C. J.’s Summer Reading List

Salutations and Happy Independence Day to my American readers and friends. I’m going to be spending the fourth at our cottage in Montana with my daughter Tessa and her friend Ella. I wish we could look forward to some fireworks over Flathead Lake but conditions have been so dry lately, that those sorts of celebrations are being discouraged.

The good news is...we can still read! In the hot summer months one of my favorite indulgences is to dive into a fast paced book and just keep reading until it’s done. With July off to a good start, I thought it would be fun to share the top three books on this year’s summer reading list.

For Reading When It’s Just Too Hot To Move:

The Silent Girls by Eric Rickstad

The chills in this book will keep you from overheating on those very hot summer days. I am about two thirds in and can’t wait to finish! It’s a very captivating mystery with some pretty cool characters. The gun-toting, venison-eating hero captures your heart when you learn he raised his niece as his own after his sister’s murder.

For Reading On A Rainy Summer Morning:

It’s You by Jane Porter

Don’t let rain clouds dampen your day. Just make a cup of tea, crawl under your quilt, and snuggle down for a read that will touch your heart and make you think about who really are the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ in this world. I gulped this one down in just three days!

For Reading In Your Beach Chair:

A Week At The Lake by Wendy Wax

I don’t have my copy of this one yet, but I love the cover and I’m a fan of Wendy Wax, so I don’t see how I can go wrong. When I’m done here I may go pick another title from Tule Publishing. They have so many excellent books out this summer with the most delicious-looking covers!

Tell me—what will you be reading this summer? I need some more books to add to my list and I’d love to hear your suggestions.

Hope you enjoy your summer!

C.J. Carmichael

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The Art of Beginning - Wendy Wax

“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.”

The quote belongs to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I came across it when I was looking for quotes about writers and the act of writing, which I used as chapter headings in my upcoming June release, THE ACCIDENTAL BESTSELLER.

That manuscript, about four writers who have been friends and critique partners for a decade, and the lengths they go to to save one of their own when her publishing career and her life begin to unravel, is long finished. In fact, advance reading copies are ready for circulation and the promotion of that book is gearing up.

But, of course, authors are generally on to the next project as soon as the first is written, which is way before it will ever hit bookstore shelves. The more often we get out in front of readers, the better chance we have to build an audience. And so the cycle of beginning and ending is almost continuous. As soon as I finished revising THE ACCIDENTAL BESTSELLER last August, I stared writing my next book, tentatively titled POSTCARDS FROM SUBURBIA. I’ve been working on it ever since.

I’m willing to bet when Longfellow came up with that quote, he was referring to the craft involved in writing the beginning and ending of a novel. I agree that both are critical to the story and have spent huge amounts of time coming up with a first line or paragraph as well as the last.

But at the moment I’m more interested in the feelings attached to these two very different parts of a novel. Because today I actually got to type THE END, which may be my two favorite words in the English language. (Only when they’re joined together, of course!)

I’ve been writing long enough to know that this doesn’t mean I’m finished with this manuscript. I have tons of notes on things I’d like to change and enhance, and I expect to spend the next several weeks, probably right up to the moment the book is due, inserting, deleting, and polishing.

But in my heart, where it matters most, I’m finished. I’ve created characters and a world I hope my readers will relate to and a story that will, hopefully, stay with them after the book is done. The leap of faith I took when I opened that first empty page on my computer has been validated some 425 pages and seven months later.

I’m unbelievably happy to have typed THE END today. Very soon it will be time to begin again.

Wendy Wax

The Accidental Bestseller, Berkley Publishing Group

Coming June 2009

http://www.authorwendywax.com/