Guess what book Good Housekeeping has included in the “Summer Reads” section of its June 2016 issue? Yes, The Rules of Love & Grammar. Calling it a nostalgic romance, the review says, “You’ll laugh and even tear up.”
Well, maybe not.
Yes, it’s James Patterson. The other day I had breakfast at a local eatery with Jim’s wife, Sue, and Kristy, another friend of ours. After we had a long chat, catching up on life in general, Jim came in and joined us. Kristy presented him with these “You Don’t Know Me” sunglasses, which she had seen at an airport and thought would be perfect for him. Jim, who has a great sense of humor, immediately put them on and I took this picture.
Grace Hammond, the main character in my new novel, happens to love ice cream. (Don’t we all?) My publisher in Germany, part of Random House, held a huge promotion for my book, in conjunction with 82 ice cream parlors in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg and five other cities. The ice cream parlors sold their ice cream in paper cups with the Sommer der Sternschnuppen (Summer of Shooting Stars) book cover motif on them and gave our free excerpts of the book.
Well, my second novel, The Rules of Love & Grammar, just came out this Monday in Germany (the title there is Der Sommer der Sternschnuppen or The Summer of Shooting Stars) and I’m VERY excited to report that by Wednesday it was number 25 on their paperback bestseller list. On May 31 the book will be published in the U.S. and I’m really looking forward to that.
The book has been out of my hands for weeks now, while my publishers in the U.S. and Germany have been doing what they do to get it ready to send it out into the world. It’s kind of like going through an “empty nest” syndrome for me, similar to how people feel when their kids go off to college. So I’ve been thinking about my third novel.
Because a bicycle plays an important role in my new novel, I’m always keeping an eye out for cool looking bikes, and this is definitely one. The Brazilian Court Hotel, here in Palm Beach, is offering these Lilly Pulitzer-inspired Martone bicycles to guests, as part of a special package or to rent separately. What a great way to pedal around the island!
Photo: Brazilian Court Hotel
Apples feature fairly prominently in The Rules of Love & Grammar. There’s an apple orchard in the town of Dorset, where the story takes place, and all of the local restaurants try to outdo one another with their own versions of apple pie.
When I was growing up in Connecticut, we had a couple of old apple trees in our back yard. The apples that came from those trees were tiny, green, and extremely tart. Against what seemed to be all odds, my mother somehow turned those apples into pies. She would scoop them up from the ground and pluck them from the branches. I have no idea how many apples she had to collect to make one pie, but I’m sure she needed a lot. When the pies baked, the fragrance of apples and cinnamon that filled the kitchen was heavenly.
Der Sommer der Sternschnuppen or The Summer of Shooting Stars, the German translation of The Rules of Love & Grammar, will be on sale April 18. It can be pre-ordered now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound. It has an earlier publication date than the English version (which is coming out May 31), so if you can read German you’ll get a jump on everybody else. My publisher in Germany, Blanvalet, did a wonderful job on the cover. I just love it.
Yes, here I am, proudly displaying my author badge at the entrance to the Miami Book Fair, which is an amazing annual event. Mitch Kaplan, who started the fair and runs it every year, is a true book lover if there ever was one. He also owns Books & Books in Coral Gables, Miami Beach, and other locations. The store in Coral Gables has nine thousand square feet, with endless rooms of books, a café, and a restaurant in an open air courtyard, all in a gorgeous, historic Mediterranean building. If you’re in the Miami area, don’t miss it.
My book is number 1 on Germany’s mass market best-seller list! I’m pinching myself to make sure this is real, but I know it is because my editor there, Eva Schubert, has been tracking the book’s progress ever since it hit Germany’s best seller list, at number 44, in April.
Here is part of the message Eva emailed to me this morning:
“Dear Mary,
This is a very special moment for me: I’m about to
give you the best news an author could possibly receive from her editor:
YOU’RE NUMBER ONE IN GERMANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Move over John Green, Elizabeth George and many, many more ….”
I love this photo of Eva (right) with Nicola Bartels, Publisher, and a “Number 1” blueberry pie.
When I was a child and I found myself in a museum, I’d start fantasizing about walking into the paintings, as the characters in Mary Poppins did when they jumped into the sidewalk art that Bert, the Chimney Sweep, created. I didn’t want to be with dancing penguins and galloping carousel horses, though. I wanted to walk beside the purple irises in Monet’s garden at Giverny or climb the red mountain peaks Paul Gauguin painted in his Tahitian landscapes.
Maybe this wish to immerse myself in a painting is what led me to fall in love with writing and photography, because the act of writing about or photographing something does, in a way, let you walk into a picture – you’re capturing that scene on your own terms.
Photography is only a hobby for me, but it’s a serious one. Since the age of six, I’ve had one camera or another in my hands, from the simplest of Kodaks to the string of Nikons that’s carried me through my adult