18 Bookers met at the home of Virginia Gandy to discuss this month’s selection, a gripping psychological thriller and family drama featuring a young woman who investigates the forty-year-old murder that inspired her mother’s bestselling novel, discovering devastating truths and dangerous lies.
Bookers showed once again why these ladies are special in so many ways. A celebration of the publication of my novel, Wings Against The Wind, included champagne, a yummy cake, and a beautiful orchid framed in a heart-shape. I managed not to cry…until I got home. The only words I have is thank you…from the bottom of my heart!
Business
Patsy Dehn announced on behalf of Pinnacle Bible Study a six-week course featuring Max Lucado’s latest, In the Footsteps of the Savior, “a guided tour of the Holy Land.”
The PWC overnight trip this year is slated for April 22-24th and conflicts with the annual Books in Bloom luncheon scheduled for noon on Friday April 24th at Athens Country Club. The luncheon benefits the Henderson County Clint W. Murchison Memorial Library. Bookers has always supported this event and this year the speaker will be Dallas author, Sarah Damhoff, who wrote The Bright Years, which is our summer read. Tables of 8 are available for $500.00 and require the hosts to furnish a floral centerpiece for the table. Cost would be $62.50 each, or $65.00 for individuals sitting at no-host tables. Checks payable to Public Library Fund and mailed to Beth Faulk, P. O. Box 1171, Athens, Texas 75751. Beth can be reached at 903-286-6862 or PLFBooksinBloom@gmail.com. If anyone is interested in spearheading this event, please let me know and I’ll be glad to assist in the process. I got a notice today that the tables were selling fast.
Our April 14th meeting has been moved from Carla Russo’s home to Kathleen Mackey’s We will be discussing When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin, the moving story of a man with a painful past, a little girl with a doubtful future, and a shared journey toward healing for both their hearts.
Tanya Holstead has been our volunteer Pinnacle library organizer, which involves tidying up and rotating books out at least once a quarter and donating the overflow books to Bookish. She has asked us to find someone else to take over this responsibility. Since the lower level of the clubhouse will soon be undergoing a construction project, Patty Evans will check to see what the status of our library will be during this time and going forward.
Sunshine
Please keep Ann Ireland’s husband, Charles, in your prayers as he has been readmitted to the hospital.
About the Author
Emily has been writing since she was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama. Her debut was a highly plagiarized version of The Pokey Little Puppy; the narrative following word for word and came with detailed Crayola illustrations and bound with staples by her ever-patient mother. When not copying other authors’ books, she was walking, sitting, or lying down with her nose in a library book. After graduating from Auburn with a B.A. in Communications and minors in Journalism and Theater, she moved to New York City with her husband landing a job at CBS in the Daytime Drama division where she oversaw production of soaps, “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light.” One of her responsibilities was creating summary paragraphs of the show’s daily script for the local newspapers with copy that read like…Roger freaks out when he realizes Holly’s been faking amnesia, and Billy’s back from rehab only to find Mindy in bed with Frank – typical soap’s plots. Moving back to Atlanta she wrote a few spec soap scrips to no avail and tried her hand at screenplays which were rejected by the best companies – Steven Spielberg, Mel Gibson, and Rob Reiner.
With her three boys in school full-time she decided the time was right to take the leap and pen a book, joining the Atlanta Writers Club and a local critique group. Having never had a formal creating writing class, she devoured several how to books and in 2011 began working on her first manuscript, a romantic comedy, receiving some encouraging comments from agents, but no one took a chance on her. Changing genres, she wanted to write something really creepy, atmospheric and southern gothic, the result, Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, landed her first agent and a two-book deal. What’s she’s learned so far – have unending patience, be relentlessly diligent, and stay stupidly optimistic.
Synopsis
Emily Carpenter spins a compelling tale grounded in family drama and mystery. Meg Ashley, a reformed party girl, lives under the shadow of her mother, Frances, a successful horror novelist whose cult classic, Kitten, was inspired by a long-ago murder catapulting the author into fame and success while painting a vibrant picture of a life most would envy. However, for Meg, this fame comes with a darker undertone. The mother-daughter relationship is fraught, with Meg feeling neglected and resentful towards her mother’s relentless pursuit of celebrity. Desperate to escape Frances’ grasp, Meg agrees to write a scandalous tell-all memoir, the decision propelling her into a quest for truth and validation. The memoir is not just a way to expose her mother’s past; it allows Meg to reclaim her own narrative. As she begins researching Kitten, Meg travels to Bonny Island, Georgia, the setting of her mother’s notorious novel hoping to unravel the secrets buried deep within their family history and confront the lies that have dictated her life. The novel draws heavily from Meg’s evolving identity as she discovers the truths behind her childhood trauma and as the weight of lies surrounding her mother’s legacy escalates, choices that are made not only threaten her life, but those around her as well. The novel is not simply a murder mystery or tale of family betrayal; it’s an exploration of the intricacies of human relationships and the legacies we inherit asking readers to reflect on the darker elements of love and ambition highlighting the quest for truth can both liberate and ensnare.
Rating System:
0 – aka The Susan – wouldn’t recommend to my worst enemy. (Susan is special – no one else has a rating named after them!!)
1 – put your money back in the piggy bank
2 – borrow, don’t buy
3 – good beach read
4 – borders on your favorite read ever
5 – order now, include in your will
Discussion:
Several Bookers rated the read between a 2 and 2-1/2…the murder of a child fueling the low rating. The majority agreed it was a 3 fitting into the good “beach” read category – a page-turner, the plot nothing too terribly complex…putdownable. The 4’s and 4+’s agreed it was fast-paced, kept readers interested with great character development, with a series of twists and turns at unexpected times. Our lone 5 listened to the audio version and has the heir designated in her will.
Many thanks to Jane Shaw for taking the lead by providing her in-depth character analysis and discussion points. We explored the many flaws of Meg – whiney, spoiled, an entitled trust fund baby…and wondered what drove her to detest her mother so much…she was at times difficult to feel sorry for her plight in life – the “daughter” of a highly successful author. Asa, the agent, was a whiney, slimy snake capable of convincing Meg she had to write a tell-all about her mother, promising all she had to do was give the details and a ghostwriter would make it into a bestseller, basically throwing it in the face of Frances’ celebration of the 40th anniversary of her novel, Kitten. We mused that maybe Asa knew by approaching Meg to write the memoir, he may have suspected the truth would surface and he would play both ends against the middle and see if Frances or Meg had the upper hand and go with the winner…we can add manipulative to his character profile. The comatose Edgar was somewhat confusing as his role might have been simply to facilitate Meg’s torrid story between her and her mother and maybe be cast as the only father-figure Meg knew. What role would he play if he survived? What can we say about Frances Ashley’s character? She certainly was not going to be awarded ‘mother-of-the-year’ but she was a dynamic character as her narrative was more developed than to supplement the role of the male characters. Was she likeable…did we feel sorry for her…she created a life for herself and provided in a financial way to ensure her daughter was taken care of…was that all she could give…maybe in her world…yes. Meg was immediately drawn to Doro…she was a bohemian…one with nature and seemed genuinely engaged with Meg and her journey…she was the glue that bound all the characters together on the Island…but as the truths unfolded, we saw the fierce, cynical, savage side of the woman who turned out to be Meg’s biological mother. We find out Billy Kitchens is very much alive and his interaction with Meg was pretty bizarre. Koa was the obligatory love interest and at the end, Meg’s birth father, Peter Darnell, resurfaces and all the loose ends are wrapped together in a tidy bundle…a sequel or a movie might be the next time we hear of these characters. One of our favorite scenes was ‘pie night’…we talked about mother-daughter relationship dynamics – nature versus nurture; how the isolated setting was a character in itself; and how memories can be manipulated. We also shared our own humorous horse tales, and it became clear that none of us are destined to be equestrians, but more inclined to giddy-up on a stick horse.
Happy Reading,
JoDee
