February 2, 2022 | Issue #79 |
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Five Facts From Our Friend, Alafair Burke
The one thing you’ve learned you can’t live without during the pandemic:
My dogs, Double and Frannie
Your perfect day:
Reading on a beach, a cocktail at sunset, and dinner with my husband and friends.
Your favorite independent bookstore:
The one I’m closest to at any given moment. Right now, that’s Bookhampton in East Hampton!
The last book you raved about:
Your next book in ten words or less:
Where Are the Children…Forty Years Later
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Five Facts From Our Friend, Allison Pataki
The one thing you’ve learned you can’t live without during the pandemic:
This is a bit of a with-or-without answer: my children. They are the joy in each day. They are so good at being present and just embracing the moment. But I have to say that I've also realized that my life does not function without support in childcare! I have a six-year-old, a three-year-old and a nine-month old, so when we are all home together all day it's utterly impossible to write—or get anything done, for that matter.
Your perfect day:
I would begin a perfect day by having the chance to sleep until my body naturally awoke (it's been years since that happened!). I'd have coffee and breakfast, then do something active, like yoga or a hike, or a swim. I'd have the morning free to write, followed by a fabulous lunch al fresco. Since this is the perfect day we are talking about, it's in a beautiful, sunny, exotic locale, so all of these meals would come with fabulous water views and fresh, local ingredients. The afternoon would involve exploring said beautiful, exotic locale with the people I love. Cap it all off with a delicious dinner and fun, lively conversation.
Your favorite independent bookstore:
The last book you raved about:
Your next book in ten words or less:
Marjorie Post's life, fascinating trailblazer of the Twentieth Century
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Spring Subscription Box
Subscribe Today for Signed Books & an Exclusive Gift!
Friends & Fiction co-hosts & co-founders Mary Kay Andrews and Kristy Woodson Harvey have teamed up with Oxford Exchange to offer this fun Spring Reading Box! Order the box from Oxford Exchange to get a signed copy of THE WEDDING VEIL when it releases in March, a signed copy of THE HOMEWRECKERS when it releases in May, and this fun, exclusive Friends & Fiction notebook with sticky flags for marking all your favorite parts! (We hope there are tons!) Get more information and place your order with Oxford Exchange HERE.
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Bookseller of the Week
Bookshop.org
Find all the books by every F&F guest, past and present, in the F&F Bookshop.org Shop! Portions of all sales placed in our shop help fund F&F and support our guests! Proceeds from every sale made anywhere across Bookshop go straight into the pockets of indie booksellers nationwide. Since its inception, Bookshop.org has raised nearly $19 million for indie bookstores! Find recent books by tonight’s guests Allison Pataki and Alafair Burke—and by the Fab Four—on our Friends & Fiction 2022 Guests list!
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Latest News From "The Fab Four"
KRISTY WOODSON HARVEY is so excited that both Women.com and Simon & Schuster chose her forthcoming THE WEDDING VEIL (3.29.22) as a most-anticipated read! And she shared a little of the real-life history of Edith Vanderbilt, the first mistress of Biltmore house, behind her new novel on Instagram. Check it out! Also… Have you seen her family’s new puppy, Salt? You can check him out while you’re over there!
PATTI CALLAHAN is hoping everyone is safe from the snow and ice! She’s cuddled up reading research books and watching documentaries for her next (shhhhh) novel! She loved working with Career Authors website to write this article about Five Ways to Optimize Your Setting. And if you missed Patti’s conversation last week with The Toronto Public Library in Canada about the Legacy of Lewis, you can watch HERE.
MARY KAY ANDREWS is working on edits to first pass pages for The Homewreckers and collaborating on all the fun marketing and publicity plans for her new book (coming May 3rd!) with her amazing team. She enjoyed joining Ron on the F&F Writers’ Block podcast to interview Linda Ketron who runs the longstanding author luncheon series with Litchfield Books in Pawley’s Island, SC. That episode will go live this Friday Feb 4th so be sure to check it out!
KRISTIN HARMEL is on the home stretch of her first draft of her 2023 novel, due next week, which means she is walking around with a million story pieces in her head, rendering her entirely incapable of carrying on a normal conversation with anyone. But she hopes that by next week, she will have both a finished first draft and a functional brain once again.
What Kristin is reading: The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making by David Esterly (for the February reading challenge)
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The F&F 2022 Reading Challenge
Join the Fun in Our Reading Challenge!
Join us in 2022 for a fun 12-month reading challenge. We will challenge each other all year long to read books in a different category every month. This will help all of us broaden our horizons and read books in different genres we may not have chosen for ourselves. This is a fun way to join with the rest of the F&F community and share a fun reading experience. And the F&F Reading Journal makes the perfect companion piece to this challenge, helping you keep track of all the books you read all year long. Grab your reading journal HERE.
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Listen to the F&F Podcast!
Coming soon! Out this Friday, February 4th—Ron & MKA interview Linda Ketron, the founder of the wildly successful longstanding arthur luncheon series with Litchfield Books in Pawley’s Island, SC.
Out Now! WB_S2E3—Ron interviews Rachel Hawkins about her latest work of Gothic suspense, Reckless Girls. LISTEN NOW!
Out Now! WB_S2E2—Ron & Kristin interview two historical fiction authors, Genevieve Graham & Julia Kelly, about breathing life into history. LISTEN NOW!
Listen, download, subscribe, rate, review & share wherever you get your podcasts!
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News from the F&F Official Book Club
We have a lot of fun events coming up! Take a look at our book club schedule through the early part of 2022 and be sure to save the dates! All events begin at 7pm Eastern unless otherwise noted
Feb 4: Join us Friday night at 7pm ET for Happy Hour with Ron Block and special guest Nancy Johnson. We will toast to her paperback release of The Kindest Lie, we will have book recommendations (get those TBR lists ready) and we will be revealing our April, May and June book club picks. You don’t want to miss it!
Grab these books and start reading now!
If you missed our Jan 24th book club discussion with Wade Rouse (aka Viola Shipman) about The Secret of Snow, catch it HERE.
If you missed our Dec 20th Christmas in Peachtree Bluff book club discussion with Kristy Woodson Harvey, catch it HERE.
If you missed our Dec 6th book club discussion with Mary Kay Andrews about The Santa Suit, catch it HERE!
If you missed our Happy Hour with Ron Block on Friday Dec 3rd, you can watch it HERE.
Not a member of the Friends & Fiction Book Club? Join us! We would love to have you!
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F&F is Now on LoCo+!
Come join Friends & Fiction on LoCo+, a brand-new streaming platform that launched just a few days ago. The platform specializes in locally produced content and will eventually include channels from all over the country, but this is your chance to get in on the ground floor with us; we're part of the platform's rollout, and we'd love for you to be there, too. Eventually, it will be a paid subscription (like Netflix or Hulu), but if you sign up now, you can get the first month free--and you can see past and current episodes of Friends & Fiction as well as lots of other great, independently produced content, including the "Good News Lady" show from our friend (and former F&F guest) Daryn Kagan. Sign up for your free trial here and check it out: https://golocoplus.com/.
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F&F is on YouTube!
Subscribe Today!
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Did you miss last week’s episode with Amor Towles? You can watch the whole thing on our YouTube channel HERE. We air our show live on YouTube every Wednesday night at 7pm ET. And every episode since our show’s inception can be found there too. So if you ever miss one, or Facebook is being difficult, check us out on YouTube. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode and get alerted every time we post new content. We also have book trailers and highlight clips on our channel too! Watch the January 26th show HERE.
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Friends & Fiction Merchandise
SHOP THE F&F MERCH STORE!
NEW! Stay on track with the exclusive Friends & Fiction Reading Journal, featuring 52 book entries (one for every week of the year), a lending library, reading list, and books you put down. With a cloth cover, gold foil embossing, a satin ribbon page marker, elastic band, heavyweight paper, and a back pocket to store notes, this is the perfect gift for the book lover in your life—or for yourself! ORDER READING JOURNALS HERE.
Cozy cotton with a flattering v-neck and our signature Friends & Fiction logo, these comfy t-shirts are the perfect way to show your Friends & Fiction pride! ORDER T-SHIRTS HERE.
Friends & Fiction wine sippies are available and shipping now from Oxford Exchange!
But that’s not all! We also have F&F 20oz travel tumblers for on-the-go coffee of drinks!
We can’t wait to see you model your merch!
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CONNECT WITH THE FRIENDS & FICTION HOST AUTHORS! |
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