Persuade Me by Juliet Archer

Persuade Me is a novel that I literally could not put down once I started reading it. When it arrived in the mail via the “Royal Post” from England, I was already intrigued. Besides the aura of it journeying from the land I would someday love to visit, it has a very beautiful cover. And it happens to be a modern day spin on my favorite Austen novel besides Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion. No offense to Mr. Darcy, but it is about time that my other favorite Austen hero, Captain Wentworth got some attention.


In Persuade Me, Juliet Archer has created a perfect modern day story based on Austen’s Persuasion. Persuasion is a hard story to bring to a modern setting. Why would a woman allow her father and godmother to persuade her to not marry the man of her dreams in this day and age? Archer is able to convincingly write about this point and stick to the main story, but bring it to a modern day setting. I especially love how she was able to keep the essence of the original characters while also modernizing and bringing something new to all of them.

Anna Elliot is a professor of Russian Literature in Bath. She lives in an apartment of a house belonging to her friend Jenny Smith, and leads a happy professional life. Her love life on the other hand is stagnating. Ten years ago, she fell in love with the handsome Rick Wentworth while working in France. Rick Wentworth tried to persuade her to move with him to Australia, but she was persuaded by her father and godmother “Minty” to give Rick up and to continue her studies at the University as her late mother would have wished.

Anna has never connected with anyone again as she connected with Rick. Now all of these years later, Rick is a successful Marine biologist and celebrity after the publication of his work entitled “Sex in the Sea.” He is returning to England for a promotional tour for his new book, and to visit his sister who is renting the lodge at Anna’s family’s estate. Rick has neither forgotten nor forgiven Anna. He wants to try his best to ignore her and move on. Will Rick and Anna be able to make peace with their past and move on? Or will they find themselves drawn back together?

I loved Rick and Anna, but I also loved all of the secondary characters as well. I loved Anna’s crazy family. I especially loved how the youngest Eliot sister who is a hypochondriac and is always complaining has been changed from Mary to Mona. I laughed every time I read her name and imagined her moaning or complaining about her lot in life. Archer did an amazing job of realizing the important attributes of each character and making the modern equivalent true to those attributes, but in an updated way. I was constantly astounded at how perfect each character was in Persuade Me.

I also adored how Archer was able to keep the same elements of the plot of Persuasion throughout the novel, but also was able to add fresh twists, such as Rick being a famous author and doing book tours. It was a perfect combination, and done far better than most modernizations that I have read. I found myself racing through the book, wondering how it was all going to end. Persuade Me a fresh twist to a classic tale.

Overall Persuade Me is the perfect modern update to Jane Austen’s Persuasion, while also being a great modern love story that can stand on its own two feet. I highly recommend it to all of my fellow lovers of all things Austen as well as anyone looking for a great love story to read  I am really looking forward to Archer's planned modernizations of the rest of Austen's novels.  And I really need to get my hands on The Importance of Being Emma!

Persuade Me will be out on September 15th.

Book Source: Review Copy from Juliet Archer. Thank-you!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (audiobook)

I read and greatly enjoyed The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins last summer and in fact placed it on my top ten reads list of 2010. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share it with my fellow FLICKS Book and Movie Club members, especially with a movie version coming out next March. I also have been secretly pondering how to introduce science fiction to my book club that favors romantic tales. I think of The Hunger Games as “sci-fi lite” and also thought they would enjoy the love triangle. Our meeting is next week at my house; I can’t wait to find out what the ladies thought of this pick!


I listened to the audiobook version of The Hunger Games in preparation for my book club meeting as read by Carolyn McCormick. I thought she was a great reader of the novel. It was a thrilling book to listen to. It was just as thrilling the second time through, especially as I couldn’t remember some the details or had merged some of the details from the later books into the first book. Listening to the novel constantly kept me on the edge of my seat. I think it will make a fantastic movie if they do it right!

Speaking of the movie, I am concerned how they will get Katniss’s inner thoughts on film. Much of what goes on during the games is her inner dialogue – how will that transfer to the big screen? Also I’m a bit scared to see the “mutts.”

Is anyone else looking forward to the movie? Excited? Concerned? Please comment!

If you are looking for a new way to enjoy The Hunger Games, or want to see what all of the fuss is about, I highly recommend the audio book version. For more about this book, please see my original review.

This is my ninth item for the 2011 Audiobook Challenge.

Audiobook Source: The Kewaunee Public Library

Winner of Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey!

The one lucky winner of Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey is Beth of Beth's Book Reviews.  Beth was chosen using random.org and has been notified via email.  She has one week to send me her mailing address or I will chose a new winner.

I hope Beth enjoys this intriguing look at the early years of Marie Antoinette.  For more about this book, check out my review.

Thank-you to Random House for providing a copy of this book for a giveaway.  Also thank-you to TLC Book Tours for allowing me to be on this fabulous tour.  And of course thank-you to all who entered and left great comments!

Midnight on Julia Street by Ciji Ware

Midnight on Julia Street is an intriguing novel that is hard to place neatly in a genre category. This novel is one of my favorite types of novels, one that involves time through time, even if it is not physical travel.

Corlis McCullough is a journalist who likes to get to the heart of the story no matter the cost to her career. She is on her sixth city in her profession, New Orleans, taping what should be a routine wedding when events unfold that make the wedding must see TV. Corlis also discovers that her college nemesis, King Duvallon, is the brother of the bride. Airing the wedding footage against the advice of her colleagues, Corlis finds herself out of a job, but also back in the sights of King Duvallon. Together they become unlikely partners in the crusade to prevent a historic building from getting demolished to put up a skyscraper hotel.

Corlis McCullough starts having flashes to the past in which she relives moments in her ancestor’s, Corlis Bell McCullough, life. She soon discovers that many of the players in her present fight to save the Selwyn buildings are the descendants of many of the same players that originally built them. The historic figures had scandalous love affairs and also tales of corruption that helped to make the buildings possible.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I thought both Corlis’s present situation and flashes to the past were equally interesting. I love that she was a hard hitting reporter and that her fight was the fight to save historic buildings. I find such things very intriguing. Her chemistry with King Duvallon was white hot. Duvallon being a professor of architectural history only made him more interesting to me. I also really wanted to learn the mystery of how the historic figures worked together and often against each other to get the buildings constructed.

My favorite secondary character was Corlis’s feisty Aunt Margery McCullough, a hard-hitting retired reporter. She offers Corlis sage advice and interesting tales about her days working as a reporter as part of the Hearst empire.

I love time travel in all forms. I thought Corlis’s time flashes were very unique. Her sense of smell triggered past remembrances and gave her a view point mostly of her ancestor’s past, but also of other intriguing characters.

I loved the New Orleans setting. The descriptions of the City and of the food were very vivid, and made me really want to visit the grand city even more. The history in the novel was very intriguing. I had no idea that 45% of the African Americans pre-civil war in New Orleans were free people of color. It made me want to learn more about this unique history in our nation.

Overall Midnight on Julia Street is an exceptional novel that manages to combine both modern day and historical elements to create one fascinating read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was ready to join the fight to save the historic buildings.

Book Source: Advance Review Copy from Sourcebooks. Thank-you!

Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer

Bath Tangle is another wonderful, enjoyable novel by Georgette Heyer, the queen of regency historical fiction. A new Heyer novel is a book to be savored. I can’t think of a more perfect end to summer then to happily delight in another novel from one of my favorite authors.

I had just finished reading the wonderful biography of Heyer, The Private World of Georgette Heyer by Jane Aiken Hodge and was in the mood for a new Heyer. Luckily I had two on my pile to review and I chose to read Bath Tangle first.

Bath Tangle is the story of the tangled love lives of many charming characters. Serena is the high-spirited daughter of The Earl of Spenborough. After the Earl’s untimely death, he is left without a male heir, but does leave behind his 25 year old daughter Serena, and his even younger second wife, Fanny. Much to Serena’s dismay, her inheritance is tied up in a trust that is administered by the Marquis of Rotherham, her father’s good friend, and the man that she jilted before their marriage six years before. Serena and Fanny remove themselves to the Dower House, but Serena has a hard time with her cousin’s administering of the estate. Both ladies decide they would be happier with time away in nearby Bath. They lease a house and although they are still in mourning, they take limited outings to partake of the waters. It is during one of these excursions that Serena happens upon a man that she has not seen for six years, the only man she has truly cared for, but was unable to marry due to his circumstances. Hector is now a retired Major with an estate of his own, and is still as gorgeous as ever. At this point, love blooms for all characters, and their love lives become a “tangled” mess!

Heyer created brilliant characters in Bath Tangle. I LOVE the exuberant Serena. She was full of energy, lively, and always on the go. She loved to hunt and ride horses, and could care less what people thought of her. She also had clever dialogue with Rotherham that fairly crackled off of the pages. Whenever those two got together to fling insults, I couldn’t put the book down.

Rotherham was a wonderful “Mark I” Heyer hero in the vein of Charlotte Bronte’s Mr. Rochester. He is a dark and not handsome man who knows what he wants and fairly often gets it. He is a bit rough around the edges at times, but as he is a Marquis, all is forgiven and he is a prime target of all marriage minded mamas. This gets him into a tangle of his own.

I think my favorite character of all was Mrs. Floore. She is a secondary character that is a rich widow of a tradesman and proud of it. Her daughter has married well and is now a Lady who is ashamed of her mother’s background and vulgar ways, but not too ashamed to take her money to launch her daughter Emily into society. Mrs. Floore tells it the way it is and has decided to keep wearing the fashions of her youth in very bright colors. I thought she was hilarious.

I loved the bits of historical context sprinkled throughout the book. The Major has returned home as the Napoleonic wars are finished. Serena and Fanny love to gossip about Princess Charlotte her upcoming Royal Marriage. Caroline Lamb, the Duchess of Devonshire, and other notable Regency real-life characters are mentioned throughout the book. I loved it!

I just read about Bath Tangle again in The Private World of Georgette Heyer. Hodge states that Bath Tangle “has less actual comedy than the previous books. Instead there is an Austen like irony in its treatment of the linked problems of snobbery and money.” While I love Heyer’s comedies, I did love how this book reminded of the best of Austen, down to the Bath setting. This novel was written by Heyer in 1954 and Hodge also states that “This book is a watershed one. Before it, Georgette Heyer had sometimes played at turning the romantic conventions upside down; now she is beginning to look through them, and into the human heart.”

Overall, I love Bath Tangle. It is a wonderful romantic tale that will keep you guessing about how the relationships will become untangled by the stories ends. The characters were first-rate. If you have read all of Austen and are looking for something new to read in the same vein, I highly recommend Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer.

This is my nineteenth novel for The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2011.

Book Source: Review Copy from Sourcebooks. Thank-you!

The Private World of Georgette Heyer by Jane Aiken Hodge

Georgette Heyer was one of the most popular and prolific writers of the twentieth century. A native of England, Heyer established herself as a premier author of historical fiction and detective novels. She ultimately excelled at writing in one time period, the regency era, and her brand of “regency romance” spawned many imitators that couldn’t capture the magic and witty dialogue of the original novels.

I discovered Georgette Heyer’s novels about four years ago and was very excited. Her novels reminded me of Jane Austen’s and I soon discovered that each novel I picked up seemed to be even better than the previous novels. I became curious about Georgette Heyer herself. She was an extremely private person and not much information is known about her. I jumped at a chance to read and review a biography of one of my favorite authors.

The biography, The Private World of Georgette Heyer, was first published in 1984 by author and fan Jane Aiken Hodge. This was just 10 short years after Heyer’s death, which allowed Hodge to be able to interview surviving family and friends for her biography, as well as to review and include letters from the ultra private Heyer herself. Heyer first became a published author at the age of nineteen.

Heyer famously deflected any attention while she was alive and soon had an alias when she married Ronald Rougier. She did not consent to interviews, meeting fans, or any sort of press. This would make it rather difficult to construct a biography, but Hodge achieves it by looking through Heyer’s publications. Georgette Heyer had said that you could find her by looking through her works, and indeed you can. Hodge makes a good illustration of what was going on in Heyer’s life when she wrote each of her novels.

Georgette Heyer started with historical fiction, but also wrote some contemporary novels and mysteries at the beginning of the career. I was intrigued by the summaries of the contemporary novels that were later suppressed. I would LOVE to read them. I hope they will be released one of these days. Heyer dedicated herself to meticulous research and became the expert on all things Regency. She found her most success with her regency romantic novels, and took it upon herself to make sure all facts found within them were accurate. She also seemed to enjoy finding colloquial phrases for her characters to use. Reading about her dedication for accuracy in these phrases made me appreciate them in her novels much more than I had previously. I was amazed reading about her research library in her home and wish I could have seen it for myself.

Heyer battled with plagiarist and tax collectors for most of her life. It really made me angry that authors so blatantly stole her works, but she wasn’t able to do anything about it as it would cause too much publicity.

The Private World of Georgette Heyer is a book I want to reread and keep by my side for reference as I continue to read Heyer’s works. I really enjoy the illustrations throughout the text which showed many of the sources that Heyer used for illustrations of period garb, carriages, etc.

Book Source: Advance Review Copy from Sourcebooks. Thank-you!

"Flight" - The Steinbeck Classics Circuit Tour

I am honored to be a part of the The Classics Circuit Tour on literary master, John Steinbeck. I have read and enjoyed several of his novels including East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, and The Red Pony. I must admit that I had a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with The Grapes of Wrath in high school. I really need to reread it again now that I'm older .. . but I just can't quite convince myself!

I enjoyed Steinbeck's story "Flight" in high school, college, and in several short story collections I've read since then. In order to prepare myself for this tour, I reread the story and also looked for my review that I typed up for my American Literature class in at Michigan Technological University back in 1999. I loved American Lit as we had an awesome professor. As part of the class, you had to write a brief summary of each story/poem/book that we read in class. I enjoyed doing it and it was part of the reason I wanted to start my blog many years later. I enjoyed my impressions from 1999 and decided that my retro review would be interesting to post . . .

Flight Review from 1999
Steinbeck was a writer that carried on the naturalistic tradition from the previous century. In other words, he wrote about how a person’s life is shaped by the world in which they live in, that there is nothing that one can do to stop events from occuring, and that nature is indifferent. I believe that these are all characteristics in Steinbeck’s story, “Flight,” and in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath.

Even the beginning of Steinbeck’s story, “Flight” seemed reminiscent of earlier naturalist authors such as Ambrose Bierce and Stephan Crane in that in each of their stories, they start by setting up a scene with complete and vivid description. I really like this as it allow the reader to understand what naturalistic environment the main character is coming from. In “Flight,” the beginning scenery sets up the fact that Pepe`, the main character has come from a poor, and harsh environment.

This story seemed to be a story of Pepe`’s journey from boyhood to manhood, which is facilitated by a cold and indifferent world. At the beginning of the story, Pepe` is cheerful and good-natured boy with a knife as his only valuable possession. After a dispute, he kills a man who was making fun of him, and in running of his life, he becomes a cold and serious man. In the harsh environment of the mountains to which he tries to escape in, it is easy to see that nature has no sympathy for him, a rattlesnake tries to bite him, and a mountain lion watches him as though Pepe` might make a nice snack. Also, the men who are chasing him seem to have no sympathy to Pepe` as a human being, they never try to offer him an alternative rather than death.

I liked this story with its stark naturalistic description and story line. I also like how Steinbeck ended it with Pepe` standing up bravely against the forces that were out to get him. This seemed to complete Pepe`’s transition to manhood.

Thoughts from 2011
I agree with my previous review of Flight. As I read the story this time around, I was struck by the many start contrasts that Steinbeck has written into the description in this story. Everything is white and black visually, but the story itself is a shade of grey. True Pepe' did kill a man in anger after being provoked, but did he deserve to then be brutally killed himself?

As a mother, I thought about Pepe's mother and how she said he was now a man after killing another and how she helped him go on the run. I wonder if I would saddle one of my sons up after such a crime knowing that they would not get a fair shot in the justice system . . . . and maybe I've just answered my own question!

I also thought this story was very similar to the Johnny Cash song, "Don't Take Your Guns to Town, " although Pepe' had a knife rather than a gun. It could be Pepe's theme song.

I think overall, "Flight" is a riveting story that truly represents Steinbeck's style artistically and also on a social justice front.

Have you read "Flight?" What are your thoughts?

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (audio)

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick was one of my top ten reads of 2010. It was chosen by one of my fellow FLICKS book club members for our August book. I decided to listen to an audiobook version for a different take on the novel. For a review of the novel as well as a more in depth look at the plot of A Reliable Wife, check out my original review of the novel.

A Reliable Wife adapted well for an audiobook. It was narrated by Mark Feuerstein, who has one of those voices that I can’t stop listening to. He did a superb job. I loved listening to his reading of the description and narrative and he did unique voices for the difference characters as well.

One negative of this audiobook that I luckily had read it before and knew that it was a very sensual novel, or aka something I couldn’t listen to while doing dishes or driving the kids around. As I listened to it this time I thought, wow Ralph Truitt sure thinks about sex A LOT. A buttoned up Victorian age tale, A Reliable Wife is not.

I loved the stark description in the novel; it was almost hypnotic to listen to. The book did not give a good picture of Wisconites; there are a lot of people that go crazy from the long winters as well as a lot of hidden lust. But even today if you scratch the surface of any little Midwestern town, you may find more truth to this than one would think.

I loved this novel again and was riveted by the tale. I couldn’t remember the exact details of how it ended so I listened to it in breathless anticipation to know how it all ended. My only annoyance was how Ralph Truitt sends to Chicago ALL OF THE TIME for items such as silk for the wedding dress roses, candy, to visit “ladies of the night,” etc. If the novel takes place in roughly the Ashland area as it seems from the description, it would have been closer to take a train to Duluth, Minneapolis, or heck Milwaukee (which you have to go through on the train to get to Chicago). Some items such as this seemed off, but would probably only annoy someone like me that lives in Wisconsin.

My book club had a mixed reaction to A Reliable Wife. While some loved the anti-heroine Catherine Land and the unique plot, others did not like that it wasn’t a happy novel.

I loved the novel and I think that this was a brilliant audiobook version of A Reliable Wife. I think it would make an excellent movie (although it will have shades of the movie Original Sin that starred Antonio Bandaras and Angelina Jolie). I’ve heard rumors that a movie is in production, does anyone know anything further?

This is my eighth item for the Audiobook Challenge and eighteenth item for the Historical Fiction Challenge.

Book Source: The Kewaunee Public Library

Winner of Remember Me by Cheryl Robinson

Patricia of It's Time to Read Mamaw is the lucky winner of Remember Me by Cheryl Robinson. Patricia was chosen using random.org and has been notified via email. She has one week to respond with her mailing address or a new winner will be chosen. Congrats to Patricia!

Thank-you to Cheryl Robinson for the great interview (and great book about friendship) and thank-you to Penguin Group for offering the book as a giveaway. Thank-you to TLC Tours for letting me be a part of the tour and most of all thank-you to all who entered the giveaway and spread the word about this book.

There is still one current giveaway posted on my right sidebar.

Interview with Cheryl Robinson, author of Remember Me

I recently read a great new novel about the changing tides of friendship with vivid and intriguing characters, Remember Me by Cheryl Robinson. I am more than a little honored that Cheryl Robinson agreed to be interviewed on my blog!

Read ahead for a interesting and wonderful interview.

Today is the last day to also enter a giveaway of one copy of Remember Me. For a chance to win, leave a comment on my review of Remember Me. For an extra chance to win, leave a comment on this interview along with your email address. Good luck!

LAG: Have you ever had a friendship like Mia and Danielle’s (best friends and then estrangement)?

CR: For my first two years of college, I went to an out-of-state university, and it was a slightly intimidating experience, especially my first year. During that time, I befriended a young lady who was from the area. She lived in my dorm on the same floor as I did, and we quickly became best friends. But toward the end of my freshman year, our friendship ended abruptly. There was nothing that either one of us had done to the other. It was just over, and I didn’t completely understand why. I had an idea, but I was confused as to why what I thought it may have been would affect our friendship. In retrospect, however, I realize that she’d been going through some things that year that were extremely difficult for her. And when I found out exactly what she was dealing with, I guess she may have been embarrassed. I just know that I think about her a lot. She was a lot of fun to be around, very smart, and she had such a kind spirit. I hope she’s doing well. I find estranged friendship interesting. I imagine most people have had a close friend that they’ve lost touch with or grown apart from. In the book, there was a particular reason for the estrangement, but often it’s just due to time apart and/or distance.

LAG: I love Mia and her vibrant personality. Was she based on anyone you know?

CR: Her high school experiences were based on my sister’s high school experiences. Most of the issues in the book that Mia dealt with at Our Lady of Glory in the seventies, my sister also dealt with at Our Lady of Mercy during that same time period. For example, the racist math teacher changing her test actually happened to my sister, and the teacher was eventually fired. Being pushed into the pool by the swim teacher who was frustrated at Mia for being so fearful of the water happened to my sister also. And then some of Mia’s college experiences also happened to my sister. (Side note from LAG - that is terrible!!!)

The adult Mia is completely fictional. She’s how I imagined Mia would grow up and behave, especially since the issue of social class weighed so heavily on her mind. She never felt good enough, because her friends’ parents had professional positions and money, and her parents were in the lower income bracket and worked blue collar jobs. Every child brought up that way wouldn’t necessarily feel the same way Mia did, especially since Mia’s parents made sacrifices to provide her with such a good education, but Mia longed for material things as well.

LAG: I really enjoyed your Detroit setting for the novel. I see that you live in Florida now (like Danielle). Do you often revisit Detroit? Are the restaurants you describe real? I admit I got hungry while reading this book and wanted to try them out!

CR: I haven’t been back to Detroit since 2008. I don’t really like to fly. My sister still lives in Detroit and so does one of my best friends, so I stay connected in that way. Yes, the restaurants mentioned in the book are real. I laughed when you mentioned getting hungry while reading my book, because I could relate. I got hungry while reading The Help. A caramel cake was referenced so much that I stopped reading and went online and searched for a bakery and ordered one. Ironically, I found the same bakery that supplied the cake to the movie set for The Help. It’s also the bakery I’m ordering the Red Velvet cake from for the book club giveaway that’s being sponsored by TLC Book Tours in September. So, if any of your readers are also a member of a book club, they should enter the contest.

LAG: I really enjoyed reading about “The Sophisticated Readers of Oakland County” book club. Is this a real club or based on a real book club? I’ve never been in a book club that large . . . or that sophisticated! Do you visit book clubs yourself?

CR: The Sophisticated Readers of Oakland County isn’t a real book club, and it’s not based on a real one either. But I do know of book clubs that are that large and even larger. Many book clubs these days have Web sites and sponsor annual literary events as a way for readers to meet authors, so I did keep those book clubs in mind when framing my fictional book club. I definitely visit book clubs, and I do a lot of teleconferencing with book clubs as well. I have a link on my Web site that book club members can use if they’ve selected one of my novels for their monthly read and would like to invite me to their monthly meeting.

LAG: Does it bother you that Publishers Weekly describes your work as “urban fiction?” Do you think literature featuring African American characters is unfairly segregated into categories such as “urban fiction” rather than just described as literature or “women’s fiction?” “Women’s fiction” itself as a category has also come under fire over the past few years. Do you have any thoughts on this?

CR: Literature featuring black characters is only segregated into “urban fiction” when the author is also black. The Help is not classified as “urban fiction” and two of the three main characters are black, nor is The Secret Life of Bees classified that way, and those are just two examples but there have been more. I don’t write “urban fiction.” The term “urban fiction” seems more fitting for authors who write a genre of fiction referred to as “street lit,” where the tone is often dark and focuses on drug dealing or some other form of the underworld, and profanity, sex, and violence are used to make the material feel more authentic. Unfortunately, a lot of black authors have been classified as urban authors when we’re not. And our books have been classified as “urban fiction” when they’re not. I’d prefer for my books to be classified as contemporary literature or just literature. As for Publishers Weekly, I would imagine they’re printing the author’s information that’s been supplied to them by the publisher.

As for the issue of “women’s fiction” I’m not sure which issue you’re referring to. I’m assuming it may be the one about the New York Times in which certain high profile women’s fiction authors stated that the New York Times prefers reviewing books written by male authors. If that’s the issue, I haven’t really thought about it as deeply as I’ve thought about the “urban fiction” issue. Being reviewed in the New York Times would be wonderful, especially if I was fortunate enough to receive a positive review, because my book would receive more attention, which would probably lead to a larger number of readers as well as a more diverse group of readers, and that’s been a goal of mine for a long time. But for me, I think I focus more on how my books are being promoted in general, starting with the book cover. The book cover I have for Remember Me was the first of my book covers that I really liked and felt was pretty. But honestly, I gravitate more toward books that don’t have people on the cover at all. If they show people, I don’t want to see their faces, because for me that’s all part of the illusion of the story by imagining what the main characters look like.

I really want books written by black authors to have just as wide of an audience and appeal as any other book. A great article on this very subject was written by Bernice McFadden. Here is the link for anyone interested in reading further. http://www.theroot.com/views/african-american-writers-marginalized-publishing-industry-practices .

LAG: What are you currently working on? I’d like to read more of your novels!

CR: I’ve written a total of seven novels so far; six have been published by Penguin/NAL Trade. When I Get Where I’m Going was released in 2010, and it centers around three estranged sisters. The story is primarily set in Detroit as well. Sweet Georgia Brown is another one of my novels about a humble housewife determined to become a household name. Georgia starts competing on the radio for ratings against her radio host husband. I’m also currently working on a new book that I’m so excited about. I’m always excited about a new storyline and new characters, but this one is very special to me for a few reasons; the first being that it’s a return to writing in first person. I haven’t written in first person since my second novel was published in 2005. Also, my next book is set in the Dallas/Fort Worth area instead of Detroit, and in a strange way, I feel like I’m relocating. I lived in the DFW area for four years and still have many friends there so it feels like home. I’m hoping that readers will find the characters in my next novel fun, quirky, honest, and real.

LAG: What are some of your favorite authors/books?

CR: I would like to say there are way too many to name, because I do feel like there are way too many for me to name. But I will name a few. Though I’ve never met her personally, Terry McMillan was an inspiration to me before I started writing and still continues to be. I also regularly read books written by Electa Rome Parks, Jennifer Weiner, Jodi Picoult, Harlan Coben, Connie Briscoe, and Kimberla Lawson Roby.

As for favorite books, there have been so many book that I’ve enjoyed. I read a lot on my Kindle. I loved The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips so far it’s been the only book she’s written. I keep checking to see if she’s releasing another novel any time soon. When I read The Last Child by John Hart, I couldn’t stop reading until I finished. I just had to know what was going to happen next. I also thoroughly enjoyed The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and the success she’s receiving from her first book is very admirable to say the least. Can you imagine having your first book become such a success? That’s what happened to my character, Danielle. It’s funny because I was given The Help as a gift in 2009, but I didn’t get around to reading it until a couple months ago, and the only reason I started reading it then was because I didn’t want to see the movie before I read the book. But as I was reading the book I kept wondering what took me so long to start reading it in the first place, because that’s how much I enjoyed it.

Laura, I wanted to thank you for reviewing my latest novel, Remember Me, and for extending yet another opportunity to meet the readers of your blog through this interview. Both have truly meant a lot.

LAG: Thank-you Cheryl! I throughly enjoyed Remember Me and am more than happy to spread the word about what a great book it is. I look forward to reading more of your books in the future! Thank-you for your thoughtful answers to my questions, you've given me more than one item to think about!