Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column - April 30, 2024

Dear Reader,

Please welcome Diane Kelly today's guest author who writes funny mysteries featuring feisty female leads and furry, four-footed sidekicks. Diane has authored over three dozen novels and novellas, including the Death & Taxes white-collar crime series, the Paw Enforcement K9 series, the House Flipper cozy mystery series, the Busted female motorcycle cop series, the Southern Homebrew moonshine series, and the Mountain Lodge Mysteries series.

Her brand new book is Four-Alarm Homicide, in which carpenter Whitney Whitaker remodels an old fire station into a residence that will also serve as her wedding venue, is the sixth book in her popular House Flipper series.

When not writing, Diane enjoys walking her dog, playing with her cats, and hiking in the woods in her home state of North Carolina. Learn more about Diane and her books at https://www.dianekelly.com

You could win one of three copies of Four-Alarm Homicide. Send an email with your preferred shipping address (in case you're a winner) to: [email protected]

Reach out to Diane via: https://www.dianekelly.com/contact/

Welcome to the book club Diane...

Up on the Roof

I've always loved the song Up on the Roof, written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and made famous by the Drifters. The lyrics are lovely, sharing how a rooftop can be a peaceful escape from the rat race and the noise of the crowds. To paraphrase the song, a rooftop is a paradise, where one can look up at the sky and, for no charge, watch a show of stars.

Although I'm somewhat scared of heights, I nevertheless love rooftop spaces for the very reasons set forth in the song. Rooftops provide beautiful views of the sky and a refuge from the hustle and bustle happening at ground level. I'm willing to put aside my fears to enjoy these unusual vantage points.

From 2014-2016, I lived in Nashville, the city where my House Flipper series is set. Nashville is famous for country music, of course, and much of that music is enjoyed on rooftops along the South Broadway or "SoBro" honky-tonk row. One of my favorite rooftop patios is at the Acme Feed and Seed restaurant, which sits at the east end of Broadway directly across from the picturesque Cumberland River, pedestrian bridge, and Riverfront Park. The gorgeous view from the roof makes you realize why so many people choose Nashville as a vacation destination. Heading back west on Broadway, one will pass many a bar and music venue with bands playing atop their roofs, but the most legendary venue with a rooftop patio is Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. With its purple paint, the historic place is impossible to miss. I got my first taste of apple pie moonshine at Tootsie's and have been hooked on the stuff ever since.

Two of my favorite rooftops include the Fahrenheit Charlotte rooftop bar in Charlotte, North Carolina and the rooftop of the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina. The view of downtown Charlotte from Fahrenheit is spectacular, especially at night when the city is lit up. The roof of the Biltmore provides breathtaking long-range views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Pisgah National Forest. With my love of rooftops, it's no surprise that I included a rooftop patio in the fire station remodel in Four-Alarm Homicide.

Do you like rooftops? If so, what's your favorite rooftop space?

-- Diane Kelly

https://www.dianekelly.com/contact/

Enter-to-win one of three copies of Four-Alarm Homicide. Send an email with your preferred shipping address (in case you're a winner) to: [email protected]

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - April 23, 2024

Dear Reader,

Please welcome today's return guest, Nancy Thayer. Nancy is the New York Times author of 35 novels, including Summer Love, Family Reunion, A Nantucket Christmas, and The Hot Flash Club. Her novel Let It Snow was made into a Hallmark Christmas movie entitled Nantucket Noel in 2021.  Her new title, just in time for summer, is The Summer We Started Over.

Her books are about families, friendship, and the beautiful island of Nantucket where she's lived for 40 years with her husband Charley Walters and their spoiled cat Callie. Sometimes they invite their thousands of grandchildren to visit. She loves libraries, bookstores, and zoom parties.

Contact Nancy via her website: https://nancythayer.com/contact-nancy

Welcome back to the book club, Nancy...

I can't tell you how many times I've started over.

I'm certain you've started over many times, too.

For example, I started over when I went alone and shy into pre-school. I started over each time I dated a man. I started over when I came to Nantucket for the first time to see my good friend Dinah–and to meet the man I would marry and the island I would call home.

I start over when I start to write a new book. Often, I discover I've gone down a blind alley. For so many things in life, starting over isn't as easy as opening a door and entering a room where smiling people are waiting for you. Sometimes it takes work, editing, revision, and often, despair.

Sometimes, in both writing and in life, it can be magic.

It was a gray, gloomy November when I flew to Nantucket to visit Dinah. Nantucket wasn't at its most lovable. Heavy, clouded sky, cold wind, darkness. No fast ferries. Dinah had arranged for me to be interviewed about my third novel on the local television channel. The show was called ArtsView, and the host was Charley Walters, blue-eyed, six one, thirty-two, unattached.

When he walked in the door, I thought, "I could love him." Just like that. I could never have imagined someone like him. But there he was, and here we are, married for forty years.

I live on this island thirty miles out to sea with a population of billionaires and normal, attractive people who work here but can't afford to buy a house here. I don't go a day without discovering something--or someone--I want to write a novel about. I have piles of notes.

But one day I was chatting with my friend Dinah, yes, that Dinah. She now lives in Palm Beach, but visits the island often. Dinah is truly glamorous and generous and lovable, and her last name is not Lavender. She's also fascinating, but while we were talking, something in my mind whispered: Dinah Lavender. She writes romances.

I couldn't wait to get off the phone. I sat down at my computer and typed out pages about Dinah Lavender, who lived in New York and had written over a hundred best-selling romance novels, but who had no significant lover or friend in her life. She had long black hair and a voluptuous body and she needed an assistant...

I intended to write about a family that had suffered a terrible loss. I wanted to write about getting what you want only to find out you really want something entirely different. I wanted to write about sisters. I have a younger, blue-eyed blonde pretty baby sister, and believe me, our relationship continually supplies me with ideas.

So I wrote about two sisters in their twenties who move to Nantucket with their father to start over. And before long, Dinah Lavender arrives.

I hope you enjoy The Summer We Started Over. That will make me and Dinah Lavender very happy!

Have a wonderful summer!

xoxoNancy

-- Nancy Thayer

https://nancythayer.com/contact-nancy

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - April 16, 2024

Dear Reader,

Linda Stewart Henley, today's guest author writes:

I enjoy writing historical fiction, especially when I have a connection with the place or period where the story takes place. I grew up in England in the area South of London and my book Kate's War is set there. I find the year in Britain after the declaration of war but before the Blitz fascinating: people prepared for a war that didn't seem to be happening, and for a while, they called it the "phony war." My book is about ordinary people and how they adjusted to the reality of World War II.

Learn more about Linda at https://www.lindastewarthenleyauthor.com/

Email: [email protected]

How I learned to write fiction

When we moved to the Pacific Northwest after retirement, my husband Vince announced that he was going to write a novel. He is an avid reader and had written many technical and business documents, but never a long work of fiction, so I asked him how he would go about doing this. He replied that he would start by taking classes in creative writing.

And he did. We both did. But our teacher only expected students to write anecdotes or short memoirs, usually no longer than a page or so. There were no classes available locally on how to write a long work of fiction. So Vince decided to offer the class himself. He ordered dozens of books, read them all, wrote a murder mystery novella, and then advertised his class. The first time he taught it, about four students enrolled. He insisted that I take it, despite my protests that I was sure I couldn't write a book. 

He has now written two novellas and two novels, and he has taught the class ten more times. As his understanding about the craft of writing increased, he developed a comprehensive syllabus and class format. Now twelve attendees meet once a week, January to May, in a three-hour session for a total of eighteen weeks. Each class includes a lecture and peer critique session, and everyone writes between 2,000 and 3,500 words each week. By the end of the class, participants have completed either a novella (minimum of 30,000 words) or a novel (minimum of 50,000 words). During the last week of the Seminar, he reads everyone's entire manuscript and provides a final written evaluation.

To my surprise, and no small thanks to my husband's excellent teaching, I learned to write fiction. During the ten classes that I took over a ten-year period, I wrote first drafts of three novels, all of which have been or will be published. My third novel Kate's War will be released on April 9, 2024.

And his novels? He has no desire to go through the arduous process of editing, revising, and marketing, so his work remains unpublished, though he still writes and adds manuscripts to his pile on the shelf. Vince says he gets his greatest pleasure from helping other people achieve their literary objectives.

-- Linda Stewart Henley

[email protected]

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - April 9, 2024

Dear Reader,

Get out the hats and horns, bake a batch of cookies, patronize the Friends of the Library Bookstore, make a donation (time or money) to your local library, or send an email to the library thanking them for offering this online book club and for doing such a great job every day. Celebrate National Library Week!

To celebrate National Library Week, I have giveaways for librarians. If you work at (or retired from) a library please do enter-to-win this special gift: a There’s No Such Thing as Too Many Books tote bag. To enter, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/giveaway/

Today’s guest author, D. J. Green is a writer and geologist, a by-product of an upbringing in a house filled with books and her Earth Science teacher father talking endlessly about rocks. D. J. was lucky to grow up exploring the National Parks across the U.S. with her family. Her debut novel, No More Empty Spaces, weaves the love of the outdoors, and the science that shapes it, into the story of a geologist who takes his three children to a remote and rugged part of Turkey, where he's signed on to work on a troubled dam in 1973. While there, he wrestles for control--of his family, his work, and even the landscape.

D. J. is giving away five copies of No More Empty Spaces to book club readers. To enter, drop D. J. an email and be sure to include your mailing address in case you are a winner: [email protected]

Welcome to the book clubs, D. J. …

The Specifics of Wonder

Wonder seems non-specific to me, when I try to find words to describe how it feels, in my mind or my body, I struggle. That's a problem for a writer. But describing, specifically, what inspires wonder in me--that's easy. I am fortunate to spend time in nature nearly every day, and not a single one goes by when I don't see or hear or touch upon something that makes me sense wonder.

One January morning, it was Mountain bluebirds. A blustery day at the base of the Sandias (the mountains whose foothills I regularly hike), I ducked down into an arroyo seeking shelter from the winds howling higher on the ridge tops. The flock of Mountain bluebirds who winter here had the same idea. Lucky me!

Passing a juniper, I flushed the flock. They rose en masse, swirled overhead, their bright or light (depending on their gender) blue hues flashed in the sun. They hovered, wings beating as they danced on the brisk breeze. They chose another nearby tree and settled where I could watch them through my binoculars as many minutes ticked by--though for me, immersed in the joy of their presence, time seemed altered. I could simply be with them as they perched, or hopped from bough to bough, or fluttered in the air like a blue halo around the tree. Some quiet, so I could see the details of their slim beaks or the black wing feathers folded upon their backs in contrast to their brilliant blue. Some chittered, but their songs were hard to hear above the wind's insistent refrain. I don't know how long I lingered, I could've watched them, snug as they seemed in the shelter of the juniper, all day. But a Cooper's hawk had other plans. As it swooped in, the bluebirds were gone in a feathered flash. The flock flew well out of my sight to safety.

I stayed, observing the raptor, who bobbed on a high branch in the buffeting wind. When it rose and passed overhead, I could hear, and feel, its wingbeats. Yet more wonder.

It is true that I am a nerd about birds, but wouldn't anyone feel fascination among those winged beauties? Find wonder in their mastery of the air? If it isn't birds, I hope you discover something to wonder at today. Perhaps, Dear Reader, it will be in the pages of a book.

– D. J. Green

To enter the drawing for book club readers for one of five copies of No More Empty Spaces, email: [email protected] (and please include your mailing address in case you are a winner).

And if you work at (or retired from) a library please do enter-to-win this special gift: a There’s No Such Thing as Too Many Books tote bag. To enter, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/giveaway/

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - April 2, 2024

Dear Reader,

Please welcome today's guest author, Ashton Lattimore. She is an author, award-winning journalist and a recovering lawyer. Born and raised in New Jersey, she now lives in Bryn Mawr, PA with her husband and two sons. Ashton’s the editor-in-chief at nonprofit news outlet 'Prism,' and her nonfiction writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, Slate, CNN, and Essence.

All We Were Promised is her debut novel. Set in volatile pre-Civil War Philadelphia, the story centers on a housemaid with a dangerous family secret who conspires with a wealthy young abolitionist to help an enslaved girl escape.

Ashton would love to hear from you Reach out via https://ashtonlattimore.com/contact/

Please welcome to the book club, Ashton Lattimore….

Lately, I find myself longing for a set of encyclopedias. Not because there's something specific I want to look up--quite the opposite, actually. I crave the feeling of cracking open a big

reference book, not looking for anything in particular, and just letting my curiosity guide me. Maybe I'd grab the "M" volume and dive headlong into mammals, Mars, Mesopotamia, or minerals. No matter the letter, I'd find a hodgepodge of history and science, geography and mythology, all held together only by the loose thread of alphabetization, and I'd come away having learned something new.

Growing up, my family had a set of World Books. When my parents bought them, it felt like a very big deal. In 1990s middle class life, encyclopedias seemed as much a status symbol as a reference. I understood my parents' pride in them--the volumes looked so majestic on the living room bookshelf, bound in tasteful shades of forest green and cream, with gold-embossed letters along the spine. They were surprisingly heavy to my ten-year-old arms, but their heft only added to the air of sophistication. The volumes were a treasure trove for me then, and not only for school projects. Most of the time I just flipped through at random, picking up little gems of trivia that I'd carry around in my pocket for a rainy day.

Now, in the age of Google and Wikis, I've realized there's something so wonderfully limited about a set of encyclopedias. They're a snapshot of human knowledge, frozen at one moment in time, and maybe already outdated by the time they hit the shelves. But you can reckon with them--there's no looking up "Ancient Egypt" and turning up hundreds of thousands of hits. There's a single entry, and maybe it cross-references a few more, but each offers a manageable place to start piecing together a foundation of knowledge. And they're reliable: we trust that some well-educated people, somewhere, researched and vetted the facts in each volume. That sense of officialdom often feels like it's in short supply.

As my own children grow into curious readers, I wonder if they'd delight in a set of "old school" encyclopedias just as I did. In a house already overflowing with books, it feels tough to justify devoting scarce shelf space to volumes filled with information easily found online. But in an age filled with more content than any of us can ever hope to consume, the curated grace and simplicity of a set of leather-bound, alphabetized references might just feel like a gift.

-- Ashton Lattimore

https://ashtonlattimore.com/contact/

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]