Today I’m blogging at Fresh Fiction about friendship and friendship novels.   Why did I decide to write the Happiness Key series?  Can the theme of friendship carry a trilogy?  Come visit the Fresh Fiction website and find out. 

Oh, and while you’re there?  I’m also running a contest on their website.  One lucky reader will win a deluxe gift basket of white citrus products from Bath and Body Works, as well as autographed copies of Fortunate Harbor and Happiness Key.  Plus there’s a book each for the second and third runner-ups.   No questions to answer, just sign up.  Lots of other author contests there, as well, so enjoy.  I’d love to see one of my blog followers win this lovely gift.

The subject of this blog?  Oddly enough, not the reviews for Fortunate Harbor.  Yes, the book’s out now, and yes there have been lots of reviews, the vast majority, I’m happy to say, good ones like this from Publishers Weekly: “A juicy, sprawling beach read with a suspenseful twist. . .”  Or this from Randall Radic at Basil and Spice online who called the book: “ . . . a how-to manual for guys about women.  How they think.  How they feel.  And why they act the way they do.” 

But an author defending unflattering reviews is a lot like a chef demanding a retraction from the restaurant critic who pointed out there was too much salt in the gumbo.  Fact is, opinions are opinions.  And these days, not only does everybody have them, everybody and anybody can put them online with the click of a computer mouse.   Since I’m a big fan of reviews–taken with a grain of that aforementioned salt–I say bravo.  But let’s be clear about what a review really is. (more…)

Just a reminder that today is the last day the $1.50 coupon for Fortunate Harbor will be honored.  Just remember to ask your bookseller first so you won’t be disappointed at the register.  Individual stores differ on what they will and won’t accept.  Once again, here’s the coupon link for printing.

Thanks to all of you who’ve written to tell me you’ve bought Fortunate Harbor and Happiness Key and enjoyed them both.  I appreciate all of you who’ve taken the time to blog about it, too.   

Publisher’s Weekly called Fortunate Harbor:  ”A juicy, sprawling beach read with a suspenseful twist. . .”  I hope you like it just as much as they did..

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.   And sometimes it’s strange because of fiction.  Take Wanda, for example.  Not Wanda of Happiness Key and Fortunate Harbor.   The very real Wanda of Wanda’s Pie in the Sky in Toronto.  And had I never written about a pie shop named Wanda’s Wonderful Pies, I never would have “met” her.  Life’s like that, isn’t it?

The Wanda collisions began a month ago while I was working on Sunset Bridge, and  needed the name of a new pie that “my” Wanda had just created.  The name I chose (Million Dollar Pie) turned out to be a real pie, so I couldn’t use it.  Next I googled “Pie in the Sky” to see if that had been taken, and that’s when I found the real Wanda who runs a real pie shop.  Not in the fictional Palmetto Grove, Florida, of course, but in Toronto, Canada, home of my publisher.

Since my publisher works hard for me, I decided this coincidence was too great.  Why not send all the kind people there who labor over my books some of the real Wanda’s pies.  And while the real Wanda and I were becoming acquainted and doing a little business together on the phone, I asked her for a pie recipe for YOU.  She, being the delightful person she is, agreed. 

Now, I don’t know about you, but I feel darned fortunate to have made this discovery.  She sent me her cookbook.  I sent her my books.   I bought some of her wonderful pies, and she sent me her wonderful recipe to share with you. 

If this is not the definition of serendipity, I don’t know what is.  So please enjoy the real Wanda’s gift to us.  And if you’re in Toronto, be sure to enjoy her pies, as well.  I am told, by those who’ve been lucky enough to have one, that they are scrumptious.  I plan to try this one soon.  How about you?

Lemon Meringue Pie

Makes one 10-inch (25-cm) pie (serves 8) 

        I don’t know anyone who can resist this pie. When made correctly (tricky at first to be sure), this pie is a dream come true: tart melt-in-your-mouth filling and sweet, mile-high meringue all piled into a crispy delicate crust. I like to think of lemon meringue as the Marilyn Monroe of pies: tart, blonde, voluptuous and truly unforgettable. 

Crust

¾ cup (180 mL) cold butter, cut into ½-inch (1.2-cm) pieces

2 cups (480 mL) all-purpose flour

¼ cup (60 mL) sugar

¼ tsp. (1.2 mL) salt

1/3 cup (80 mL) water

Filling

2 cups (480 mL) water

1 cup (240 mL) sugar

½ cup (120 mL) cornstarch

5 egg yolks, beaten

¼ cup (60 mL) butter

¾ cup (180 mL) fresh lemon juice

1 Tbsp. (15 mL) lemon zest

1 tsp. (5 mL) vanilla extract

Meringue

5 egg whites, room temperature

½ tsp. (2.5 mL) cream of tartar

¼ tsp. (1.2 mL) salt

½ tsp. (2.5 mL) vanilla extract

¾ cup (180 mL) sugar

For the pastry: Make sure all the ingredients are as cold as possible. Using a food processor or a pastry cutter and a large bowl, combine the butter, flour, sugar and salt. Process or cut in until the mixture resembles coarse meal and begins to clump together. Sprinkle with water, let rest for 30 seconds and then either process very briefly or cut with the pastry cutter about 15 strokes, just until the dough begins to stick together and come away from the sides of the bowl. Turn onto a lightly floured work surface and press together to form a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 20 minutes. Allow the dough to warm slightly to room temperature if it is too hard to roll. On a lightly floured board roll the disk to a thickness of 1/8 inch (.3 cm). Cut a circle about 2 inches (5cm) larger than the pie plate and transfer the pastry into the plate by folding it in half or by rolling it onto the rolling pin. Turn the pastry under leaving an edge that hangs over the plate about ½ inch (1.2 cm). Flute decoratively. Chill for 30 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 400° (200°C). Chill for 30 minutes. Line the crust with foil and fill with metal pie weights or beans. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes and then carefully remove the foil and continue baking for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden. Cool completely before filling.

For the filling: Bring water to boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Remove from heat and let rest for 5 minutes. Whisk the sugar and cornstarch together. Add the mixture gradually to the water in the pot, whisking until completely incorporated. Return to heat and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. Mixture will be very thick.  Add about 1 cup (240 mL) of the hot mixture to the beaten egg yolks, combining until smooth. Whisking vigorously, add the warmed yolks to the pot and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter until incorporated. Add the lemon juice, zest and vanilla, stirring until combined. Pour into the prepared crust. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming on the surface, and cool to room temperature.

For the meringue: Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).Using an electric mixer beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar, salt and vanilla extract until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually, and beat until it forms stiff, glossy peaks. Pile onto the cooled pie, bringing the meringue all the way over to the edge of the crust to seal it completely. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden.  Cool on a rack and serve within 6 hours to avoid a soggy crust.

What could be more fun for an author than a gift to readers to celebrate the release of a brand new book?  Thanks to my publisher, here’s a coupon for $1.50 off the price of Fortunate Harbor.  Just click on the link below and print.

The coupon is valid only for the first week on sale, June 29th through July 6th, so be sure to print it now, but use it then.   Since we can’t control what coupons your bookseller or favorite store will take, please be sure to check ahead of time to be certain they’ll honor this one.

Don’t forget, if you’d like the book ”personalized” just send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Emilie Richards at PO Box 7052, Arlington, VA 22207, and I’ll send you a signed bookplate (up to 3) addressed to anyone you choose.

Enjoy!

Fortunate Harbor Coupon

I’m glad I have a chance to write this post today.  After all, it’s pouring down rain outside, and I could be outside cleaning leaves from gutters, or repairing street lamps, or walking my silly beagle again.  Instead, Nemo is curled up in his basket at my feet, for which I am also glad, since Nemo thinks splashing in the rain is as much fun as chasing rabbits or baying at absolutely nothing in the middle of the night, just because he can.

And, of course, I’m also absolutely triple glad that yesterday, when I opened my computer, all the edits I had worked on until 11:00 the previous night had simply disappeared off my hard drive (where they’d probably never landed in the first place) and I had to spend the day reconstructing everything I had done instead of moving on to the five million other pressing projects I have in place. 

You might ask why?  Well, that’s a tough one.  But after wrinkling my pert little nose a time or two, I came up with something.  I learned a LOT about my brand new computer yesterday as I searched through the detritus of files I’d moved to it.  For instance, how would I have known that I had six files detailing the correct way to do a tracheotomy, had I not lost eight hours of work to the Computer Gods?  Now, just in case I ever need to do emergency surgery on a friend or neighbor, I can run home, start my computer, and know just where to look.

I also discovered there are “hidden” files on my computer.  We might ask ourselves why Microsoft feels it needs to hide anything on OUR computers, but I’m glad I don’t have to.  I’m afraid it would be a lot like asking BP why they have hidden the fact there’s an oil plume way down in the ocean that is not, as they want us to believe, unrelated to the massive amounts of BP oil spilling into our beloved Gulf of Mexico from an ill-equipped and monitored oil platform.  There again, I am glad I don’t have to hear that response.  Glad, glad, glad.

As a child, Pollyanna was one of my favorite movies.  I loved everything about it.  The setting, the acting, the story.  I ached for the unloved little girl who played the “Glad” game to deal with a difficult life.  Pollyanna could find that proverbial silver lining in everything.  She was brave, insightful, cute as a button, and able to change the way an entire town thought about life.  Not bad for a freckle-faced orphan.

The Glad Game was very different from the real game I watched being played around me.   Most people I knew were much more adept at finding things NOT to be glad about.  The dark cloud was the meterological event to concentrate on.  I fell in line, as did most of us, concentrating far too often on the things that were wrong with a nearly perfect day, or wishing a book had made it to a higher slot on a bestseller list, and not noting that I should be GLAD a book of mine had made it to any list at all.

There’s a popular movement that insists each of us should visualize what “can be,” and concentrate to make it happen.  We are supposed to do this consistently, with energy and  a significant commitment of time, and if we work at it hard enough, we will achieve our goals.  I’m all for having goals.  I’m all for working on them.  But maybe what most of us need even more is to be glad about the things we already have, to count our blessings, because isn’t there the possibility that if we don’t, when we reach that long sought goal, we won’t even notice?  We’ll just screw up our faces, tense our muscles, and start concentrating on the next one.

Finding and appreciating the ways we are fortunate.  Sound familiar?  Clearly it’s on my mind.  After all Fortunate Harbor’s coming out soon,  and what’s it about if not this?

As for me?  I’m glad I was able to reconstruct those missing edits in only one day.  I really am glad I learned some things about my new computer and operating system as I tried to bring them back.  I’m glad I mentioned my dismay on Facebook and got such lovely support and suggestions.  I’m glad I discovered that the editor who had sent them to me in the first place was not only willing to help, but approachable, warmly sympathetic, and quick to respond. 

Am I glad my edits disappeared?  Not on your life.  But I am glad, truly glad, that these days I’m teaching myself to find small positives in the midst of larger disappointments.  And, of course, I’m glad this was, in the scheme of things, a very minor event.  Those major events?  Well, I’m glad to say I’ll have something to work on for the rest of my life.

You may notice some subtle changes in the look of this blog.  We have switched the platform to WordPress, and now it’s even easier to comment than it was in the past, so why not give it a try?.  Just click on the red “comment” and you’ll see a place to add your own (and to read others) directly below the post.  Also be sure to set any bookmarks or feeds to the new address here: www.emilierichards.com/blog.  

While you’re commenting, why not tell us about a time when you found something to be glad about in a difficult situation?  These are the stories that feed our souls.

It’s time to make a confession.  Remember Helen Henry in Wedding Ring?  That’s right, Helen, the grandmother who had just the teensiest problem with throwing out things she loved.  Problem was, Helen loved everything that couldn’t talk back to her.  Old papers.  Furniture.  Dishes.  Seed catalogs.  Broken appliances–after all somebody ought to be able to fix them, yes?  So many of you wrote to say you had a Helen in your life.  Some of you wrote to say you were Helen.  And did I understand?

You bet I do.

I will confess that like Helen, I have just the teensiest problem tossing junk.  Invariably, once I screw up my courage and pull out the black plastic bags, I find the very next week that some discarded item was essential to my well being, or my accountant’s records, or the ultimate survival of all earth’s species.  Yes, throwing out anything is an issue for me.  And now, thanks to a stagnant real estate market and a lucky break, I have an entire cottage of someone else’s rejects to explore and debate and most likely, not to throw away too soon. 

This past week my husband and I traveled north to clean and declutter the summer cottage near Lake Chautauqua we bought last fall, just as it was being put to bed for the winter.  This was our first chance to actually spend a few nights here–and I will continue my stay to write for the next two and a half weeks, interrupted only by my fabulous neighbors and the friends I’ve already made.  I look forward to the solitude and the togetherness.  Life is good.

Still, there ought to be a rule that people like me are never presented with all this remarkable “clutter.”  Because in every object in this cottage, I see a story.  And abandon a story?  Are you kidding?  After days of debate we now have an attic full of forgotten tales, and the cottage looks fairly presentable for a lady who’s 115 years old.  I’m sure that eventually I’ll go upstairs and say, “no reason to keep this,” or “isn’t there a flea market nearby?”  But not yet.

How do we tell the trash from the treasure in our lives?  I realized on the second day of hauling and considering, item by item, that this is the theme of my newest novel, Fortunate Harbor, to be released at the end of this month.  The same women you met and enjoyed in Happiness Key–plus one–are faced with decisions about what to throw out in their lives, what to retrieve, what to value, and what to be wary of.  They learn the ways they’re truly fortunate, and the importance of harboring those people, possessions and values that really matter. (Now you understand the title, right?)

I feel so fortunate to be here, to have this funky old cottage filled with trash and treasure, to be writing the last novel of a three book series with characters I’ve grown to love and themes I enjoy exploring.  I feel safe here in this unique New York community, harbored, you might say, by tradition and long acquaintance.

I’m learning that it’s easy to get busy, easy to forget or ignore how many things we have to be grateful for, and how many ways we are taken care of and protected by people we know.  I’m learning that when I start to pay attention, even when life is far from perfect, I am surrounded by the people and small treasures that matter most to me.

Is that true for you, as well?  That even in the midst of sorrow or difficulties, there are people who harbor you and blessings you are fortunate to have?  We’d love to hear about them in your comments here.

Now I have an attic filled with potential, a tiny pile of garbage at my curb–some of which other residents have already spirited away–and old friends to revisit in real time and on paper.  Last night’s downpour did not carry off the best of the ancient wicker we assembled on the porches.  The temperature has not dropped low enough to make me wish the house were insulated, and what mice and squirrels made nests in our walls and attic over the winter have apparently gone to open their summer homes, as well.  I hope life is always this simple and dear, and that even when it’s not, when presented with trash, I am patient enough to find the unseen treasure waiting to be discovered.