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Dear Reader,
Today's guest author, Brenda Bowen, honed her skills as an author of children's books (under the pen name of Margaret McNamara). Her new book, Enchanted August is her adult debut. Brenda lives in New York City, but spends most of her summers on the island in Maine that she writes about in today's guest column.
You could win one of five Enchanted August ARCs (advanced reading copy) when you email: [email protected] Please be sure to include your shipping address in case you're a winner.
Welcome to the book club, Brenda Bowen...
One of the chief goals I set for my higher education was to wake up wearing an Oxford-cloth shirt that belonged to my boyfriend. With only a few days of college left, I had neither the shirt nor the boyfriend. To force the issue, I threw a party, invited all the guys I knew, and told them they were required to wear an Oxford-cloth shirt (one of those button-down types that every American man owns). But instead of ending up the next morning in my newfound boyfriend's arms, I wound up...
Actually, let's draw a veil over where I wound up.
When eventually I got back to my dorm, I cried myself to sleep listening to really sad Roberta Flack. I was tangled in crumpled tissues and smeared mascara when my best friend in all the world threw open the door and told me "We're going to the Island and we're going now."
The Island loomed large in our imaginations. My friend had talked about it for years, but none of us had ever been there. It was magic, she'd always said. "And right now," she told me, looking into my puffy red eyes, "you need magic."
There were eleven of us--all female, except for one brave guy--and we were crammed impossibly and, come to think of it, dangerously in two small cars. We drove for two hours, the landscape of Maine having barely awakened from a long winter.
Now, many years later, I don't remember how we got across the water from the mainland. Someone must have left a boat. We must have made a few trips. But I do remember that the second I set foot on that island, I fell under its spell.
We traipsed around the Island for what felt like hours, and maybe was. We explored beaches, rocks, looming spruce trees. There was still snow on the ground. We had remembered to bring wine but not food, so we foraged. We picked mussels off the rocks, pumped water from the well, and searched the cupboards of the unheated farmhouse where we set up camp. I managed to make us a gigantic meal of steamed mussels and biscuits even though the ancient stove ceased working when it got too hot.
Afterwards, we built a fire and huddled together, literally, for warmth. The one wonderful guy who came with us lent me his sweater: dark green, hand-knit. It wasn't an Oxford-cloth shirt, and he wasn't my boyfriend, but it was magic.
--Brenda Bowen
To see a photo of Brenda and her friends on the Island, go to: https://www.facebook.com/pages/DearReadercom/291327524280953
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
* This month's Penguin Classics book is THE SAD END OF POLICARPO QUARESMA, by Lima Barreto. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin tote bag, just in time for your summer reading! Goto: http://www.supportlibrary.com/bc/v.cfm?L=drclassqqxqR1AFEF3957A1&c=CLASSICS
AUTHORBUZZ: AS WATERS GONE BY (Fiction) by Cynthia Ruchti
The court gave Emmalyn's marriage a five-year time-out, when it placed her husband, Max, behind impenetrable prison walls. Just a few months before Max's release, Emmalyn takes a self-imposed exile to the beautiful but remote Madeline Island in Lake Superior to figure out if and how she and her husband can ever be a couple again. And his silence isn't helping.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on AS WATERS GONE BY to find out more about the book and the author, Cynthia Ruchti. Send her an email, she'd love to hear from you.
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