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Bookmark It Club Has 1 Vacancy

As I am preparing to send out the bookmarks this afternoon, I discovered that one person has not responded to my email.  I have mailing addresses for the following people:

Jen
Kathy
Beth
Elisabet
Colette
Melissa
Penny
Janelle
Bonnie
Tricia
Valorie
Mia
Theresa
Michele
Carrie
Margaret
Monica
Daphne
Ana
Diane
Rebecca
Mary Beth
Darlene

If your name isn’t on that list and you sent me your mailing address, please send me another email.  If I don’t receive your mailing information by midnight EST, I will pick another winner.

If you would like a last chance slot at a membership in the first annual Bookmark It Club, leave a comment here by 7am EST tomorrow, April 1st.  If I haven’t heard back from the original winner when I wake up in the morning, I will use List Randomizer to select the 25th person in the club.

I’m looking forward to having posting my No Vacancy sign.

When a Book’s Cover Makes Me Ill

I think I have a great sense of humor, but my stomach is kind of weak.  Part of me would really like to sit down and enjoy Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith because the idea of one of Jane Austen’s heroines fighting back against zombies is hilarious.  The problem is, I don’t think I could handle having this cover (which is absolutely perfect, BTW) around my house:

Even if I left it face down, I would know it was there. Then, I’d get so freaked out about it that I couldn’t help taking quick looks to verify that yes, this cover really does freak me out.  I would drive myself insane with it.  Perhaps this is an example of how  the Kindle was made for me – to read books whose covers make me want to get physically ill.

What are your thoughts?  Are there any covers that have given you the heebie jeebies?  Do tell because I’ll want to look at them and get the heebie jeebies myself (it’s a sickness I tell you!).

#151 ~ Foreign Tongue

Foreign Tongue: A Novel of Life and Love in Paris by Vanina Marsot

Anna is running away from Los Angeles and the debacle that was her relationship with an actor boyfriend who began cheating on her the moment the clock started ticking on his fifteen minutes. As a result of her dual French/US citizenship and her aunt’s empty Parisian flat, Anna has a much better escape route than most and she is open and honest on both accounts.  Having the luxury of living rent free in the City of Lights, she is able to catch up with her friends in Paris. The trouble is that they each had their own lives and, being without a job, she spends much of her time sulking and brooding over her broken heart.  It isn’t until Bunny, her mentor and father figure suggests that she find a way to employ herself during one of their frequent lunches that her life starts to turn around.  Because she was bilingual and spoke French as if she were born and raised there that she was able to snag a part time job translating an anonymous yet famous Parisian’s erotic novel about the love of his life.  She then enters the literary life of Paris and the arms of Olivier, a handsome stage actor.

Foreign Tongue is an apt name for this novel.  By intermingling sex, language, culture, love, and translation the way that Vanina Marsot defines the phrase foreign tongue in every conceivable way.  When I meet someone who speaks another language, I love to learn a word or two.  What interests me the most, however, are cuss words.  Most specifically, my favorite cuss word, mother f*cker. Although Foreign Tongue never used that particular term, I learned an awful lot of French cuss words, specifically how they relate to erotica.  I was absolutely in heaven. There is a passage in the novel where Anna compares the differences between “Suck me!” in English and French. I found her dissection of these phrase based upon the sound of the words rolling off the tongue and the sound of the act itself absolutely fascinating.  It wasn’t just the dirty bits that enthralled me, though.  Like no novel before, it gave me the desire to go back to school. I would love to study French and linguistics and incorporate more phrases such as “Arrête ton cinéma!” into my life.

It isn’t long into her self-inflicted exile that Anna realizes that she has something more important to do than nurse her broken heart. She discovers that she is unsure of who she is when she’s not in a relationship. Despite how important learning to be comfortable with herself is, she cannot help resist jumping quickly and directly into an overwhelming and passionate relationship with another actor.   When she eventually starts to doubt Olivier’s feelings toward her and falls into yet another despair without Bunny in town to build her back up, the story does seem to slow down.  In reality there is much more going on under the surface that is not readily apparent despite the clues that come to mind the moment the novel is finished.  This is not a simple and straight forward novel by any means.

The moment I finished it I wanted to start it all over again. I cannot completely express the number of ways in which I enjoyed Vanina Marsot’s novel. It is a story of a woman falling in and out of love with a man.  It is a love story between a woman and her two countries of citizenship:  France and the United States.  It is a love story between a woman and language.  Most of all, it is the story of a woman falling in love with her life. I cannot recommend this novel enough. It is invigorating and inspiring and is one book you won’t want to miss.

Literate Housewife Seal of Approval

As you might have noticed, I don’t rate novels on this site.  I write honest reviews that express my opintions. I have difficulty with using a numeric ranking system because, for me, the number I pick often is subject to my feelings at the time.  I’ve read such good novels over time that I wanted to have some way to distinguish an average good to great novel from one that truly stands out in my heart.  With the help of my wonderful cyber sister Sheri from A Novel Menagerie, I now have the ability to do just that.  I loved Foreign Tongue so much that it is the first recipient of The Literate Housewife Review’s Seal of Approval! Whenever you see this graphic at the end of a review, it is guaranteed to be a good read.

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Foreign Tongue will be published by HarperCollins on April 14.  To pre-order this novel, click here.

The Sunday Salon ~ Creativity

Welcome to the Sunday Salon!

This Week in Creativity

I designed and finished all of my bookmarks for my Bookmark It Club and I can’t wait to get them to everyone!  Dar from Peeking Between the Pages and Beth from Beth Fish Reads were the first two members selected to pick a book.  Dar selected Serendipity (great choice!) and Beth will be making her choice on Monday.  This has been a lot of fun for me.

I wanted to get a little creative this morning in between loads of laundry.  My Grandma C, my mother’s mother whom I love very much, celebrates her birthday in April. So, after I got the girls set up to paint at the kitchen table this morning, I sat down to make her a birthday card.  What I like about making cards is that I automatically spend the time picking out my supplies, designing, creating, and then writing the card thinking about someone I love. I really wanted to make it pretty for her, so I chose Chocolate Chip and Pink Pirouette card stock, Bella Rose patterned paper, and Eastern Influences and Wonderful Words stamp sets.  All of the supplies are Stampin’ Up.  I am so excited with how it turned out. I hope that she likes it.

This Week in Reading and Reviewing

I read The Last Witch of Langenburg by Thomas Robishaeux, Laura Rider’s Masterpiece by Jane Hamilton, and A Silent Ocean Away by DeVa Gantt.  A Silent Ocean Away is the Historical Fiction Lovers’ selection for April.  It was a great read.  Follow the link earlier for more information on how this book and the rest of the Colette Trilogy came into being. I also reviewed Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo.  I have written my review of Foreign Tongue by Vanina Marsot, but I decided to schedule it for posting tomorrow (although it’s killing me not to just automatically post it). Later on today I’m hoping to write my review for Laura Rider’s Masterpiece and schedule that for Wednesday. Watch out world, I may be getting organized!

On Monday I posted a chat with Castle Freeman, Jr.  I enjoyed my conversation with him.  This week his latest novel, All That I Have was featured by Entertainment Weekly and received a good review.  Congratulations, Castle!

Right now I’m reading Keeper of Light and Dust by Natasha Mostert.  This is definitely a different type of read for me and I’m looking forward to getting into it.  I’m reading this as part of the blog tour Sheri from A Novel Menagerie scheduled.  Look for my review and a giveaway on April 10th.

How was your week? Did you work in anything creative?

Not Fair ~ For Stacy

When I posted about The Gargoyle being nominated for a Galaxy British Book  Award, I included the official video for The Bird and the Bee’s “Love Letter to Japan.” Apparently this song hooked its way into a reader’s head and won’t let go.  Stacy, of You’ve Gotta Read This! fame, has begged me to help her out be providing a new song to occupy her every thought.  She was so desperate that she awarded me with the Zombie Chicken award today, along with Jill from Rhapsody In Books Weblog.  Thank you so much!

Stacy, I’ve heard your cry. It would not be fair for me to leave you hanging, so here you go:

“Not Fair” by Lily Allen

I love this song.  I picked it up when my husband posted this video on Facebook.  This is an example of a catchy song and a fun video. Porter Wagner. I love him. I love his Nudie suits.

HFL Book Club April Selection ~ A Silent Ocean Away

In April, the Historical Fiction Lovers Book Club, the club I administer on Facebook, will be reading A Silent Ocean Away, the first part of the Colette Trilogy written by sister Deb and Val Gantt under the psydonym DeVa Gantt. I just finished A Silent Ocean Away: Colette’s Dominion this afternoon and thought it was wonderful. Once I got started, I didn’t want to stop. I hope that the rest of the group feels the same way.  What’s really exciting is that I received a copy of Decision and Destiny: Colette’s Legacy, the second part of this trilogy in the mail this week.  It’s due to be published by HarperCollins on April 7th and I’m finding it difficult to keep from picking it up and continuing along with the story of the Duvoisin family.  The best news of all is that I will have copies of Destiny and Decision to give to club members who read the book and fill out the Discussion Guide.  If you are interested and haven’t already joined the Historical Fiction Lovers Book Club, please do so. If you don’t have a Facebook account, it only takes moments to join and you don’t really have to fill out your profile to participate.

When I received my copy of A Silent Ocean Away, from HarperCollins the press kit contained information about the first installment as well as the story behind the trilogy.  The following is the story.  It’s so interesting to know how a book or a series came into being and I want to share it with you.  I didn’t have an electronic copy, so I copied it from my paper only to find out afterwards that it is on the author’s website. Sometimes I just don’t think things through.  Anyway, here is the story behind the story as written by Deb and Val Gantt (who I’d love to meet and have tea with someday):

“Published author” wasn’t on the career goal line of DeVa Gantt’s resume. The notion of writing a novel took root from an off-handed dare when the women were young adults. ‘We could write our own story.” Deb mused, “I can envision the main character already.” Val, who never shied away from a creative opportunity, jumped on the idea. Within a day, early plot ideas were hatched and scenes were drafted – the first, John Duvoisin’s stormy return from the States in A Silent Ocean Away.

The Colette Trilogy was conceived in late 1979 while the sisters were still living at home with their parents. Deb was a full-time student at Montclair State College in central New Jersey and Val, a third grade teacher in Suffern, New York. At the outset, they were writing just for the fun of it, working feverishly during their free time – in the evenings and on the weekends – writing scenes with pen and paper. To ensure their literary pastime remained a diversion from the daily doldrums, they chose an exotic island in the Caribbean for the primary setting of the story – a  charmed oasis where they, and ultimately their readers, could escape without leaving their armchairs. They chose a time period that fascinated them – the early 19th century – and wrote about a wealthy family with shipping connections to both the North and the South. Their research on commerce pointed to Richmond, Virginia, so this became the Duvoisin homestead, lending plausibility to the family’s financial interests and the roots of their fortune and misfortune. Still, after a full year of writing, the work itself was a hodgepodge of hand-written scenes without a connective story thread or an overarching theme. Publishing the work was not seriously in their plans.

When Deb left home for six months to study abroad  in France, Val, the organized, methodical half of the writing duo, decided it was time to weave the scenes into a sequential, coherent story with a real beginning leading to a real (albeit unknown) ending. She pulled out the family typewriter and spent hours at it, pounding new and existing scenes onto erasable typing paper. (Erasure shavings in the moving parts soon killed the typewriter and a new one had to be purchased.) The ocean that separated the sisters was far from silent. Val “read” the organized story, smattered with new material, to Deb via cassette tape sent by transatlantic mail. In France, Deb wrote more scenes while she ad her roommate waited for Val’s next installment of what they now dubbed “the Book.” When Val visited Deb in Europe over Easter break of 1981, she brought along a tome, which they read in London, railway stations, and trains across the French countryside. Deb’s roommate joked that the budding writers missed Europe with their heads buried in their magnum opus.

In 1983, real life intervened and the book languished. The young women had hit a creative roadblock. The compelling theme of the story that pointed the way to a powerful ending eluded them. The women moved, married, and started families. Deb was now working for a pharmaceutical company, and Val, who had always dabbled in art, opened her own retail craft store thirty miles away. In addition, they both had children: real-life families trumped their fictional one. And so, the Duvoisins were quietly tucked away in a box, silent until Thanksgiving weekend 2002.

The rejuvenating spark was strangely coincidental. Though the women had spent Thanksgiving together – the book never mentioned – a day later, while tidying up, each came across their copy of the unfinished manuscript and begun to read. The following week, Deb e-mailed Val to tell her she’d been reading “the Book.” It was a wonderful work begging to be finished, and she had some fresh ideas.

By January of 2003, the creative energies were flowing again. They discarded a key premise that was impeding logical progression of the novel; something that life experience allowed them to recognize. They mapped out an ending, and their approach to the writing changed. They divvied up the scenes that remained to be written and met at regular intervals to share their drafts.

During the twenty-year hiatus, technology had bridged the gap between the typewriter and the personal computer. The sisters could now share their work electronically, but there were different challenges. Completing the novel had to be worked into real life responsibilities: children, marriages, households, and jobs. The women stole every spare moment, working late at night, into the wee hours of morning, and on the weekends. Often, Deb packed up overnight bags, and headed to Val’s house with her son and daughter. The cousins played while the writers collaborated. Wherever they went, the women brought the Duvoisins along: from sporting events to dance practices, from doctors’ offices to school functions, from business trips to vacations. An opportunity to work on their “masterpiece” was never wasted.

As they closed in on the completion of the first draft, the sisters knew they were ready to take the next step: publish the novel. They had worked too hard; the story was provocative and emotional, the characters complex and credible; the book could not go back into a box. Cognizant of the challenge in convincing a traditional publisher to publish the work, Deb and Val were determined to offer a professional manuscript: historically accurate, with impeccable grammar and spelling.

Thus began a two-year period of extensive research, arduous editing, and painstaking proofreading. During the time, both authors read and revised the manuscript numerous times, an effort that ultimately melded their individual writing styles into a single literary voice. But query letters sent to agents and publishers met dead ends. The Colette Trilogy was a whopping 800+ pages, and no one in the publishing industry was interested in taking a chance on a manuscript of that length, especially by and unknown author.

They refused to be deterred. Self-publishing became the only option – a stepping-stone that would enable them to compile a portfolio of reviews and positive feedback. They published with an independent house in 2005 and learned how to effectively market their book, approaching booksellers and local media. They learned to accept rejection and move on; even so, the favorable reviews began to pour in. Stellar critiques were posted on Barnes & Noble.com and Amazon.com. Readers loved the story and were begging for more. Val and Deb finally had proof that size didn’t matter.

In 2006, an agent stepped forward and presented the novel to an editor at HarperCollins, and in 2007, HarperCollins agreed to publish the work as a trilogy.

Today, the women look back at their accomplishment, and concur that the experience has been rewarding and unexpectedly broad in scope. The benefits have been immeasurable. Perhaps the dearest is the bond of sisterhood that deepened; they have shared a unique journey. Their greatest satisfaction, however, is seeing their unfinished work come to fruition: the Duvoisin story has finally been told.

Check this out for even more about A Silent Ocean Away:

Got a Button?

Ever since my button was created, I’ve loved them. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to notice, but in my left sidebar I have a “Fan of” section.  I would love to expand that by adding your button there.  If you have one and would like it to be featured on my blog, let me  know.  They are fun and certainly more sexy than simple hyperlinks.  I’m sure exactly where I’m going to move my blogroll at this point, but that will stay.  Don’t worry if you are featured in my blogroll and don’ t have a button.  I promise not to discriminate.

For those of you who have recently bestowed a wonderful award upon me, I haven’t forgotten.  I am so grateful that you thought of me.  I’m in the process of cooking up a special award of my own for all of my favorite bloggers out there.

#150 ~ Jane Austin Ruined My Life

Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo

My Review

Emma Grant has been offered a mysterious opportunity to travel to England and research a huge lot of letters purportedly written by Jane Austen.  Conventional wisdom holds that Jane’s sister Charlotte destroyed these letters upon Jane’s request.  If these letters prove to be authentic, it would be a huge boon for her career as a college English professor specializing in Jane Austen.  Emma’s reasons for taking this trip aren’t purely professional.  In fact, this offer merely provides her with a plausible excuse to leave the United States.  Her marriage and her career are in the toilet. Basically, her life is a mess and she places the blame squarely at Austen’s feet.  Jane Austen, through her fiction, made her believe in such things as happy endings.  Had she not taken Austen “at her fiction,” she wouldn’t have been so blindsided by her philandering spouse.  She would never have given him as much power in her professional life, either.  In reality Emma is making this trip, for which she is draining her entire life  savings, to run away from her troubles while seeking revenge against her favorite author at the same time.

Jane Austen Ruined My Life is light and fun. There are references to Austen throughout, making me feel at home with Emma.  Although I did find the main character’s resentment of Jane Austen a little heavy handed, I think that Emma always knew that this attitude was a crutch. There was a lot of humor in Emma’s story and within her thoughts that reminded me a little of Bridget Jones’s Diary.  Intermixed with Emma’s personal drama is an interesting mystery surrounding the supposed letters written by Jane Austen.  I got a little caught up in the mystery myself, imagining what it would be like to be on the cusp such a discovery not only as a college English professor, but as the fan of a beloved author.  The ending was unconventional, and although I think I would have made different decisions, Emma’s choices were uniquely and authentically hers.  I think this would make a great beach read, especially if you can’t afford to pick up and head to London to visit the places where Jane Austen lived her life.

Literate Housewife & Christian Fiction

When Phenix & Phenix contacted me about this book, I jumped at the opportunity to read it.  The idea of blaming Jane Austen for ruining your life sounded fun and interesting.  I didn’t research the book or the author any further because, quite honestly, they had me with the title.  I don’t  normally read Christian fiction, so when I opened the package and noticed that the book was published by Guideposts, it knocked the wind out of my sails.  It’s not that I don’t think that Christian authors can write well or even tell a wonderful story.  I know that’s not true at all.  There are some many wonderful authors of all faiths throughout the ages.  I just don’t like to be preached to in my fiction – be that about religion, politics, philosophy, etc, and I find that modern Christian authors are not subtle in their evangelization.

To use a biblical phrase, I gird my loins in prepraation for reading a book that I believe will spend most of its energy beating me over the head with its message.  With Jane Austen Ruined My Life, this was completely unnecessary.  Had I not recognized the publisher, I wouldn’t have necessarily picked up on the author’s faith at all.  True, Emma’s father was a preacher and, in one phone call, he encouraged her to go to church, but that was just another parallel between Emma and Jane Austen.  Besides, what parent doesn’t nag an adult child about one thing or another?  While Emma is a moral character, I didn’t feel as though she made her decisions solely on the basis of morality. I didn’t pick up on any preconceived formula to lead her or anyone else back into the fold.  She grew a lot and learned a lot about herself over the course of her trip, but she didn’t have the great religious epiphany I was dreading.  If you havae similar views about Christian Fiction, I happily suggest that you give Jane Austen Ruined My Life a try.

Click here for a short biography about the author, Beth Pattillo.

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To buy this novel, click here.

A Chat With Castle Freeman, Jr.

I recently read and reviewed Go With Me by Castle Freeman, Jr.  I have had the opportunity to ask him some questions about his name, his inspriration, his novel, and what’s coming up.  I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we did.

Literate Housewife: First of all, I want to thank you very much for answering my questions. I enjoyed reading your novel and I’m really looking forward to spending some time with you.

As someone named Jennifer, I’ve often fantasized about what it would be like not to have a common name.  How did you get the name Castle? It’s so unique and memorable. Is having a unusual name a blessing or a curse?

Castle Freeman, JR.: Castle was my grandmother’s maiden name. When she married and had a child, she gave that name as a first name to her son, my father, to preserve it from being forgotten when she took her husband’s name. We are talking about 100 years ago. This was pretty common in those days, I think, and may still be, for all I know. But keep in mind that commonness of names is all time-bound. I remember from when I was a kid only one person named Jennifer, and she didn’t count because she was English. Then (1950s), Jennifer was an exotic name, like Castle.

Is having a memorable name is a blessing or a curse? Well, for an author, I suppose it does no harm, as it might for, say, a confidence man.

LH: What stories and authors have you found inspirational in your life and in your writing?

CF: I am greatly devoted to the classics. My favorite writers are everybody else’s, therefore, but I  have always had special love for Twain, Joyce, and Faulkner. I find them endlessly rich, rewarding, and fun to read and then to come back to over and over, lifelong.

LH: When I enjoy a novel, I’m always curious how it came into being. What inspired you to begin writing Go With Me? Was it a place, a character, a theme?

CF: The main action of Go With Me is based on one of the King Arthur tales of Thomas Malory. I have loved that particular story for decades and have long contemplated transposing it, so to speak, into modern rural New England terms.

LH: What part of this novel did you have the most fun writing? Did any of the characters surprise you along the way?

CF: The novel is divided between chapters of fairly straight narration and chapters of commentary framed as conversations between 4-5 subsidiary characters. These latter chapters were the most fun to write, for me. One of the most exciting things about making up and writing a story like this one is discovering resources in the story that you didn’t intend or expect. That is always a surprise, a small miracle, and I found it in the chapters of conversation–not so much in the characters themselves, but in the tangents and digressions they got off on, especially the (I hope) funny ones.

LH: Lillian is an interesting character. She goes after what she wants and thinks is right. My thoughts on her motivations to stay in town changed throughout the novel. She could be staying because she likes it, because Blackway wants her to go, or because she is simply lost. Do you think that destiny plays a role at all? What might have happened to the town and to Whizzer’s mill if she hadn’t shaken things up?

CF: To me, Lillian is a fairly simple person. She’s strong willed. She’s young, and she’s stubborn. Though she is afraid of the villain, though she has no particular affection for the community where she finds herself, she simply refuses to be pushed around. 

I think your question about destiny is very astute. Absolutely, destiny plays a role in this story. The various characters enact or respond to their evident destinies in various ways: consider not only Lillian but the disabled Whizzer, the nearly-over-the-hill (but not quite!) Lester, etc. In a way, the whole novel is about how you learn that you have a destiny, how you learn what it is, and how you like it.

LH: The town and its citizens were perfectly okay with lives and their environment, blemishes and all, until Lillian arrived. Why do you think it is that the status quo can remain satisfying or at least acceptable until someone or something from the outside forces change?

CF: If this is a question about real life, I can’t help you. If it’s a question about fiction, then to my mind the answer is that the status quo can remain until someone or something from the outside forces change because that makes a good story.

LH: Whizzer did not necessarily send out the best and brightest to help Lillian stop Blackway from stalking her. What do you think that says about him? The situation? Blackway?

CF: Oh, I don’t know that I agree with your premise. It seems to me Whizzer chose pretty well. It’s mainly Lillian who doubts whether her helpers are the best and the brightest, isn’t it? Whizzer used the material that was available. Like former Defense Secy. Rumsfeld, he went to war with the army he had, not the army he wished he had. And, say what you like about Lillian’s helpers, they got the job done.

LH: I don’t disagree with what you say at all. In fact, it made me think more about it.  Not that I thought that Whizzer intended anything terrible to happen to anyone other than perhaps Blackway, I could not figure out why he would send the people he did. In a way, it was am much about them being willing to go, wasn’t it?  There is no real way of knowing, but I wonder if I perceived the same things about Nate the Great and Lester because I am a female reader and not male?

CF: Jennifer, I agree it is always interesting to see what others make of a written piece; in fact, it is one of the singular rewards of writing fiction to learn how different readers’ takes can be from one’s own understanding of what one has written.

On the question in hand, in truth, the motives or meanings of Whizzer’s choice of helpers for Lillian was not, to me, of paramount importance. Rather, this is where the King Arthur tale on which GWM is modeled has its function: Whizzer’s starting the unlikely pair of Nate and Lester on their adventure with Lillian is what gets the story moving. It winds the clock, which is then set running. For me, that’s the main point here, not why he chose them rather than, say, two of the other guys around the mill. Lester and Nate’s willingness to go must also have been essential, as you observe, and also the text supports the idea that Whizzer didn’t have anybody else available, as the person supposedly most apt for the job, Scotty, wasn’t around.

Now, how far our differing genders lead us to notice different things in the same content is a pretty big question, isn’t it? I guess I will only say: Vive la difference!

In author’s section at the back of your novel you champion the shorter novel. Why is it that you think the standard novel is around 300 pages and not less than 200? How might you have written this novel differently if it was going to be longer? 

CF: I don’t think the standard novel is any particular length–or that there is such a thing as a standard novel, really. Simply, I wanted to have a crude but easy-to-apply way of defining “short novel” for the purposes of the little reading list I was compiling. 

I don’t know if I have an answer to the second part of this question. I didn’t set out to make Go With Me any particular length: I wanted it to be as long as it needed to be, and when I thought it was, I stopped writing.

LH: What are you working on next? Can you give us a taste of what is to come?

CF: My new novel, All That I Have, is just published by Steerforth Press in New Hampshire, the original publishers of Go With Me. The new novel is about the same length as Go With Me, and is set in a similar community, but it is a very different kind of story, being more concerned with the lives, minds, and hearts of its (I hope) complex characters than Go With Me was. Beyond that, I plan to hold off on starting another novel and concentrate on short stories, essays, and other writing–at least for the near future.

LH: Thank you so much for your time to be with us on The Literate Housewife Review.

CF: You’re very welcome, Jennifer. I’m grateful for your interest.

#149 ~ Rubies in the Orchard

Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in Your Business by Lynda Resnick

Sometimes things come together in a cosmic reality type of way.  One Thursday, I was watching The View and Barbara Walters held up a copy of Rubies in the Orchard and talked about Lynda Resnick’s book about finding the intrinsic value in your product and then being true to it in your branding and marketing.  I thought it was an interesting cover (I know, dont’ judge… blah, blah, blah) and wrote the name of the book an author down, because I was interested in learning more about branding.  Ever since deciding to have my blog professionally designed, I’ve given that topic a lot of thought. However, not being in the marketing or publicity business myself, I didn’t know much more than it was a good idea to have and use consistent imaging.  Not more than a few hours later, I received an email from Lynda Resnick’s staff.  It provided more information on the book and asked me if I would like to review it.  Holy kismit, pomegranate!  Yes.

When the book arrived in the mail,  I devoured it in a single sitting on a cold, dreary Saturday while my daughters played and skated at the local rink.  This book is a combination between an innovative business woman’s memoir and a practical guide to using branding to your product’s advantage based upon the lessons and triumphs Resnick has experienced.  I enjoyed this book on both levels.  I had never heard of Lynda Resnick before that day, but I have heard of many of her companies, including the Franklin Mint, Teleflora and Fiji Water.  Living in a small Southern town that would not really be part of a major ad campaign, I had not heard of her latest passion, POM Wonderful.  I can’t wait to try it as soon as I can get over to the health food store.  It was really interesting to learn about how she and her husband came to lead these companies and the changes they made.  

I was especially intersted in what they did with Fiji Water.  After doing a great deal of research, they simply made a  change to the labeling on the bottle to provide a little education on the product and make it more attractive to the eye.  It wasn’t long before they were getting free advertising when celebrities were photographed drinking it.  Resnick went on to say that they never pay for celebrity endorsements.  Citing Pizza Hut’s debacle with Jessica Simpson, paying a celebrity can put your product in the spotlight, but if it’s ever discovered that the person does not actually use your product, the cost to resesitate your brand is exponential.

What I have taken away from this book personally is the concept of maximizing your brand by focusing on its intrinsic value.  This concept is more readily applicable to a physical product, but for me it means to focus my blog on what is important to me.  What I haven’t done a great deal of in the past is put a great deal of thought and planning into my blog.  From its very beginning, it came about somewhat on a whim.  I am going to work on a plan for my blog going forward and focus on what is uniquely me.

Rubies in the Orchard is an enjoyble look at how one woman, without a degree, used her common  sense and the lessons she learned throughout her career to make a success of her companies and her life.  It was an engaging and inspiring.  Lynda Resnick has led an incredible life and has earned her success.  I would love to be able to sit down at lunch with her and her friends and just listen to them talk about what they’ve learned in this life. If you have any interest in business, branding, or reading about a strong woman taking charge of her life and her career, this is one book you won’t want to pass up.

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To buy this book, click here.

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Here are some other articles about Lynda Resnick and Rubies in the Orchard:

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lynda Resnick on Charlie Rose by dylan (800ceoread.com)
• Jack Covert Selects – Rubies in the Orchard by 800-CEO-READ (800ceoread.com)
• Lynda Resnick: The Unwarranted Talk About Warren (huffingtonpost.com)

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