AKA Wife 22 hit the shelves in France last week. Here’s the ad that ran in French Elle. I’m going to France in July. It’s the first time I’ve ever been and I’m so excited. I’ll have a chance to meet my French publishers and to do all the touristy things one does in Paris. The trip is part business and part pleasure. My husband and I will be celebrating our twentieth wedding anniversary as well. Where better to celebrate than the city of light?
My lovely publisher made coasters for Wife 22. I don’t know if you can see the writing on the coaster but it says “Sometimes marriage is a Catch-22.” This tagline refers to the moment in Wife 22 when Alice realizes that some of the things she found so charming when she first married her husband, William, are the very things that twenty years later drive her crazy. What do you think about that? Do you agree?
The other day we went on one of our favorite jaunts to Point Reyes. It felt like summer. Seventy degrees on Limantour beach. Wild lupine. The air smelled of roses. Afterwards to the Pine Cone Cafe for an expresso milk shake and Thai beef salad. And after that, to the Cowboy Creamery for Red Hawk cheese–the stinkiest, most wonderful cheese ever. It’s all gone but I’m still dreaming about it. I’ve decided if this writing gig doesn’t work out I want to open a cheese store. Truly, what would life be without cheese? Those are the kinds of big thoughts I’m thinking today.
Less than thirty days until Wife 22 hits the shelves. It’s the calm before the storm (hopeful thinking here). If I had to define slipperiness, these last weeks before the book launches would be slipperiness incarnate. I keep reminding myself to breath. The book has a destiny of its own. My job is to let it go. Easier said then done, of course!
I’ve become the queen of distracting myself. Reading as much as I can. Gone, Girl, by Gillian Flynn with whom I did a bookseller event with–you HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK! It’s brilliant and I couldn’t put it down. Carry the One, by Carol Anshaw. Breathtaking. Also just finished Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. I’m not sure how I feel about this one yet.
Since I last wrote, Wife 22 got another starred review from Publishers Weekly. And Harper Collins, my UK publisher, created a wonderful trailer which you’ll find in the video tab in the Wife 22 section.
It’s summer weather here in Northern California and tonight is the supermoon. I love that word–supermoon. My son is graduating from middle school. The jasmine is already blooming. Too soon, too early, all of it, but luscious and trying not to miss a second of it all.
The covers for the foreign editions are starting to come in. Here’s Finland, one of my favorites. Also a bit of wonderful news . . . I got my first trade review from Library Journal and it’s a starred review. I’m so pleased!
