A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is cause for celebration. Her bestselling novels, including Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, have illuminated our most tender relationships. Now, in My Name Is Lucy Barton, this extraordinary writer shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all—the one between mother and daughter. {Release Date: January 5, 2016}
A “brilliantly done” (Sunday Times, London) comedy of manners that explores the unease behind the manicured lawns of suburban America from the Orange Prize–winning author of A Crime in the Neighborhood. Littlefield, Massachusetts, named one of the Ten Best Places to Live in America, full of psychologists and college professors, is proud of its fine schools, its girls’ soccer teams, its leafy streets, and charming village center. Yet no sooner has sociologist Dr. Clarice Watkins arrived to study the elements of “good quality of life” than someone begins poisoning the town’s dogs. Filled wtih suspense and social commentary, readers will love Suzanne Berne’s The Dogs of Littlefield. {Release Date: January 12, 2016}
Reclusive literary legend M. M. “Mimi” Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years. But after falling prey to a Bernie Madoff–style Ponzi scheme, she’s flat broke. Now Mimi must write a new book for the first time in decades, and to ensure the timely delivery of her manuscript, her New York publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. Julia Claiborne Johnson. {Release Date: February 2, 2016}
Aidan Donnelley Rowley’s second novel, The Ramblers, will take your breath away. It focuses on three very different people who are struggling to find themselves in New York City in the week leading up to Thanksgiving. They must face their pasts in order to understand where they are going. Fans of J. Courtney Sullivan, Meg Wolitzer, Claire Messud, and Emma Straub, will devour this gorgeous and absorbing novel. Rowley writes regularly on her blog, Ivy League Insecurities, and is the founder of the Happier Hours Literary Salon. {Release Date: February 9, 2016}
A fiercely independent divorce lawyer learns the power of family and connection when she receives a cryptic message from her estranged mother in this bittersweet, witty novel from Joshilyn Jackson, the nationally bestselling author of Someone Else’s Love Story and gods in Alabama. The Opposite of Everyone is an emotionally resonant tale about the endurance of love and the power of stories to shape and transform our lives. {Release Date: February 16, 2016}
Rose Mae Lolley is a fierce and dirty girl, long-suppressed under flowery skirts and bow-trimmed ballet flats. As “Mrs. Ro Grandee” she’s trapped in a marriage that’s thick with love and sick with abuse. Her true self has been bound in the chains of marital bliss in rural Texas, letting “Ro” make eggs, iron shirts, and take her punches. She seems doomed to spend the rest of her life battered outside by her husband and inside by her former self, until fate throws her in the path of an airport gypsy—one who shares her past and knows her future. The tarot cards foretell that Rose’s beautiful, abusive husband is going to kill her. Unless she kills him first.
Hot-blooded Rose Mae escapes from under Ro’s perky compliance and emerges with a gun and a plan to beat the hand she’s been dealt. Following messages that her long-missing mother has left hidden for her in graffiti and behind paintings, Rose and her dog Gretel set out from Amarillo, TX back to her hometown of Fruiton, AL, and then on to California, unearthing a host of family secrets as she goes. Running for her life, she realizes that she must face her past in order to overcome her fate—death by marriage—and become a girl who is strong enough to save herself from the one who loves her best.
BACKSEAT SAINTS will dazzle readers with a fresh and heartwrenching portrayal of the lengths a mother will go to right the wrongs she’s created, and how far a daughter will go to escape the demands of forgiveness. With the seed of a minor character from her popular best-seller, GODS IN ALABAMA, Jackson has built a whole new story full of her trademark sly wit, endearingly off-kilter characters, and utterly riveting plot twists.
Joshilyn Jackson writes real, raw and emotional stories about flawed women and the powers of faith. In her latest novel, Backseat Saints, Rose Mae Lolley has lived a bleak life. Abandoned by her mother and raised by an abusive father, Rose has become hardened and tough. When a gypsy tells her that she is going to be killed by her abusive husband unless she kills him first, Rose has no choice but to act. When her plans backfire, Rose is forced to run. As the saying goes, women are like tea bags, you don’t know how strong they are until you put them in hot water. This is exactly what Jackson does with Rose Mae. The strength of Jackson’s characters lie in their ability to overcome obstacles, rise above difficulty and hardship and stay true to themselves. Her novels are riveting, emotional and passionate and this one is not to be missed.
We get a lot of questions regarding blogs. Should you have one? Do you need one? What kind of information should be provided on your blog? Will it diminish your professionalism? How do you get traffic to your blog? Will it detract from your published writing?
For authors there are two things you want to focus on with regards to a blog, getting traffic and showing your expertise. A blog is great way to highlight your writing, bring attention to your talent in a public forum and learn new skills. Write about anything and everything that interests you. Create a Facebook page, a Myspace page and link to your blog there. Create a Twitter account and follow other writers. Provide a link to your blog on your Twitter page and consistently update it letting your followers know when you have posted new content.
Sometimes you need a newsworthy hook to gain attention and followers to your blog. Write about something current, whether it be a trend or a news topic that you are familiar with, can provide an opinion on, or somehow relates to your writing. Write about books you are reading and link to the authors. Write about being a writer, provide tips, instruction, guidance and inspiration. If your content is consistently changing, then your audience will grow. If they like your writing, then you may be building a fan base. Blogs are great way to show off your writing skills! They also have the added bonus of helping improve your writing, develop your voice, increase the speed with which you can produce quality material, and fine tune the ability to write with an audience in mind. You are your own best advocate, so use this blog as a way to stand out from the crowd and let your voice be heard.
Writers who worry that blogging will distract from their primary job, being an author, have an understandable worry. Blogging does take time. However, the blog is a wonderful way to combine both the artistic and the business side of being an author. Write about what you know, but also treat your blog like a business card. You want people looking at it! You want them bookmarking it and you want them recognizing your name on a consistent basis.
Here are a few author blogs that shine!
Brenda Janowitz
Joshilyn Jackson
Stephanie Klein
Allison Winn Scotch
Claire Cook
Ann Leary
Kristin Hannah
Barbara Delinsky
