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At long last, my new novel, The Book Club for Troublesome Women, is hitting bookstore shelves!
I can’t wait to introduce readers to Margaret, Charlotte, Viv, and Bitsy – four fictional characters who have become so real to me that they’ve truly started to feel like friends.
Of course, the best way to get to know these four intriguing, amazing, very different women is to read the book. So many wonderful readers have reached out to let me know they already pre-ordered the book, and I’m so grateful for that. Honestly, it means more to me than you probably know.
But for those of you who haven’t quite made up your minds about the book, or who maybe just want to know a little more about the story and its origins before you dive in, today’s blog includes an excerpt of an interview I gave to HenLitCentral.com that they’ve kindly allowed me to share.
Troublesome Women Q&A Excerpt
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and an overview of your new book The Book Club for Troublesome Women?
I live in Washington state with my husband and a moderately spoiled Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and am the bestselling author of more than twenty novels. My latest, The Book Club for Troublesome Women, is about four dissatisfied, 60’s era housewives, who wonder why “having it all” — kids, husband, house in the burbs — leaves them feeling so empty inside.
When Charlotte Gustafson, an intriguing, artsy, irreverent new neighbor moves in, my main character, Margaret Ryan, decides to form a book club, hoping to get to know her better. At Charlotte’s insistence, the first book they will read is Betty Friedan’s 1963 blockbuster, The Feminine Mystique. It’s a choice that changes everything.
Nicknaming themselves the Bettys, in homage to Betty Friedan, the women have no idea that their impromptu book club and the books they read together will become the glue that helps them hold fast through tears, triumphs, angst, and arguments — and what will prove to be the most freeing year of their lives.
What inspired you to set The Book Club for Troublesome Women in the 1960s, and how did you approach capturing the essence of that era?
The idea came to me during a conversation with my mom, who was eighty-nine years old at the time. My mom is something of a force of nature. She’s sharp as a tack, a quick draw with a cocktail shaker, and an avid reader. We were talking about books one day when The Feminine Mystique came up. “I don’t know if I ever told you,” she said, “but that book changed my life.”
As soon as she started talking about Friedan’s book and what it had meant to her and her friends, I knew what I needed to write next.
As far as capturing the essence of the era…Well, it helps that I was actually alive in 1963. I was only a baby, but I can remember what life was like in the 60s, the fact that everybody had ashtrays in their houses because everybody smoked, that a glass of Tang and a bowl of Captain Crunch was considered a healthy breakfast for a child, that there were three news networks but everybody watched Walter Cronkite, and that Danish modern furniture was the height of cool — lots of the kinds of atmospheric elements that add life, color, and authenticity to a book.
But I also did a ton of research.
I’ve got a shelf full of books I read along the way and a stack of vintage women’s magazines I ordered from eBay. Magazines were hugely influential back then, especially for women. And, of course, I did hours and hours of online research. But I also spent more time talking to my mom, getting her take on the frustrations, limitations, and constrictions faced by her generation, and what it felt like to finally break free of that.
The characters in the book form a deep bond through their book club. How did you develop individual stories, and what message do you hope your readers will take away?
Ensemble casts of characters have been my specialty for years. Figuring out how to take four separate, quite different personalities and create meaningful connections in their stories isn’t easy, but I really do love doing it.
I spend a lot of time developing the background for each major character, beginning with very basic information — age, place of birth, physical appearance, marital status, education, etc. Then I dig deeper, asking and answering questions about the things that formed their personalities. What was their first memory? Greatest fear? Greatest source of pride? A secret they’ve never shared with anyone else?
I consider all that through the prism of two questions. First, what is it they want more than anything else? Second, what is stopping them from getting it? It always unearths tidbits that end up influencing the plot in really interesting ways, and showing me how the stories of these very different characters interconnect.
When it comes to The Book Club for Troublesome Women, the fact that the four characters are so different helps highlight what I hope will be the takeaway for readers. My favorite passage from this book, lines that were written by Margaret, underscores the heart of the story…
“There are countless good and right ways to be a woman and only two wrong. The first is to insist that your way is ‘the’ way, the only way. The second is to buy into that nonsense and to spend your life limping along an aimless path in shoes that will never fit.”
Though my four troublesome women want very different things and face different obstacles to it, at some level, they also want the same thing — the right to pursue their own unique formula for happiness and fulfillment. And the same obstacle stands in the way of their getting it; cultural and societal norms that insist feminine fulfillment can only be pursued through one very particular, very narrow path.
The story is set in the 60s, but I believe it’s a theme that continues to resonate today.
Order your copy of The Book Club for Troublesome Women!
