shoot me an email at amy@amybrill.com and tell me about a time you went in search of "truth"--and what you found there.

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 TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

AUTHORBUZZ: THE MONEY KILL (Thriller) by Katia Lief

An offer of $30,000 for one day's work in London, followed by a family vacation in the Mediterranean, seems too good an offer to refuse. But the family's trip to sun-drenched Sardinia turns dark and terrible when the children vanish. Suddenly Karin and Mac must unravel a deadly web first spun when wronged wife Cathy Millerhausen walked into their world--as they discover firsthand the true evil of big money: how far it reaches, what it buys--who it kills.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE MONEY KILL to find out more about the book and the author, Katia Lief. Send her an email, she'd love to hear from you.

Dear Reader Column 03-25-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

A long lost relationship, my cousin and I have started emailing each other. At first I felt the need to send "letter-type" emails. A greeting, a catch-up about what's going on in my life, and if I wanted to talk about something from when we were kids (or when he was, I'm much older than he is) the subject needed a transition. I guess it's the writer in me that makes me feel like even when I'm sending a simple email, it requires my going back and rereading it, editing, checking for punctuation, and smooth transitions from one graph to the next--which is probably why the last email to my cousin led with: "I've started an email to you five times now, so this morning I told myself that writing to my cousin was on the top of my list."

But now my style has changed, because my cousin sent an email the other day, with three threads of memories--each, just a couple of lines, but they were delightful to read. Good things come in small packages, and now I've learned the best emails, between cousins, the emails that make me laugh and cry and sweetly remember--are tiny one or two line stories that help me remember things lost from long ago.

My cousin wrote, "On a happier memory with Easter coming, I always remember when your mom made and decorated the 'hand-blown' Easter eggs, and Monica, as a toddler (my cousin's sister), kept stepping on the eggs instead of picking them up."

I had completely forgotten about the "smashed" Easter eggs! We all laughed then (except my mother who was a serious woman) and my cousin Danny and I are still laughing today.

I won't be making fancy eggs like my mother used to do, but I have planned a huge Easter Egg Hunt for my grandchildren. Signs, T-shirts, a bunny pinata, and 80 plastic eggs will be hidden in the vacant lot next to my house (some buried), my neighbor's backyard and of course in Grandma's yard, too.

To see my Easter Egg trimmings, including my rabbit ears, and to enter to win an apron in my Spring Apron Giveaway, go to: http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/easter-2013.html

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

Hippity-hop,
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
www.muffinsandmayhem.com

* This month's Penguin Classics book is TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

AUTHORBUZZ: ALL THE LIGHT THERE WAS (Fiction) by Nancy Kricorian

Maral Pegorian, a teenage girl, peers through shuttered blinds as German troops march into Paris. Her journey to adulthood over the next six years takes her through a world transformed by war, but also by everyday acts of heroism and love.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on ALL THE LIGHT THERE WAS to read more and to email author Nancy Kricorian, you'll get a reply.

 

Dear Reader Column 03-22-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

No time to write today. Company's coming and I'm planning a birthday party, and an Easter Egg Hunt, and two big family dinners. My brother-in-law is the "company coming"--all the way from New York--and his birthday is on Easter. So as not to mix birthday and bunny, I'm decorating for his birthday party on Thursday evening, then Friday morning I'll be taking down birthday decorations and replacing them with light pink, green, blue, and purple Easter decorations. The official Egg Hunt will be on Saturday and it's huge! Eggs will be hidden in the vacant lot next to my house, in my neighbor's backyard, and the hoopla will finish-up in my yard--complete with a cute-as-can-be huge Bunny pinata. The bunny is so darn cute (I don't have the heart to whack him), so I'm going to rig up a pull-the-string-way, to release the candy and goodies.

Today I'm making plans and a list. (Don't 'ya love to cross things off a list?) Photos of upcoming birthday and Easter trimmings will be in Monday's column and I'll be giving away an apron. It's my spring gift to you. Join in the fun on Monday.

Have a delightful weekend.

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 TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

AUTHORBUZZ: SURPRISING LORD JACK (Fiction) by Sally MacKenzie

Inspiration comes from my characters. For example, in the first Duchess of Love book, Bedding Lord Ned, Jack, the Duke of Greycliffe's youngest son, got into a wrestling match with his brother Ned. I realized Jack knew how to fight dirty, which meant he knew the darker side of London. Which meant Jack, whom everyone considers a bit of a devil-may-care rake, had a secret life. Voila! I had an important piece of Surprising Lord Jack.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on SURPRISING LORD JACK to read more and to email author Sally MacKenzie, you'll get a reply.

Dear Reader Column 03-21-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

"I'm afraid I can't."

It's a familiar first step when I'm working on a new idea. Even once I've talked myself into trying, when I'm moving the idea along and finally making progress, even then--every morning I find myself at the same beginning phrase, "I'm afraid I can't."

It's a mystery why I don't look for a more inspiring friend, but "I'm afraid I can't," we're old buddies from way back. And I must be getting something out of the relationship, because I keep coming back for more.

At its worse, "I'm afraid I can't" brings me to my knees, paralyzes me, makes me want to curl up in a ball, turn out the lights and hide. At its best, it's a signal that whatever I'm working on means a lot to me. When I look back over my life every single time I've tapped into the really good stuff--concepts that have changed the character of my soul--it began with "I'm afraid I can't."

* Congratulations to the winners of the 'book from my bookshelf drawing,' they are: Kay Foxe, Josie Lammer, Patricia Bjerke, Donna Greenlee and Patricia Wilkes.

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

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

AUTHORBUZZ: THE CHANCE (Fiction) by Karen Kingsbury

The day before a teenage Ellie moved from Georgia to California, she and her best friend Nolan sat beneath the Spanish moss of an ancient oak tree where they wrote letters to each other and buried them in a rusty old metal box. The plan was to return eleven years later, dig the box up, and read the letters. But now, as that date approaches, much has changed. For both Ellie and Nolan, the coming date is more than just a childhood promise. It's the chance to make sense of it all--the chance to find out if it's ever too late to find love again.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE CHANCE to read more and to email author Karen Kingsbury, you'll get a reply.

*Fun, free books and meet authors. Ask questions, they'll reply and read samples from their books. Visit AuthorBuzz at: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

(Thriller)
KEEP NO SECRETS by Julie Compton

(Fiction)
THE LOVED AND THE LOST by Lory S. Kaufman

(NonFiction)
WE ALL DIE ONCE by Dr. Larry Kessler

(Fiction)
THE CHANCE by Karen Kingsbury

(Fiction)
SURPRISING LORD JACK by Sally MacKenzie

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

* This month's Penguin Classics book is TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

 

Dear Reader Column 03-20-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

I am fascinated by today's guest columnist, author Owen Laukkanen. Not only is he an outstanding writer, but his personal backstory is delightfully intriguing.

A little bit about Owen Laukkanen:

After graduation, Owen answered a Craigslist ad--and for the next three years, he was the tournament reporter for a poker website, traveling from the luxurious casinos of Monaco and Macau to the sketchiest card rooms of Atlantic City. A resident of Vancouver, he is now at work on a third book featuring Stevens and Windermere.

Please send Owen an email and welcome him to the book club. He's also giving away some of his books. You'll read about the details in his guest column today.

Take it away Owen Laukkanen. . .

I'm fascinated by risk takers.

I worked my way through university on a prawn fishing boat. Two months every summer on my uncle's boat in the North Pacific. For me, it was an adventure, a cool summer job. For my uncle, it was a year's worth of mortgage payments, car payments, grocery bills crammed into sixty high-pressure days at sea. Intense stuff, but he loved it all the same.

They were an interesting bunch, the career fishermen. They were worldly men and women, well-traveled and well-read. They spurned routines, morning commutes, steady paychecks, lived instead for the big jackpot, the mother lode. The lucky guys bought new trucks in the off season. The rest found extra work or took government assistance. Still they came back, year after year.

After university, I fell into a job as a world-traveling poker reporter. I spent long nights in swank European card rooms. Longer nights in Mississippi riverboats. I saw weathered old gamblers begging for buffet vouchers. I saw eighteen-year-old kids trade their poker winnings for Ferraris and solid gold Rolexes. Stanford physicists, MIT engineers, doctors and lawyers and college dropouts: They were adrenaline junkies, just like the fishermen.

I'm not a risk-taker, not me. I don't have the stuffing to lay down the price of a Cadillac on a single poker hand. I can't stake a year's house payments on a single fishing trip. Writing's a big enough gamble for me, thanks. I need a little security. But my stories are filled with these characters. Gamblers. Hustlers. Free spirits. The college kids who can't find jobs, so they turn to kidnapping. The accountant who robs banks for the thrill of it. Men and women who turn their backs on the solid, the secure, in pursuit of the big score. They've followed me from the card tables and the crowded galleys to the pages of my books, and there they wait, taunting me with their freedom, their exhilaration, their devil-may-care.

I'm no daredevil. Heck, I won't even bungee jump. Too much stress. But I know a few of them, both fictional and real. And man, are they fun to hang out with.

What about you, dear reader? How's your appetite for adrenaline? Are you a risk-taker or do you prefer to watch from the sidelines? Drop me a line at owen@owenlaukkanen.com, and I'll choose ten of my favorite answers to win an ARC of CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE, my new thriller from G.P. Putnam's Sons.

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 TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

AUTHORBUZZ: WE ALL DIE ONCE (NonFiction) by Dr. Larry Kessler

A riveting account of the past, present, and future of American medicine. From prenatal care to the end of life, this book uses history, analysis, and dramatic personal experiences to illustrate every major controversy in the healthcare fight. Starting with the emergency room, it guides readers through the modern hospital, examining individual cases to show larger truths. It chronicles lives saved, lives lost, and lives caught in the twilight world between the two.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on WE ALL DIE ONCE to read more and to email author Dr. Larry Kessler, you'll get a reply.

Dear Reader Column 03-19-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

The brand new books sitting on my shelf are looking for a new home. Enter-to-win a book today. Someone always wins, it could be you, and then you'll be as pleased as Marlene and Debbie were.

From my Email Bag:

"Suzanne, when I received a free book from you a couple weeks ago, I was delighted to discover it was by an author I hadn't heard of before in a genre I love. So I went online to do some research, and found a previous title in the same series. I just finished that one and am beginning the second today. I can't thank you enough for introducing me to new authors that keep my [library] plenty busy in supplying me with reading material! Joining the book club was the best thing I ever did. Thank you!"--Sincerely, Marlene M.

"Dear Suzanne, I came home from work on Thursday and opened my mailbox and saw a big orange envelope stuffed in my mailbox. (hmm, I didn't order anything?) When I pulled it out and saw the [bookclub] label on it, I was so tickled!! I posted a link to the picture and the captions on my Facebook page (with a note about the book club) and had tons of 'likes.' I never win anything and I can't wait to dive into a new book. Thanks again for making reading an interactive and fun activity!"--Debbie W.

Enter-to-win a new book, go to: http://tinyurl.com/DRbookaday

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

Warmest regards,
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
www.muffinsandmayhem.com

* This month's Penguin Classics book is TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

AUTHORBUZZ: THE LOVED AND THE LOST (Fiction) by Lory S. Kaufman

Three teens from the 24th century are kidnapped back to 14th-century Verona. There they must adapt to the harsh medieval ways or die. Time travel, sword fights, artificial intelligences, and a Romeo-and-Juliet love story.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE LOVED AND THE LOST to find out more about the book and the author, Lory S. Kaufman. Send her an email, she'd love to hear from you.

 

Dear Reader Column 03-18-13

Subscribe to one of Suzanne's online bookclubs and receive her daily
column at: DearReader.com


Sample Suzanne's book at:
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,

Writers looking for inspiration may dream of working in a bungalow on the beach, in a home high up in the Smokey Mountains, or perhaps a secluded cabin in the woods. But I do my best writing when I'm home. Family, cats, chocolate chip cookies and bubbles are this girl's inspiration. Today's guest columnist, author James Conaway, shares a lovely column, about his favorite writing place. Please welcome him to the book clubs and when you send a "hello" email, you'll also be entered in a drawing for a copy of his new book NOSE. He has 10 copies for readers. His email: conawayjim@gmail.com

Thanks Suzanne for that lovely introduction. Your cat is beautiful, by the way, and looks almost as happy as you do. My wife, Penny, and I had a wonderful cat, a Russian blue named Doc whose wonderful temperament meant he preferred the kitchen to any room in the house, and who wouldn't?

Penny is a caterer and works at home, so consequently most of the action is right here in our no-nonsense galley-style eatery with a sitting alcove at one end. There's an old wicker laundry basket that we brought back from England, put a pillow on, and called it a chair. Also a love seat with comfortable pillows and a view of Penny grating cheese - she's doing that right now--or baking bread or cutting up a chicken.

All this would attract any cat, or writer too, but activity is part of the appeal. When my children were small they passed through regularly, checking to see what was in the oven, and now that they're grown up and gone the kitchen's undergone a subtle transformation. There's still plenty of activity, but now I'm part of it--if tapping on a computer can be called activity.

The kitchen became a de facto study after I got tired of sitting alone and wanted the sociability associated with food and the smells that are such a large part of a satisfying life. I was in the middle of writing a novel about the high-end wine world and found indirect stimuli in every aroma, from boiling pasta to seared scallops, but mostly in soups--lentil, carrot-ginger, bean-and-barley.

In front of the love seat's a beat-up cobbler's bench serving now as a prop for a tea pot, and my feet shod in fleece-lined slippers. My concentration's better than you might think. Another of Penny's activities is a work-out group years old, and those understanding women every morning have to pass by a guy still in his pajamas, a computer on his lap, muttering hellos while inventing the exploits of vintners and wine writers, environmentalists and rapacious developers.

Often by the time I've finished a writing session the work-out friends are all gone, and the oven cold. But the morning's activities still lurk in unwashed cups, a pot full of tea leaves, the photo of blooming wild mustard on my computer screen. I may have been writing about the world of wine in all its glorious--and occasionally inglorious--manifestations, but it isn't actual chardonnay or cabernet sauvignon that stimulated my nasal perception, but the irresistible smell of warming minestrone infused with smoked ham and spicy Italian sausage.

Email James at conawayjim@gmail.com

James Conaway was a Wallace Stegner writing fellow at Stanford and the former editor of Preservation magazine, as well as the author of the best-selling Napa: The Story of an American Eden. His new novel, Nose grew out of his time as a wine columnist for the Washington Post. James and his wife, Penny, divide their time between Washington, D.C., and the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Cooking, traveling (their children live in the Midwest and on the West Coast), hiking, fly fishing, and bird-watching keep them busy when he's not writing.

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 TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE by Solomon Northup. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/March2013Classics

AUTHORBUZZ: KEEP NO SECRETS (Thriller) by Julie Compton

The surprise ending in my debut legal thriller, Tell No Lies, shocked readers. Now, in the controversial sequel, Keep No Secrets, St. Louis DA Jack Hilliard wants nothing more than to be trusted again by his wife, Claire, and to earn back the respect of his constituency. But his efforts crumble when Jenny--the woman at the heart of his earlier downfall--returns to town, and his son's girlfriend accuses him of rape, forcing Jack to the wrong end of a criminal case, battling for his freedom.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on KEEP NO SECRETS to read more and to email author Julie Compton, you'll get a reply.