Susan Wiggs's Blog, page 2

The Drunken Elf- Cocktails to Keep you Warm

The Drunken Elf (original)

Ingredients

2 oz gin

1/2 oz elderflower liqueur

1/2 oz lime juice

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Shake, then strain into a coupe glass. Top with champagne or prosecco, and a drunken elf, if available. If not, garnish with a rosemary sprig.

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The Frostbite- Cocktails to Keep you Warm

The Frostbite

This is another drink adapted from Winter Warmers and featured on Sips from Scripts.

Ingredients

1 ½ oz Tequila

¾ oz Blue Curaçao Liqueur

¾ oz White Crème De Cacao

1 oz cream

1 Cherry

Method

1 Add tequila, blue curaçao, crème de cacao, heavy cream, and ice to a shaker.

2 Shake for 10-20 seconds.

3 Strain into a lowball glass filled with ice.

4 Garnish with cherry.

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Gluhwein- Cocktails to keep you warm.

Have you ever had Gluhwein? It is a traditional German spiced wine that is served warm.

Ingredients

1/2 cup Cranberries, fresh1 Orange

1/3 cup sugar or maple syrup

3 Cinnamon sticks

5 Cloves2 Star anise

1 cup orange juice or apple cider

1/4 cup brandy

1 bottle red wineSimmer everything together and serve warm.

Pair with  The Horsemaster’s Daughter, a book for Bridgerton fans.

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Lost and Found Typewriter

Sometimes a writer doesn’t know what she’s writing about until she writes about it. Often, I’ll write something–a scene, a chapter, a whole book–that feels like pure fiction, yet hidden in the center of the piece is a kernel of truth. This is probably something my subconscious has been noodling on while my conscious mind was preoccupied with other matters.

While writing The Lost and Found Bookshop, I found a lost treasure of my own. It’s not a spoiler to say here that The Lost and Found Bookshop, on historic Perdita Street in San Francisco, has a long and mysterious history. The old Victorian building housed many things through the years, and in the mid-20th century, it was a typewriter sales and repair shop run by Andrew Harper, Natalie’s grandfather. I never questioned my reasons for making it a typewriter shop. My subconscious simply offered it up, and it made sense to me.

Now I wonder if a certain typewriter in my past might have offered up the idea from my subconscious. My typewriter was lost for a long time. I nearly forgot about it, and I never made an effort to find it. However, I have very specific memories of this machine. More on that in a moment.

When I was in grade school, our family moved away–far away–from the town where I was born in upstate New York. Thanks to my dad’s career, we grew up in Brussels and Paris. It was an exciting, unusual childhood, and I’m sure living in the same neighborhoods as medieval castles and lavish chateaux influence the writer I would become.

When you move a lot, especially overseas, you tend to lose things. A lot of our things were left in storage, sold or given away, lost or even stolen. On one occasion, a shipment of my parents’ belongings was looted by pirates. Maybe not pirates but that’s how I thought of it. Things went missing.

So I started thinking maybe the pirates took the typewriter.

Fast forward several decades. One day last year, while visiting my brother https://www.instagram.com/artbuda2020/ in Texas, I saw a dusty box high on a shelf in a spare room full of clutter.

I had that moment. You know, when you think you’ve found something you didn’t realize you’d been missing for a long time and then…Suddenly it’s there before you.

Everything about it was familiar–the black electrical tape on the case. The scent of the ribbon ink. The glassy feel of the keys under my fingers. This machine and I go way back. And I mean WAY. Like, before I was born. Maybe before my mother was born. It might have belonged to her parents, who had a fuel and service station in upstate New York.

My first memory of it dates back to one winter when I was six years old. My sister and I came down with pneumonia, and we were ordered to stay inside for six weeks.

Imagine being my mom, ordered to entertain two sick kids in the lake-effect snow belt of western New York for six whole weeks. I was already an avid reader and budding writer, so my very creative (and probably exasperated) mom brought out this oddly shaped, angular black box, and offered to teach me to type.

My six-year-old brain exploded. … I can still smell the ink and machine oil. I can still feel the round glassy keys under my eager fingers, tapping out words and paragraphs…sometimes whole stories. I had found my lane.

One day, I showed my friend Anjali LINK TO AJ BANNER some pictures of the old typewriter. She’s a typewriter enthusiast, and in fact, she composes her novels on an old manual typewriter, so she knows things. She told me that this particular machine is rare and maybe even valuable. It’s a Royal portable typewriter from the 1930s with a font called “Vogue.”

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Falling Leaves- Cocktails to keep you Warm

“Falling Leaves” is from my new favorite cocktail book, Winter Warmers: 60 Cosy Cocktails for Autumn & Winter by Jassy Davis. If you don’t have the Montenegro, try another dark amaro.

Ingredients
1 ½ oz Rye Whiskey
¾ oz Amaro Montenegro Liqueur
½ oz Toasted Fig Syrup
2 dashes Chocolate Bitters
1 Orange Slice

Add rye, amaro, toasted fig syrup, chocolate bitters, and ice to a mixing glass. Stir well, then strain into a lowball glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a slice of orange.

(Photo from Sips from Scripts)

Pair with The Charm School and enjoy the high seas adventure.

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Finding Lost & Found

Hi, it’s Susan’s cover art. I’m here to remind you that The Lost and Found Bookshop has just been published in a special premium edition, perfect for book clubs, or to enjoy all on your own. My favorite feature of the new edition is the recipe in the back–the best banana bread in the world! Make it for your book club!

Every time I publish a book, I try to do something to commemorate the occasion. So in honor of The Lost and Found Bookshop, I got this little tattoo on my ankle. So I guess I’m stuck with it!

When it comes to tattoos, a do-over is really tricky. In writing fiction, not so much. This book begins with a compelling question:

            “If you had to start over, what would you do and who would you be?”

That’s the question posed by this novel.

Natalie is faced with a series of difficult choices brought on by a shocking loss and the challenges that unfurl in the wake of that loss. While writing the book, I asked myself–What values drove her decision-making process?

She learns some of life’s hardest lessons and learns some of life’s greatest rewards. For example, she comes to realize that the door is never closed to closure. Even if someone is gone forever, there are ways to find peace within yourself. Remember, you did the best you could with what you knew at the time.

Natalie learns something else most people I know need to learn–when to reach out for help, and who to reach out for. In order to keep the bookstore open and care for her ailing grandfather, she discovers allies in the most unlikely of places.

Who helps you? Who can you depend on? Who walks along with you on your life’s journey? When that person appears, that’s when the magic happens.

My bookshop is located on a fictional street in old San Francisco called Perdita Street. The shop is fictional, but it feels very real to me. I included bits and pieces of my favorite bookshops in the world, from Shakespeare & Co. in Paris to Eagle Harbor Books in my hometown of Bainbridge Island. It’s a place where every reader is welcome, and every reader is treated with dignity and respect.

In The Lost and Found Bookshop, Natalie says, “There is a book for everything.”

It’s something I’ve always believed. I turn to books when I’m lonely, confused, happy, grieving, and everything in between. No matter what my mood, I can always find refuge in a book. We even had the slogan printed on a book bag. No matter who you are or what you’re feeling, you can find a book that reflects that feeling back to you in some way.

One of the situations in the book that’s drawn from my life is the eldercare storyline. Natalie finds herself in charge of her grandfather, facing challenges similar to my own. Eldercare is a wavy road. It takes a lot of humor and a lot of heart for Natalie to get through the day with old Grandy. He can recite “The Charge of the Light Brigade” from memory, but he gets lost on the way to the bathroom. Based on the feedback I’m getting from this article https://frolic.media/the-vital-soulful-and-unpaid-work-of-working-daughters-in-the-age-of-covid-19-by-susan-wiggs/, a lot of us are in the same boa.t

Pro tip: There are a few fun surprises for long-time readers in this book.

Readers have kept me writing books since 1987, and I’m grateful for each and every one of them. Fans of The Apple Orchard and The Beekeeper’s Ball will find a few little tidbits in The Lost and Found Bookshop.  If you’ve read those books and you’re wondering what’s up with Erik, you’ll find a few hints in this story.

There’s also a subtle shout-out to the reader favorite, Just Breathe.  The setting of that novel should be on everyone’s bucket list!

In books, as in life, seemingly unrelated things are sometimes woven together with surprising results. I do want to write more in the Bella Vista Chronicles. And the Lakeshore Chronicles. And the Calhoun Chronicles. So stay tuned!

In fiction, as in life, you don’t always get it right the first time. The nice thing about life is that it’s filled with second chances. There is always time for a do-over. If something’s not right, don’t settle.

Wishing you health, happiness, and an abundance of reading all summer long!

 

#readsusanwiggs

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Heart of the Town: Your Public Library

People who know me know I have a passionate affinity for the library. Some of my earliest memories are of the public library in my town.

This is the children’s room of my childhood library in Olean, New York.

When I was a child, this library in Olean, NY, was my second home.

If you’ve read the Lakeshore Chronicles, you probably have an idea of what it looks like in my imagination.

The longest dedication I’ve ever written for a book is about the library. This is from The Charm School.

Dedication

To the most charming group of people I know:

LIBRARIANS.

You probably don’t remember my name, but you saw me every week. I was the quiet child with the long pigtails and the insatiable appetite for Beverly Cleary, Carol Ryrie Brink, and Louise Fitzhugh. I was the one you had to tap on the shoulder at closing time, because I was still sitting on a stool in the stacks, poring over Ramona’s latest adventures or sniffling as I read Anne Frank’s diary. I was the little girl with the huge wire basket on the front of her bike–for lugging home a stack of books that weighed more than she did.

I never thought to thank you back then, because I didn’t understand how very much all those hours, and all those books, and all your patience meant to me or to the writer I would become. But I understand now. So this book is dedicated to you, to all of you, in gratitude for bringing books and readers together.

 

The library truly is the heart of any town. If there is such a thing as a sacred space, it is the public library, a place of safety, where every patron is treated equally and with respect.

Librarians are the keepers of the flame, the knowledge-bearers, the book-custodians, the curators of collections. They are passionate. They are fierce. They will put you together with a book that might just change your life.

The most important card in my wallet!

 

 

The New York Public Library is Disneyland to a writer.

My daughter and granddaughter clearly inherited the library chromosome.

What is the library in your town like? What are your memories of the library? What’s your favorite thing about the library?

Does your library like to receive foreign language books for their collection? Post the library’s address in Comments, and we’ll pick some at random to donate foreign copies of my books.

Foreign Affairs

#LibraryDay #NationalLibraryDay #LibrarianDay

 

 

 

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Welcome, Bridgerton fans!

Welcome, Bridgerton fans! One of my favorite things about the Bridgerton series,  based on the beloved novels by Julia Quinn,  is that millions of new readers are finding out what romance fans have known all along: Historical love stories are top-notch entertainment. They deliver everything a reader could want in a book–yearning, drama, adventure, passion, rivalries, and a hard-won happy ending.

I cheered when the peerless Shonda Rimes embraced the Bridgertons for one of her Netflix projects. She has an unerring sense of exactly what viewers want, and a style that keeps us enraptured. (Side note for writers: Shonda teaches one of the best Masterclass series.)

It’s especially fun for me, because, like our favorite characters, I have a past. https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/susan-wiggs/ My early books were historical romances, and they’re filled with all the delicious elements that people can’t seem to get enough of. When The Charm School was first published, I got in trouble with my daughter, who was then in high school. To her great mortification, her friends did dramatic readings of the naughty parts in the school hallways. It’s no coincidence that the book was my first national bestseller. Not only was it the horniest book I’ve ever written; it featured a drop-dead gorgeous cover and a timeless fantasy love story that still feels fresh today. https://www.susanwiggs.com/a-fan-favorite/  Like the Bridgertons, the Calhoun Chronicles expanded across several books. https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/su...

To celebrate the surge of interest in this beloved genre, my publisher is reissuing many of my classic titles in various formats–audio, print, and digital.

Harlequin is creating fresh new cover art for the reissued books. I think Ryan and Isabel would approve.

So, if you’re new to the genre, welcome aboard. If you’ve been enjoying romance novels all along, let’s hear from you. What’s the first romance novel that seduced you and turned you into a fan? I’ll start Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss.

 

#Bridgertons #romancenovels #readsusanwiggs

 

 

 

 

 

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Bom Dia, Brasil!

It always blows my mind when I see my books published around the globe in other languages and formats. For a story that started in my tiny corner of the world to make its way to readers in distant lands is a miracle to me. It affirms my belief that stories connect us, no matter where we are or what language we speak.

Brazil fell in love with THE LOST AND FOUND BOOKSHOP. I’ve never been to Brazil. I don’t speak Portuguese. But I started seeing post after post on social media, and hearing from readers in Brazil, and discovered that my humble little book about a lonely bookseller has struck a chord. So I’m doing the samba! I love Brazil and I wish I knew more than  Prazer em conhecê-lo!

Why Brazil in particular? My editor says readers never fail to be drawn to stories about their favorite place in town–the bookstore. Besides that, there is a brilliant publishing team in Brazil that coordinated book reviewers, bloggers, booksellers, and even a fellow author to help promote the book, and it caught on. Bestselling author Paola Aleksandra (https://www.instagram.com/livrosefuxicos/) featured the novel on her Romance Bookclub platforms: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHvD–PjM7h/

Paola also created a show on YouTube that aired the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp-BYizvlKQ The Lost and Found Bookshop was ALSO chosen for another book club called “Turista literário”(Literary tourist). Every month, Turista Literário sends a surprise box to subscribers with the book and some gifts that are inspired by the book, they create an experience of immersion in history.  https://www.turistaliterario.com.br/. And rounding out our tour of Brazil, here is one of the most entertaining booksellers anywhere in the world! https://fb.watch/2RwR8SmGS0/ You don’t even need to speak Portuguese to appreciate his passion.

This year, I am going to seek out books in translation, starting with Brazilian writers. While I’m looking for a Paola Aleksandra book in English, here’s a list to get me started. https://bookriot.com/books-about-brazil/

Stories connect us, helping us to understand, to empathize, and to share our humanity. #BooksInTranslation #fiction #readsusanwiggs

 

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Santa Lives!

Everyone who likes kids knows how important it is to make a child’s Christmas wish come true. Most of us have been there, up at 2am putting a bike together, painting a dollhouse, wondering if the hamsters will make it through the night.

Our granddaughter Clara is as lucky as she is creative. Her Christmas wish was for a stuffy in the form of a mythical creature she calls a “heart-maid.” This is six-year-old parlance for a mermaid shaped like a heart and stuffed with soft fluff. She drew a picture for Santa so he would know what she had in mind.

Her wishes specify that there’s a dark part on the bridge of the nose; this is how we can tell female heart maids from male ones. It needs heart ears and cheek whiskers. Also, it should have the word “Mama” on the back because Clara’s mama is her favorite person in the world.

The reason I say Clara is lucky is that Santa has a secret weapon—an elf who goes by the name Granddude. When he’s not working on his award-winning designs or creating kids’ adventure wear, Jerry is likely to be found turning a little girl’s vision into reality.

First stop was the fabric shop for supplies. Did I mention one of my best-beloved characters has a fabric shop?

…and then Jerry made the pattern. Did I mention he was the inspiration for Caroline’s career in The Oysterville Sewing Circle?

Then the magic happened! A bespoke heart maid, made to order.

Watch this space to see the Big Reveal!

 

A word from your hostess: I’ve written a few Christmas stories in my day:

Lakeshore Christmas has the most controversial ending ever.

Candlelight Christmas has been updated with reader input.

The Lakeshore Chronicles Christmas Collection features both of the above.

The St. James Affair is a New York fairytale.

So is Snowfall in the City.

Holiday Hearts features two stories in one.

A Fairytale Christmas is a fan favorite.

For audiophiles, 2 stories beautifully narrated.

 

Romancing the Holidays features four authors.

 

#Christmas #handcrafted #sewing #reading

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