Fall Book Highlights

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

Fall is a big season for publishers, a time when so many great books can be found in bookstores. This year is no exception, and I have three terrific books, something for all types of readers.

The first book is a mystery written by Team W as they are known- good friends Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White- titled The Author’s Guide To Murder. The authors met at a book conference, became friends, and decided to write a book together. 

In this fifth collaboration, three American authors are at a Scottish castle owned by a very famous and successful writer. They are supposed to be there for a writing conference with the famous writer, but they each have other reasons to be there.

When the writer ends up murdered, the women become suspects in the killing. The book alternates between the police interrogation of the women and the lead up to the murder. The police interviews are hilarious as we get to know each of the authors. 

Kat writes erotica and plays her part with innuendo and outrageous flirtatious behavior. Cassie is a mom of six who writes cozy mysteries and has a Mary Poppins bag filled with every item anyone would ever need. Emma writes historical fiction and is what would be called a history buff, always ready with a quick historical fact whether anyone wants to hear it or not.

Readers of Team W’s novels will get immense enjoyment as the authors have played around with own personalities and created characters that mix-and-match their own writing style and lives. I found myself laughing out loud several times.

Although it is humorous, there is a serious undertone as we learn why the women have come together to confront the famous writer. It is billed as “Murder, She Wrote” meets Agatha Christie, an accurate assessment. I highly recommend.

Lynda Cohen Loigman's new novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern tells the story of Augusta Stern, an eighty year-old pharmacist who has just (unwillingly) retired to a Florida community her niece found for her. 

On her first day there, she discovers that Irving Rivkin, who worked as delivery boy in her father’s pharmacy back in the 1920’s, also lives in the same retirement community. Irvin hurt her deeply many years ago and Augusta never got over it.

This is also a story told in two different time lines- the 1920’s and 1997. Frequently in two different timeline novels, one story is more interesting, but Cohen had me equally engaged in both stories.

Augusta is a fabulous character, she can be difficult and a tough nut to crack. Although she initially keeps to herself, she eventually makes friends. What she doesn’t understand is why Irvin is pursuing her romantically after he broke her heart years ago with no explanation.

It’s refreshing to see more older female characters in recent novels and Augusta is one of the more intriguing and well-drawn ones. We get the opportunity to see how she became the person she was, and her close attachment to her great aunt Esther, another intriguing older female character. The setting of 1920’s Brooklyn is so vividly created, I could picture Augusta’s father’s pharmacy clearly. I also highly recommend The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern.

There are many memoirs out this fall, and Connie Chung’s Connie is one of the more interesting ones. Chung, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, became one of the most prominent broadcast journalists in the 1970s. 

She was one of the few female television reporters covering the Nixon White House during the tumultuous Watergate years. Chung has to battle not only sexism but also anti-Asian attitudes during her tenure. She believed the best way to do that was to become one of “boys”- she could curse like a sailor, and she gave as good as she got.

Chung worked incredibly hard, and would take any opportunity to show that she was a team player. At one point she anchored a pre-Today Show news hour, reported on stories for the Nightly News, then did live news cut-aways at 9pm and 10pm. She worked nearly around the clock.

She is one of the few people to work on-air for all three broadcast networks- she co-anchored the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather (who undermined her), co-anchored 20/20 on ABC, and was an anchor on the local Los Angeles CBS station for years.

If you know of Chung’s career, you’ll want to read Connie, and if you don’t know her, you’ll want to read what it was like to be a woman in the news business at this time. It’s a fascinating read.

The Author’s Guide To Murder By Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig & Karen White-A

Published by William Morrow

Hardcover, $30, 416 pages

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman- A

Published by St. Martin’s Press

Hardcover, $29, 312 pages

Connie by Connie Chung- A

Published by Grand Central

Hardcover, $32.50, 323 pages

New in Paperback- All The Ways We Said Goodbye by Team W

All The Ways We Said Goodbye by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062931102
Trade paperback, $16.99, 464 pages

All the Ways We Said Goodbye, a triple timeline saga, is the third collaboration by authors Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White (collectively known as Team W). 

All The Ways We Said Goodbye opens up in 1964 on an estate in Devonshire, England. Babs is still mourning the recent loss of her beloved husband Kit, who spent time in a prisoner of war camp in Germany during WWII. 

Babs receives a letter from an American lawyer whose father also fought in WWII and is now dying. He asks Babs’ to meet him at the Ritz Hotel in Paris to discuss La Fleur, a famous female French spy whom Kit knew, and who betrayed his father.

Aurelie is a young French woman living with her mother at the Ritz Hotel in Paris in 1914 during WWI. Aurelie’s mother entertains German writers and philosophers in her salon, much to the dismay of Aurelie. 

When Aurelie leaves Paris to go to her father’s ancestral estate in the countryside, the German army is not soon behind, and they confiscate her family’s estate to make it their headquarters during the invasion. The Germans take over the town and force the townspeople into starvation and humiliation. Aurelie does her best to help her friends, even at risk to her own life.

Daisy lives with her American-born grandmother at the Ritz Paris in 1942 during WWII. Daisy’s grandmother is part of the Resistance, and soon Daisy helps the cause by delivering messages hidden in books from the local bookstore.

All these stories collide, and part of the fun is watching these three authors skillfully blend their storylines together to create one taut mystery. Who was La Fleur and what is her connection with all three women?   

The research that goes into all of Team W's books shows up on the pages here. I'd love to see their notes and photos for this one. I also appreciate their strong female characters, they all show great growth as they realize what they are capable of doing.

Fans of Team W’s previous two books- The Forgotten Room (my review here) and The Glass Ocean (my review here) will enjoy the cameo appearances by characters from those two books  (especially the annoying Prunella Schuyler) in this latest one.  And if you liked Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale, Anthony Doerr's All The Light We Couldn't See and Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow you will want to pu

Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig at Barnes & Noble

Last night I attended a book talk and signing by authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig who, along with missing member Karen White, wrote the wonderful historical novel All The Ways We Said Goodbye (my review here) at the Barnes & Noble store on the Upper East Side. Karen White, a Georgia resident, refuses to go above the Mason-Dixon line until late spring.

Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig

Williams and Willig launched into the origin story for Team W, as they have dubbed themselves. When Beatriz Williams wrote her first novel, Overseas, which she thought would be a smash hit, sell a million books and be made into a movie, she had the unfortunate timing of being published at the same time a little book called Fifty Shades of Grey was released.

Her new author friends Lauren Willig and Karen White (who all met at an Romance Writers of America event when they were seated alphabetically at the signing tables) tried to cheer her up with lots of cocktails and wine. They came up with the brilliant idea of writing an anthology together set in Scotland called Fifty Shades of Plaid, combining two hot romance trends. (White's editor told them to go back to their rooms, drink some water, take some aspirin, and sleep it off.)

What sounded great after an evening of drinking turned into an actual collaboration and their first Team W novel, The Forgotten Room (my review here). It was set in three different time periods with three different lead women characters, all connected by this forgotten room in a Manhattan townhouse mansion (based on a building once owned by Williams'  husband's family, now a medical facility).

They met at Alice's Tea Cup in New York City and outlined the entire book, something no one had ever done for their individual books. The authors each chose the character they wanted to write, and then wrote her chapter and sent them round robin to the next chapter writer. They had a legendary text chain where they would ask for advice, make changes, and have brilliant strokes of genius. (They joked that they could release a 40-volume set of the text chain, but would have to redact all the many inappropriate ones.)

Karen White's editor bought the book, and the authors laughed because she sounded surprised as she said "it's actually very good". The Forgotten Room hit the NY Times and USA Today bestseller lists, and Team W decided to write a second book.

Their second book, The Glass Ocean, (my review here) also had three female leads and was set mostly on the Lusitania, a cross Atlantic passenger ship that was bombed by a German submarine in 1915 during WWI. Nearly twelve hundred people perished.

Again, it was a success and Team W began plotting their third book, the recently released All The Ways We Said Goodbye, set during WWI, WWII, and 1964 at the Ritz Paris Hotel. Unfortunately, the authors' idea to spend three weeks at the Ritz Paris Hotel to research was shot down by both spouses and the publisher, so the authors had to do their impeccable research online.

Their collaborative novels are seamlessly written, and very few people can tell which writer wrote which character. (The authors keep that secret.) Even their editor can't tell- she has sent the edits to the wrong author on multiple occasions, which makes the authors laugh.

Their next book will be set in Newport, Rhode Island during the Gilded Age, the 1950s and the present day. Here's hoping they all get to go the beautiful mansions there for research on this one.

The capacity crowd on a very cold evening truly enjoyed listening to Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. They have their humorous patter down, and you can tell they are truly friends and enjoy working together. If you haven't read anything from Team W, I highly recommend you do. You should also read their individual novels, they are all wonderful writers.

Beatriz Williams' website is here.
Lauren Willig's website is here.
Karen White's website is here.

I saw the fabulous Tavia, cohost of the Book Club Girl podcast, there

Friday 5ive- The First Friday of 2020

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly (sort of) blog post where I share five things that caught my attention this week. On this first Friday of 2020, we are in Longboat Key, Florida for a much-needed vacation after the craziness of the holiday season. It seems we just run, run, run from Thanksgiving to Christmas, so it's good to relax in the sun.

1) We started our vacation by visiting a new-to-us restaurant in Sarasota- Caraguilos Italian American in downtown Sarasota. It's a casual Italian, family-owned restaurant and we loved it! The food was fantastic, we had a great bottle of wine, and my dish of Fazoletti & Short Rib Ragu was amazing. The short rib was so tender, and the carrots and mushrooms were cooked to perfection. I can see why it s one of their most popular dishes on the menu. Our server Julie was top-notch, and one of the owners, Rob Caraguilo, came over and we had a nice chat. We'll definitely be coming back for the Buy One Pizza, Get a Second for 31cents night on Tuesdays during the off-season.

Fazoletti & Short Rib Ragu

2) We made a quick stop at the University Mall and saw this Lamborghini at the valet parking- with a baby seat in the passenger seat. That made us laugh.

3) When we were in Italy, we ordered a ceramic table from a craftsman for our lanai in Florida and we finally got to use it this time. It's so cheery and bright and reminds of our fabulous trip to Ravello.

4) We also caught up on some entertainment- we went to an actual movie theater and saw Richard Jewell, which was really good. The performances by Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates and Paul Walter Hauser as Richard Jewell were fantastic. Richard Jewell is based on the true story of a security guard at the Atlanta Olympics in 1986 who saves many people when a bomb goes off, only to find himself the target of the FBI investigation. 

We also watched Chernobyl on HBO, a miniseries based on the nuclear explosion there in 1986 and the coverup by the Russian government. It's a gripping drama.  

To continue with our theme of based on true events, we watched The Two Popes on Netflix. Jonathan Pryce is outstanding as Pope Francis and Anthony Hopkins is equally terrific as Pope Benedict. You get a real sense of both of these men, I highly recommend it. Both men are talked about as Oscar contenders for their performances. 

5) I got a lot of reading in this week. Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen Whites's third collaboration, All The Ways We Said Goodbye  (which publishes January 14th) is their best one yet. With three times settings- WWI, WWII and 1964, they seamlessly tell the story of three women and how they are connected through the years and what secrets are revealed through their connection to the Ritz Hotel in Paris. I love that the story contains characters from their two previous collaborations- The Forgotten Room and The Glass Ocean. A complete review will follow soon.

Kiley Reid's debut novel Such a Fun Age is Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine Book Club pick and it's a great choice. It begins with a young black woman who takes the young white girl she babysits for to a grocery store late at night and is accused by a security guard of kidnapping the child. It's a thought-provoking book about race and privilege and class and it's very good. 

Since I went to Italy over the summer, Alexander McCall Smith's My Italian Bulldozer, about a food and wine writer who travels to Tuscany after his girlfriend leaves him, was a good read for me. It's a lovely book and if you have ever visited Tuscany, you'll love it. 

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and that 2020 holds great things in store for you.