Susan Wiggs's Blog, page 3

Listen to Your Heart

Audiobooks can be one of your best friends in times of social isolation. There’s something incredibly soothing and enriching when a talented voice tells you a story. They can keep you company on a long walk or a drive. They can make a chore–like weeding the garden or folding the laundry–less toilsome. If you struggle with focus while going through your fitness routine or yoga moves, an audiobook can make time fly.

In a time when we’re all staring at screens instead of real people, it’s kind of nice to close your eyes and let someone else do the reading.

 

I’m often asked if I re-read my novels after they’re published. The answer is never. Most writers I know would concur. We see all the behind-the-scenes struggles we slogged through to get the thing written. And we see all the ways we might have written something better, made it stronger, more emotional, more meaningful. A novel in the idea stage is perfect, like a soap bubble floating on air. Once you start writing it, you pierce the bubble and it becomes something else entirely, and you can never re-make its perfection. If that makes sense.

But one thing I absolutely love to do is to hear my novels read by the voice talents who perform them. Suddenly, it’s a different art form. My words, delivered in someone else’s voice, suddenly sound incredibly meaningful, wise, and emotional.

This month, I’m incredibly proud to present three never-before-available books on audio. And they just happen to be fan favorites.

A bit of backstory on these books: The You I Never Knew and Passing Through Paradise were written at a time when my career was in flux, which is a polite way of saying they were rejected by my publisher. I had found success in writing historical romances, and these books were about contemporary women facing very contemporary issues. So my editor shied away from them. But I loved the books and persisted, and they found a new home at Hachette. Readers loved them, and they’ve been in print ever since they were first published.

About How I Planned Your Wedding–This is by far the funniest book I’ve ever written, and it’s the most special because I wrote it with my daughter and lifelong best friend, Elizabeth Wiggs. I have enormous affection for the story we told, and for the way we put our heads together, swapping chunks of the story back and forth, laughing at ourselves, and generally loving our shared act of creativity.

It’s a book about a moment in time in both our lives. But here’s the thing about a book. The story stays the same, but life carries on. Even before we wrote the book, I was getting a divorce. And when the book was published–during our book tour–I actually met the amazing man who would become my favorite husband!

There’s a further irony. More recently, my daughter found herself unexpectedly single. She and her oh-so-perfect little daughter are two alone now, and I couldn’t be prouder of them both.

So this book has had a bittersweet journey. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less true, or real, or funny, or heartfelt.

And the dramatic reading by two talented voices that bring it to life in a very special way.

Happy listening!

 

 

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A Fan Favorite

If you’re a hundred years old like me, and you used to be a teacher like me, you might remember Dover clip art books. It’s true–clip art used to be art that you clip with scissors, not a digital file.

Of all the books I’ve written, only one was inspired by a bit of clip art–The Charm School.  Before I put pen to paper (yes, I write my first draft in longhand) https://www.susanwiggs.com/my-low-tech-laptop-2/ , I clipped this from a Dover book and came up with the title.

And then I thought up a story to go with it. Isadora Duncan Peabody was the girl we all were in high school–the awkward misfit who was also the smartest one in the room. She’s based on a real young lady from Salem, Massachusetts in the 1800s. The real Isadora looks like this:

Her adventures on the high seas with swashbuckling sea captain Ryan Calhoun ended up being so horny that my daughter’s high school friends used to read the naughty bits aloud in the school hallways.

After her adventures, Isadora turned out like this:

Some of you might be old enough to remember the “stepback cover,” a premium cover look on paperbacks. The outside cover had hearts and flowers, and the inside, the horny couple.

Remember that bit of clip art I showed you above? It made its way to the creative art designer, thanks to my editor, the now-legendary Dianne Moggy. And she faxed me the sketch. Are you old enough to remember faxes?

I instantly loved this concept, so I told them to go for it, and the book turned out like this:

…and a happy ending was had by all. The book won some awards and became a bestseller. It launched the Calhoun Chronicles and was published all over the world and it’s been in print ever since.

Why am I telling you this now? Because this frisky little book is on sale now for $1.99. That’s about ½ the price you paid for the latte you bought to sip on while you read.

But wait! There’s more! The Charm School is available now in audio format. Listen to your heart.

Also—you read it here first: There is a future Calhoun book in the hopper. No pub date yet, but stay tuned!

#reading #ebooks #digital #audiobooks #fiction #romance

 

 

 

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Caramel Apple Skillet Cake

Here in Washington, apples are at their peak. Here’s a foolproof recipe shared by a friend decades ago!

Caramel Apple Skillet Cake

INGREDIENTS

Apple layer

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. butter

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1-2 tsp. cinnamon

Pinch of salt

2-6 apples (depending on size) peeled, cored, and sliced into wedges

FOR THE CAKE

1 3/4 c. flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 c. sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 c. milk

 

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350° and warm a skillet on the stovetop. Melt brown sugar, butter, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt. Layer on the apples and set on low while you make the cake batter. Combine flour, baking powder, spices, and salt in a sifter or bowl.

Using a mixer, beat butter and sugars until softened. Add egg and vanilla. Add half the dry ingredients to wet ingredients, beating until just combined. Pour in milk and mix well, then add remaining dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Pour batter over apples and bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean 1 hour. Let cool in pan 15 minutes then invert onto a platter. Serve with sour cream, whipped cream, or ice cream. Enjoy!

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The view from here

I’m lucky to live in one of the most scenic spots on the globe. Here is the view from my window in the summertime. Puget Sound, Mount Rainier and the Cascade Range, endless greenery, majestic trees, blue skies that go on forever. Well, maybe not forever...

Here’s the view today. We’ve been inundated with smoke from the unprecedented wildfires in California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and other western states. Driven by climate change, the heat and wind have caused immense and far-reaching damage.

While waiting for the air to clear, we’re advised to stay indoors with our air filters on high. Coupled with the ongoing pandemic, most of us really have no choice but to stay home.

Shout out to the essential workers who are keeping things going through this hellscape. I am eternally grateful to those who venture out to provide essential goods and services, make deliveries, and look after our health and safety. Special thanks to the rescue workers and firefighters on the front lines. They are doing the lord’s work, for sure.

 

For those of us who are homebound, remember that a book gives your imagination a place to go. Find a favorite author for a comfort read, or try something new to sweep you away. Call a friend or organize a video call to talk books. Find a share site like Bookbub https://www.bookbub.com/bookmarks?list=finished for inspiration and ideas.

 

Trivia: I once wrote a trilogy of historical novels about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. I still remember the hair-raising stories I read of real people fleeing the wind-driven conflagration that destroyed an entire city. THE HOSTAGE, THE MISTRESS, and THE FIREBRAND became reader favorites, and they’re still in print today. I promise that the characters found their happy endings, even though it meant facing danger and loss.

 

Please stay safe and healthy,

Susan Wiggs

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Back to…whatever

In an ordinary year, we’d be rushing around getting ready to send the kids back to school. Remember ordinary years?

Me neither.

2020 is already going down in history as the Year That Would Not End. Because of the pandemic, we’re stuck at home, desperate to find ways to keep ourselves, our families, and our communities safe. When we venture out, we arm ourselves with hand sanitizer, masks, bleach wipes, and gloves. We venture out into a world that looks like a dystopian caricature of a world we used to know. Shops and restaurants are closed, or plastered with warning signs at the entrance. Deliverymen with face shields hurry by with their parcels of groceries and supplies. Essential businesses space us apart, slather every surface with disinfectant, and surround cashiers with plexiglass.

But kids won’t stop growing and learning, even in a pandemic. They won’t stop needing teachers and mentors. Maybe there’s no going to school in the usual sense, but they do need to be schooled.

[outdoor education]

What does that look like in your community? Zoom meetings with their teacher? Lessons at the kitchen table?

[music class]

At our house, we’re enriching our granddaughter’s stay-at-home schooling at every opportunity. Clara sits by me as we write our books together. She explores the beach and forest and Sound with us. She builds things with Granddude and cooks with Glamma. Meanwhile, her hard-working mom juggles a busy career. It’s both a profound joy and an undeniable challenge.

[language arts]

Please note that 15 to 16 million K-12 public school students in the US lack an internet connection, or they lack the devices they need for distance learning, according to this study. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/news/press-releases/k-12-student-digital-divide-much-larger-than-previously-estimated-and

[our home schooling “classroom”]

The issue was brought into sharp focus by this photo of two little girls using the free wifi in Taco Bell’s parking lot: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/31/us/taco-bell-california-students-wifi-trnd/index.html

They also need books. Ever since I was a little girl, books have been my teachers and mentors. One of the most beloved characters in The Lost and Found Bookshop [link] is Dorothy, the spritely kid whose appetite for books has endeared her to readers. Some of her favorite books can be found in this reading group guide: [link]. Fiction aside, it’s a fact that helping kids learn is up to all of us.

It’s a call to get involved in back-to-school in any way possible. Students need wifi, but they also need books. You can help by donating to legitimate charities like https://www.booktrust.org/, which has a 5-star rating from Charity Navigator.

Whatever back-to-school means in your community, please stay safe, be generous with your time and spirit, wear your mask, wash your hands, and don’t touch your face.

#BackToSchool #pandemic #books #reading #helping

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Barkis is Willin’ :: the final episode

This is the story of one of my longest love relationships.

He came from Canada, sleek and glossy, an athlete with a strong jaw and an intense stare. From the start, he belonged to me. All his life, he has adored me without restraint, without judgment, without second guessing.

I named him Barkis, a reference to a character in David Copperfield, who proposed to his girlfriend with the memorable line, “Barkis is willin.’” It was always a favorite dog name of mine, but I had to save it until the right dog came along. When this one appeared, there was no question.

As a bold young dog, he was kind of an asshole. He flunked out of puppy kindergarten because all the other pups were scared of him. He could dislocate your arm if there was something at the other end of the leash he wanted. Wherever he went, he harassed the wildlife, including that time he chased the salmon migrating across a road. He liked lunging at other dogs and wrestling them to the ground, delighting in their yelps of terror. He never bothered a human except once. Unfortunately the human was a park ranger who ranged too close and Barkis gave him a pinch (not a bite, seriously it was a pinch) on the ass. He put the pinch in Doberman Pinscher.

 

 

He was utterly, completely loyal and devoted to his one true love–me. Other people, he tolerated, but I was the Adored and Revered One.

I never had to sit alone, write alone, eat alone, sleep alone, go to the bathroom alone. There is a permanent faded spot on the floor by my bed where he lay on his cushion each night. Even though he hated water, he willingly followed me into the shower, onto a paddleboard, into a boat. He was by my side during life’s glorious celebrations–family celebrations, making #1 on the NYT bestseller list, holiday toasts, graduations and showers, becoming a grandmother.

He has seen me through a long-overdue divorce from the world’s worst husband to a celebrated marriage to the world’s best husband.

He’s accompanied me on adventures–hikes through the woods, mountain climbing, boating, camping, skiing, paddleboarding. I’d say that didn’t go over well, but we did. We went over. Into the 56 degree water of Puget Sound.

 

 

The moment we adopt a dog, we know that one day he’ll have to leave us, and it will always be too soon, and it will always destroy us. It’s like falling in love. The risk of getting your heart broken is there, but you do it anyway because the heart wants what it wants.

Dogs live in the moment. They have much to teach us.

     Barkis Verbossa Gundersen, you are free to move about the universe.

#Barkis #Doberman #RainbowBridge #Grief #Loss #recovery

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The Lost and Found Bookshop: Reading Group Guide

Download your copy of the Lost and Found Bookshop Reading Group Guide here: Download the Reading Group Guide

 

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Getting Lost in a Good Book

This is my favorite moment in the life cycle of a book–the moment it finds its way into readers’ hands. Suddenly it’s not my baby anymore. It belongs to the readers, the reviewers, the book groups, the librarians, and I can’t wait for them to read it.

I wrote The Lost and Found Bookshop during a momentous year in my life. It reflects one of my sweetest fantasies–owning an independent bookshop. Even when I was a little girl, I used to imagine what it would be like to live in the garret of a creaky old building, above a bookstore that is a vibrant community center.

The fantasy comes to life on Perdita Street in San Francisco’s historic district. (I made up the name of the street, and you see what I did there.) Natalie Harper is a successful wine exec in Archangel, California (shout out to readers of The Apple Orchard and The Beekeeper’s Ball). She never planned on taking over her mother’s beloved but struggling bookshop. She never planned on being in charge of her aging grandfather. But in a single moment, everything in her settled, predictable life changes.

The Lost and Found Bookshop is made up of my favorite elements of my favorite bookshops–the massive inventory of El Ateneo in Buenos Aires, the history and mystery of Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and the hometown feel of a hundred fiercely independent bookstores I’ve had the privilege of visiting in my 30+ years as a published author.

My local bookstores are Eagle Harbor Book Company here on Bainbridge Island, Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo, which is owned by my friend and fellow author Suzanne Selfors, and Ballast Book Company in Bremerton, Washington. All three provide signed books on request, so please request! Shop Indie bookstores by using Bookshop.org.

The story had to be San Francisco because of the historical backstory of the actual building which Natalie inherits. In my research, I discovered that men being deployed to the Philippines (Spanish American War) sometimes left “artifacts” in the walls of their favorite saloons. Often it was the only place they could think of for safekeeping. Like all old buildings, this one is in dire need of repairs, and as the walls are opened up, mysterious relics from the past appear, setting Natalie on a quest to piece together the secret history of her family.

And also, of course, SAN FRANCISCO. I really loved Natalie’s nostalgic memories of growing up there in the 90s. Locals of a certain age will remember Counting Crows concerts, flyovers by the Blue Angels, school shopping at I. Magnin, Sunday brunch buffet at Cliff House…Natalie’s ties to the city are powerful, but she’s not sure they’re strong enough to hold her.

I love writing about a character at a moment of change or transition in her life. Readers might not understand Natalie instantly, because she’s living the life she thinks she wants–when her secret soul yearns for something altogether different. Once readers relate to her emotional dilemma, I think they’ll root for her as she embraces a completely different and unexpected journey.

The title of the book hints at several surprises inside. My favorite is that nearly all the books my fictional bookseller recommends to her patrons and friends were written by writers I admire, many of whom are friends of mine.

Please join me at one of my upcoming virtual events. We’re planning something fun for you, including gift card door prizes. Hope to see you there!

 

#newfiction #reading #readsusanwiggs

 

 

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The Oysterville Sewing Circle released in Trade Paperback

Would you please check out this brand new edition of The Oysterville Sewing Circle?  This minty-fresh cover was a contender for the hardcover edition [link] but we saved it for the premium book club edition.

What’s new? The P.S. pages in the back. There’s an in-depth article about the #MeToo movement in books. There’s also a delicious and kind of funny recipe and a story to go with it. And, of course, a list of thought-provoking questions to discuss with your book club.

It might not be an easy conversation, but that’s okay. Sharing your story in an authentic way can be harrowing at first. You feel vulnerable, uncertain. Worried about what someone might say.

Once someone breaks her silence, secrets lose their toxic pull. The experience proves to be empowering. One woman’s voice can uplift the whole group.

As Caroline discovers in The Oysterville Sewing Circle, the rules are simple: be kind, be open, and be safe.

The ladies of the Camano Island Sewing Retreat “adopted” the book.

 

I get many letters from readers, but one of the most meaningful I’ve ever received was from “J.H.” (keeping her name private), who connected with the book in a singular, tragic, and ultimately uplifting way. Here’s an excerpt of her story (NOTE: Trigger warning; domestic violence):

 

“I just finished reading your latest book, The Oysterville Sewing Circle, and I have to share our family’s story with you. I read the ending with tears streaming down my face because I’ve lived through several episodes of domestic violence….My niece, along with her father, mother, and daughter, lost their lives at the hands of her husband. In total, he murdered seven people that day before committing suicide. It made the national news…

“Another [relative’s] husband committed suicide. We found out later that he was an abuser – not physically, although it looks like it was ramping up to physical abuse, but emotionally. This was happening right under our noses but she never said anything. She thought she could ‘fix’ him.

“…I immediately told her he was an abuser but she didn’t believe me. The warning signs were all there – the immediate attentiveness, the gifts, the email and phone calls that were intercepted or blocked. She ended up marrying him (his fourth marriage by the way) and within weeks he was walking behind her and gave her a push. She divorced him a short time later. Unfortunately, that’s the most dangerous time for a victim – when they get the courage to leave….

“This would be a great book to give to women seeking shelter… They will see themselves in your fictional characters and, hopefully, be empowered to make a change in their lives…These women usually are on the run and have nothing and, as your book so honestly pointed out, they need the courage to leave and not return to what is ‘normal’ to them.

“Thank you again for writing a book that is so true to life! Since one in four women experience some type of domestic violence, this book will shine a light on a subject that needs to be exposed and stopped.”

J.H.

“Life gets better when you connect with others.” –The Oysterville Sewing Circle

I hope you’ll make time to read and savor this story with your friends. I have so much of my heart in this celebration of women’s friendships.

Know that you’re not alone. If you or someone you know needs help, please visit www.thehotline.org.

 

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Indie Bookstore Spotlight- Blue Willow Bookshop

This month, I have the pleasure of featuring a wonderful bookshop located in Houston, TX, Blue Willow Bookshop! This is one of those bookshops where you visit and feel drawn in from their large windows and display of books. If you are a book lover there is nothing better than a bookshop like this!

I interviewed Cathy from the bookshop and wanted to share some of her answers with you so that you can get a behind the scenes look at what it’s like to run a bookshop.

What’s your favorite time of year to read?

I love to read year round. But I love sitting outside to read so the summer in Houston does not lend itself to that in the evening. I do love sitting outside to read in the morning when the birds are waking up.

How was your store founded?

The previous owner, Musabelle Naut, opened Musabelle’s Books in 1973. I bought the shop from her in 1996 and renamed it Blue Willow Bookshop. And don’t ask me why! No real reason other than I liked to read and I wasn’t really good at PTA.

What’s one thing about your store that you want everyone to know – but maybe they don’t know?

My favorite part is that our team loves each other. We really work hard to celebrate life’s joys and share in sorrow as well.  When you walk in, there is life there!!

What’s your favorite part of working at an independent bookstore?

I love talking to people of all ages about books.  Just today, a young boy was thrilled to find the next book in a favorite author’s series. We bonded over that. I also love when someone tells me that a book I recommended opened their eyes to a different culture or a different lifestyle.

Has anyone ever done anything non-bookish in your store, like get engaged or celebrate a birthday?

No engagements but definitely a few birthdays. We almost had a wedding reception! Magical things happen here every day. Most are very small but their memories are what make this place “our corner of paradise.”

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