Nora Roberts's Blog, page 69

Dogs, Disasters and Determination

I thought about this when I took my little after-work stroll around the gardenson Friday. Everything’s looking so pretty, color and texture already changing. Then I got to one of my favorite spots, what I think of as a little faerie garden.

I literally stopped dead, stunned speechless.

Pancho

During my earlier workout, I’d heard Pancho

barking incessantly–and yelled out a few times for him to knock it off. I didn’t think much of it–until I sawmy dragon wing begonias, my prettymini fuchsias, some...

Nora’s 2014 In the Garden album

One of Nora’s favorite shady spots

Nora was out in the garden yesterday and sent in these photos. We’ll update them as the season progresses.

How’s your garden growing these days?

Azaleas by the steps.

The boots have a new set of flowers.

Columbine with dianthus and monarda

Butterflies like the verbena!

False Indigo, dragon wing begonia, azuratum and nasturtium seed planted in front.

Girl with dianthus, violets and foxglove (one of my favorite photos – L)

Lilacs. (The bench was a 2013 Mother’s Day gif...

Derby weekend 2014

We arrived in LouisvilleThursdayafternoon to cool temps and a seriously brisk wind. Delighted to see our BFF in Louisville, Kathy, and our fabulous cop Brian at the airport. Load up and head to the hotel. Time for a little catch-up, and our traditional lunch at the Dizzy Whiz–on to the hotel for unpacking, then it’s already time to change for the evening events.

We have a big bonus round this trip as we’ve been invited to have drinks with Sue Grafton and her husband Steve at their home in Loui...

A quick Derby report

The first look at this year’s amazing hat comes in a selfie Nora sent of her, Bruce, Jason (son) and Kat (DIL) before the big race:

Then Bruce snapped this shot of Nora with Mark Sanchez — former NY Jets/current Philadelphia Eagles quarterback — because my husband and I are Jets fans:

They fly home today and I’m sure more photos and Nora’s travelogue will follow!

Did you watch the race? Did you pick the winner?

5/4//14 11:20 am: I’m back with the link to Nora’s red carpet interview: http://www.wa...

Derby reading

Nora’s flown off to Louisville for this year’s Kentucky Derby. I’ve seen photos of the hat and it’s just amazing and fabulous. Travelogue and photos to follow early next week. (You can read about her 2013 Derby experience here.)

So while La Nora is away La Laura will play.

The first weekend in May always makes me think about Nora’s Derby books specifically her very first book Irish Thoroughbred and it’s sequel Irish Rose (which are currently packaged in one book as Irish Hearts) as well as True...

Slow Read Weekends

The Slow Food movement stands for takingpleasure in cooking, eating, and sharing meals with others.

I thought: why not Slow Read Weekends? Theoretically, the weekend is the time to take a break, take breath and savor life.* (I say theoretically because when my children were younger, weekends were sports and activities and a bewildered stare at my husband on Sunday night wondering where the 48 hours had gone.) And sometimes you really want to share the love of a book or an author in a larger sp...

And now, from a reader’s point of view

Thank you to everyone who took part in the recent conversations both here and on Facebook. It’s an interesting, fascinating — at times frustrating — exercise to share information with well over a half million people worldwide. You have to deal with a lot of questions and hand out a lot of disappointment along with lovely, satisfying dollops of exciting news and conversation.

The center of this blog and the pages on Facebook are a writer and her books. You may not love every single book. I don...

Comas and Kidnappings and Orphans. Oh My.

In the recent discussion we could call Procreation In Death, readers tossed out a lot of ideas about plot direction, story additions, plot devices. It’s gratifying to know books and characters I created resonate with readers and have them thinking of what ifs and what’s next.

Characters, like Eve and Roarke and the gang, or like Lila and Ash in my most recent book, The Collector, become a major part of my life. It’s incredibly satisfying when they become a part of a reader’s life.

Now here’s th...

Eve And Roarke With No Body

Recently Laura posed a question on Facebook asking what people thought Eve and Roarke might do if they had a free weekend without a murder to deal with. The most popular answers from readers were: Make a baby and/or find some young child and adopt, and Eve finds blood kin–a kindly grandmother, a sweet long-long sister.

Here’s why I’m going to disappoint those hopeful readers.

As I’ve said before, babies change everything. They must, they should. I’m simply not ready to change the scope and dyna...

The Collector conversation thread

The Collector is now available in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. This is the place to congregate and chat about the book, so please know that spoilers are very much allowed in the comments. This time, I thought we’d focus with some questions that you can answer in the comments, use as a starting point for your own post or ignore completely.

It’s up to you!

Did The Collector make you curious about the ins and outs of housesitting?

Did you prefer one apartment Lila stayed in over t...