​
​Louise Penny does not need book tours. Her top-sellers generate buzz and massive sales months before release.  But she loves touring and meeting people she tells the packed audience waiting for her in the McKimmon Conference Center on a hot summer evening. 
​

Penny dreamed of being a famous author with book tours, private jets, and Oprah as her BFF, but it was a hard road to get there. 
 
After finishing her first Inspector Gamache book in 2005, Still Life, at age 45, she called her publisher to ask about her book tour.  “Who is this?” the publisher first wanted to know.

Penny was afraid of many things as a child: spiders, holes, night and more.  She preferred to be alone in her bedroom with a book.  (Her husband dubbed her a horizontalist.)  
 
The writing bug hit when 8-year-old Penny read Charlotte’s Web and fell in love with the spider, a creature that once terrified her.  Her ah-ha moment came as she realized books had the power to change lives, and Louise Penny wanted to be a storyteller with that kind of power.

But new anxieties took hold as an adult.  Afraid of failing as a novelist, her career took a side route in journalism and writing for the CBC.  After burning out covering Quebec's bitter  separatist debate, her husband suggested she quit work to write novels. ​

3. It Takes A Village

First, Penny moved south of Montreal to a small Canadian village that morphed into the inspiration for Three Pines, the quirky village setting of her novels.  “People visit there and know I have no imagination,” she laughed.  

Next, Penny met monthly at the village bistro with Les Girls, a group of creative women who shared their processes and struggles.  

The author discovered that writing was a process.  It was not just sitting down and immediately getting  “everything right and perfect the first time.”  
 
She also saw that her friends' huge successes and failures that did not kill them. What happened, good or bad, did not define them. 

4. Write What You Love

The final push to overcome writer's block came as she noticed stacks of crime fiction on her bedside table. Voila! She had her niche.  

Penny never expected to be published, so she wrote her first novel just for herself.  Something she'd love to read and have flat out fun writing.  She filled her tale with people and places she enjoyed.  Modeled her Inspector Gamache protagonist after someone she’d want to marry. 
 
It was just after the 911 terrorist attacks when Penny sketched a map of Three Pines, complete with its bookstore, bistro and bakery her readers adore. The world might feel vulnerable and unsafe after 911 “but in Three Pines, you are not alone,” Penny reminds us.   

5. Be OK with "Soft and Smelly"
​ ​

Her first book, Still Life, was magic, but the publisher wanted another in a year.  Penny panicked and feared more writing blocks.  She turned to a therapist who told her …. “the wrong person is writing the book.  Your critic is writing the book.  Your creative soul has to be in on first draft.”
 

My Ah-Ha Moment

A PING! goes off in my writer's brain at soft and smelly.  I've been holding my breath and holding on too tight to my WIP, a women's fiction about the New South and Old South coming together (or not!) in a growing southern town. No wonder those grace notes and surprises are hiding!

Your Turn
What's your experience attending book tours as a writer or reader?  Do you find inspiration? Excitement meeting authors, mingling with other readers?  What do you think of the 'soft and smelly' approach for the first time you try anything new?  Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Ah, summertime, and my book stack is full of guilty pleasures to devour on audio or tablet.  I don't look for heavy or depressing.  Light and happy, please.  A touch of romance.  Well-written oozing with juicy characters.  And the baddie?  Just base enough for a rousing "Boo-Hiss!" and no flinging death across the universe.

I just finished four such books all published within the 12 months or so. Coincidentally, each is written by a woman.  More coincidence, all are penned in first person point-of-view and alternate chapters  between main characters, like a he/she ping-pong match.
​

Kiss Quotient is quite frisky.  
Something in the Water is dark and twisty,  
The Flatshare is fun quirky.
One Day in December is a feel-good you won’t want to end.  ​

​
​Read on to find the publisher's summary of each
and my spoiler-free reasons 
why this quartet tops
​ my summer reading stack.
​

Kiss Quotient, by Helen Hoag
352 pages, Berkley

Why I like it
​
Caveat: I turned up the air conditioning, blushed, and was glad no one overheard the audio  as I listened to this book in the car.  I was okay with the content, but some might think Kiss Quotient is, well, too much kissing and not enough quotient. Beyond-bodice-ripping passages alert!  
  
However, I adore Stella, the MC!  She's portrayed brilliantly as a high-functioning Aspie through the lens of author  Helen Hoang, who is also on the Spectrum.  Stella’s perplexities over social situations ring true to the Aspies I supported as their college writing coach. 
 
Minor characters shine in her orbit with smart dialogue.  Some understand Stella.  Others try. A few disrespect her. Best, the male protagonist, the extremely hot Michael Phan, learns from Stella’s goodness and honesty to grow in his own right.  
 
There are a few #MeToo moments in Stella’s work place that crushed me, and I hoped the MC would’ve handled the situations differently. In retrospect, I believe the scenarios were true to the way an Aspie would react.
 
I give Kiss Quotient a Catly thumps up for its #inourownvoice character portrayal and the stamina the narrator had for performing so many blush-worthy scenes in the audiobook.

​
​One Day in December, by Josie Silver
416 pages, Broadway Books

​
Why I like it
​
Don't be fooled by this winter-sounding title. Even at the beach in July, One Day in December is a perfect feel-good summertime tale....especially the audiobook that's alternately narrated by Poldark's Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) as Laurie and Charlie Anson performing as Jack.  Yum! Their story spans several years, with detours and obstacles that keep them apart and make you want to scream.
 
I adore the sub-plot highlighting strong bonds between Laurie and her BFF, Sarah, who initially falls hard for Jack before Laurie can find him after glimpsing him afar from a bus. Every woman longs for a friendship like Laurie's and Sarah's that stands the tests of time ... and boyfriends!
 
Light. Breezy. Witty. Well-written. Makes the heart smile.  Even though you won’t want the book to end, you’ll cross your fingers for Jack and Laurie until the very last page.
​

Something in the Water, by Catherine Steadman
352 pages, Ballantine Books
A Reese’s Book Club, Hello Sunshine book pick
​

Why I like it

The darkest of my summertime picks, Catherine Steadman's voice literally shines throughout this debut novel, a zinger of a psychological thriller.  
 
Yep.  Wary at first because Steadman also narrates this book, BUT what's not to love about an audiobook read and written by Lady Mable Lane Fox of Downtown Abbey, aka Catherine Steadman? Crackling good writer, actor, and narrator!
 
The book grabs you with its opening chapter. No spoiler here. Readers know up front that Erin, the female protagonist, is frantically burying her husband under cover of night. Yikes! Cue the chill bumps. Erin's anxiety jumps off the page as she tackles her gruesome task, and you'll feel it alongside her, too.
 
Here's the mystery: you don't know WHY or HOW Erin gets to this point. Erin doesn't tell you. Steadman subsequently drops clues like break crumbs with a backward telling of what leads up to this event. 
 
From its claustrophobic ocean dive descending to 20 meters in the South Pacific to an explosive ending, the tale kept my earbuds buzzing. Is that final chapter a complete resolution? It's satisfying, but methinks Steadman is leading to a follow up novel. Or at least I hope so. 

The Flatshare,by Beth O’Leary
400 pages, Quercus
​

​Why I like it

FlatShare hits all my sweet spots. You root for Tiff and Leon because of their quirks and vulnerabilities. Minor characters in their circle sparkle, too, like the eccentric author of Crochet Your Way, who insists on having Tiff as her crochet model.  You'll want Tiff’s awesome BFFs and Leon’s brother on your team, trust me! 
 
Big fan here of plot devices that develop the MCs slow-moving relationship. Tiff and Leon scribble Post-it notes to each other!  Super-cute messages become longer and more personal, eventually covering every surface in their shared space. You’re reading those Post-its as Tiff and Leon reveal themselves, and you’ll root for them on their bumpy road to self-awareness and growth. 

Scripted like a screenplay written in present tense, Leon’s chapters intrigue me.  They're like enhanced stage directions in a stream of consciousness without any “said” dialogue tags, as in this excerpt when Leo phones his mother as his night shift ends to deliver bad news:

Mam: Shall I call Sal? ****
Leon: No, no.  I’m dealing with it.
Long miserable silence.  We wallow in it.
Mam, with effort: Sorry, sweetheart, how are you?
 
Return home afterward to find pleasant surprise: home-baked oat bars on sideboard….I see the note beside the tray.
​
Help yourself!  
Hope you have a good day/night.
​Tiffyxx

An excellent development. Will definitely endure high levels of clutter…and 350 pounds per month AND free food.
****Excerpt from The Flatshare, by Beth O'Leary 

While Flatshare is a feel-good tale, it’s also laced with heavier themes. Leon’s nights with his hospice patients both uplift and sadden. No spoilers, but O’Leary sprinkles wrongful imprisonment and emotional abuse into the mix.  She makes you think but never brings you down.  
 
And that’s the essence of my perfect summer read.

Your Turn
Thanks learning about my beach read faves.  Have you read any of my quartet?  Any interest you (it's okay if not!)?  What's on your TBR stack this summer?  Please share in the comment section.  Always looking for the next great book here. 

btw....I'm on Goodreads.  You?  Would love to connect with you there and share more bookishness -:D.