An Interview between Nancy Thayer and Samantha Wilde!!

First, Happy book birthday to Nancy on Island Girls!!!!  Everyone get out and get a copy quick, I know I will!!!  Second, Holy Cow, I am a bit excited today having the the amazing talents of the mother/daughter writers power house here today!  They have so kindly written an amazing interview between the two of them!  Enjoy!  

Thanks Nancy and Samantha for being here today!!!!  

“Nancy Thayer is one of my favorite writers, and Island Girlsis one of her best. The Randall sisters are like your own family members or your best friends: funny, smart and emotional, infuriating and good-hearted. Here is a book to be savored and passed on to the good women in your life.”—New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs

New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer returns to her beloved Nantucket in a highly emotional, wholly entertaining tale of three sisters forced to confront the past over one event-filled summer on the island.
 
Charming ladies’ man Rory Randall dies with one last trick up his sleeve: His will includes a calculating clause mandating a summer-long reunion for his daughters, all from different marriages—that is, if they hope to inherit his posh Nantucket house. Relations among the three sisters are sour thanks to long-festering jealousies, resentments, and misunderstandings. Arden, a successful television host in Boston, hasn’t been back to the island since her teenage years, when accusations of serious misbehavior led to her banishment. College professor Meg hopes to use her summer to finish a literary biography and avoid an amorous colleague. And secretive Jenny, an IT specialist, faces troubling questions about her identity while longing for her sisters’ acceptance.
 
To their surprise, the three young women find their newfound sisterhood easier to trust than the men who show up to complicate their lives. And if that weren’t problematic enough, their mothers descend on the island. When yet another visitor drops by the house with shocking news, the past comes screaming back with a vengeance. Having all the women from his life under his seaside roof—and overseeing the subsequent drama of that perfect storm—Rory Randall might just be enjoying a hearty laugh from above.
 
Nancy Thayer’s novel insightfully illustrates how the push and pull of family altercations make us whole. It’s how the Randall sisters come to forgive, and learn to open their hearts to love.

Nancy Thayer is the author of twenty-three novels, including Summer House, The Hot Flash Club, Beachcombers, Heat Wave, Summer Breeze, and Island Girls, due out June 2013.

Her books concern the mysteries and romance of families and relationships: marriage and friendships, divorce and love, custody and step parenting, family secrets and private self-affirmation, the quest for independence and the normal human hunger for personal connections.

Nancy Thayer’s work has been translated into many languages, including German, Finnish, Hebrew, Russian, Turkish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Serbo-Croatian, Swedish, Danish, and Polish. Her novels have been condensed or excerpted in several literary reviews and magazines, including Redbook and Good Housekeeping, England’s Cosmopolitan, Holland’s Viva, and South Africa’s Personality.

Nancy Thayer has a B.A. and M.A. in English literature from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. She was a Fellow at the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference. She has lived on Nantucket Island year-round for twenty-eight years with her husband Charley Walters. Her daughter is the novelist Samantha Wilde.

Perfect for fans of Marisa de los Santos and Allison Winn Scotch, Samantha Wilde’s new novel is a funny and heartfelt look at friendship, marriage, and the dynamics of modern motherhood.
 
Nora and Annie have been best friends since kindergarten. Nora, a shy English teacher at a quaint New England boarding school, longs to have a baby. Annie, an outspoken stay-at-home mother of two, longs for one day of peace and quiet (not to mention more money and some free time). Despite their very different lives, nothing can come between them—until Cynthia Cypress arrives on campus.
 
Cynthia has it all: brains, beauty, impeccable style, and a gorgeous husband (who happens to be Nora’s ex). When Cynthia eagerly befriends Nora, Annie’s oldest friendship is tested. Now, each woman must wrestle the green-eyed demon of envy and, in the process, confront imperfect, mixed-up family histories they don’t want to repeat. Amid the hilarious and harried straits of friendship, marriage, and parenthood, the women may discover that the greenest grass is right beneath their feet.

I wrote This Little Mommy Stayed Home, my first novel, while resting in bed with a laptop and a bag of chocolates while my infant son napped. Of course I didn't start writing until he slept through the night because before that, I couldn't think, let alone write. What began as an act of total desperation for reconnection to my creative life turned into a two book contract with Random House. My second novel, I'LL TAKE WHAT SHE HAS,came in fits and starts between the babyhood of my second child and the birth of my third. 

Born in Northampton, Mass and raised in Williamstown and Nantucket, Mass I attended Concord Academy (I'LL TAKE WHAT SHE HAS is set at a suburban Boston boarding school), a school much beloved to me, Smith College (with a brief stint at Wellesley College), Yale Divinity School, The New Seminary, and the Kripalu School of Yoga. Before full-time motherhood, and part-time novel writing, I taught yoga full-time and worked as a minister. I am the daughter of novelist Nancy Thayer whose shoes I can only dream to fill!

What I love above all else—next to God and chocolate—are my children
I’m passionate about mothering, despite its tedious moments, and love to connect with other mothers, as well as non-mothers. I like those people too! My children, 6, 4.5, and 2, are my teachers of patience, love, creativity, endurance, self-preservation, and joy. Though I wear many hats still, as a yoga teacher and a minister and a writer, none is more dear to me or closer to my heart than mothering.

I live with my husband, a professor of chemical engineering in Western Massachussets. We are both lovers of family and feel very blessed to have our own. I use nap times (when they happen) to work on my third novel, and often find myself typing away after bedtime.

My interests and influences are as varied and eclectic(and disparate!) as the Duggars (that enormous family of 19), Unity School of Christianity, fun women’s fiction, Kripalu yoga retreats, Bo Lozoff, Oprah, growing my own veggies, Byron Katie, Joyce Meyer, baking with my children, reading books on gentle parenting, study of world religions, playing the harmonium and chanting, practicing yoga, eating chocolate, praying, laughing, to the very simple, most wonderful times of being with friends and family. I read almost anything, and when I’m not too tired, I love to think!

An Interview between Nancy Thayer and Samantha Wilde!

SW: Mom, your 23^rd novel, Island Girls, releases today. Whenever I ask you about your favorite book, you say it’s the one you’re working on at the time. Well, I don’t believe it! If you really look back at your career, all the books you’ve published, doesn’t one speak to you or represent you better than the others? Isn’t one of them your “heart book?”

NT: Excellent question, Sam.  I had to stop and think about it, and honestly, they are all my “heart books.”  My heart and soul are in all my books in different ways, because they are all about family and friends, and family and friends are the center of my heart.

SW: We’ve both written recent books about friendship. In your opinion, what makes a friend?

NT: I think equality, mutual admiration, even a little envy, on both sides, is the key. No pity—although friends help each other through hard times. A similar sense of humor helps. Sometimes you meet a person and a kind of magic happens and you know you’ve met a friend. Sometimes, as in Island Girls, it takes time and a few challenges to build up trust. What do you think makes a friend?

SW: Honesty, presence, humor, forgiveness, and commonality. Not unlike what you need in family! Island Girls is about a mixed-up family—three half-sisters. Which of the characters is most like you? Which is most like me?

NT: Meg, the college instructor, is the most like me.  She’s writing a book about Louisa May Alcott’s younger sister; she’s dreamy, plump, and romantic.  NO ONE is like you in the world, Sam, but if I had to choose, I’d say Arden, who is assertive, sassy, take-charge and gorgeous.  Except, oops, Arden doesn’t want children, so she’s not like you at all!

SW: I’m reading Island Girls right now and I thought I was like Meg! Oh, well. If you could write a novel about anything, not worrying about what might publish or sell well, what would it be?

NT:  I would, and I will someday, write a novel about the death of several young people I loved.  As I write, I begin to understand my own life in ways I can’t comprehend without writing fiction.  Sylvia Plath said: Fiction is a lie that tells the truth. Sam, what would you write about if you didn’t worry about sales?

SW: I’d love to do more non-fiction writing, a spiritual memoir, a book about spirituality and mothering, a book about liberal Christianity. But still funny! I love writing comically. But here’s a serious question: I grew up knowing how much you love writing and hearing the story of being a little girl and wanting to become a writer. Not many people get to fulfill their childhood dreams so completely. Have you ever had a moment or a day when you thought, I wish I’d become something else?

NT:  Not one single day. I wish I had the energy to write all day, but I don’t. I have trouble falling asleep, but when I wake in the morning, I grab my coffee and almost run to my desk.

SW: Somehow, you’ve turned into the Queen of the Beach Read and yet, personally, I’ve never seen you read a book on the beach. How has this happened?

NT:  Ha ha, my darling.  I love walking on the beach, but not sitting in the sand. I like reading curled up in a chair in my own little world. And Beach Reads mean to me a book that is fun, bright, smart, not so serious the reader feels the pain of the world, but intelligent enough that a reader learns something that touches her heart.  What kind of fiction do you believe you write?  Someone once told me—years ago—that I write in the “dirty diaper genre of fiction.”  It was a man who said it, of course.  Have things changed in 30 years?

SW: I’m glad you asked because I am the QUEEN of Dirty Diaper Fiction. I am so happy to write novels about motherhood. Motherhood is where it’s at. Rueful, honest, truthful, entertaining, and full of poop—what more could anyone possibly want? Speaking of queens, what’s your secret fantasy?

NT:  Seriously: I want to live to be 100, writing a book a year, and living about 10 minutes from my grandchildren. I think I know what your fantasy is: 6 children, a farm, and a Laura Ingalls Wilder life.  Or am I wrong?

SW: You’re very close. Lots of children, land, noise, singing, laughter, people, time, wild flowers. I’ll stick with indoor plumbing, though. Laura can keep her outhouse!

Enjoy the Q&A?  Then you should watch this video of the ladies!!!!

Buy the books!!!!

          

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Look at all the great designs!  I got the SPACE CADET for testing purposes and I loved that they went with so many outfits!!  Such an easy an inexpensive way to feel glamorous!!!

BUY YOURS TODAY!!!!

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JKSCommunications Blog Tour: Riding on a Beam of Light by Ramsey Dean

Follow the tour HERE

Available Now!

“It’s perfect for bedtime reading, and one I’m sure kids will ask to have repeated often – and maybe even get inspired by.” -

Albert Einstein famously put emphasis on the power of imagination and so does Riding on a Beam of Light. When Einstein won the Nobel Prize, he credited his own boyhood idea of riding on a beam of light with the spark that led him to his theory of special relativity. In this intricately illustrated storybook, lights-out turns into learning but instead of a history lesson we transcend to see the world from young Albert Einstein’s point of view, with a sense of fascination and adventure reminsicent of Harold from Harold and the Purple Crayon and Max from Where the Wild Things Are. At it’s heart is a story about imagination and dreaming, with gorgeous illustrations that captures our grown-up hearts and our children’s curiosity. Can young minds change the world? Einstein proved it and now Riding on a Beam of Light brings that message to kids in terms they can celebrate on their scooter. So, turn the light on and off, discuss the speed of light, and have your child imagining what young Albert Einstein imagined as a child. This is a book parents can begin enjoying before the kids even understand language (or physics).

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” – Albert Einstein

Visit Amazon to learn more about the story!

About this author

Ramsey Dean is one of the more recognizable names in the music business, where his career has been a lifelong study of teen culture and cool kids. After graduating college and unable to get a job in the literary field, the Alphabet City denizen pursued his other passion, scoring a job at a record label and over the years inadvertently specializing in the music of the moment, working with Metallica, Megadeth, Guns n' Roses, Anthrax, Slayer, Poison, White Zombie, Pantera, Sick of it All, Ignite, Jane's Addiction, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, KMFDM, Marilyn Manson, Snoop Dogg, Lil Jon, Ja Rule, Dashboard Confessional, Taking Back Sunday, Silverstein, Hawthorne Heights, Atreyu, Bayside, Thursday and hundreds and hundreds of other bands along the way.

Rising through the label ranks, his passion for writing only increased, cranking out novels, screenplays, short stories, and sketch comedy, where he graduated to see his work performed on the famed Second City stage in Chicago. As his writing style garnered a following with the music audience, along with many of the artists he worked with and their fans, he finally had the opportunity to release his debut novel.

In The CoolKids: An Emotional Hardcore Odyssey (Or The Pros and Cons of Maintaining Veganity in an Increasingly Carnivorous World) Ramsey takes his rich past and creates a reality based on the timeless commonalities that each generation of would-be revolutionaries possess as well as the special quirks that make each subsequent generation thoroughly original and at the same time hopelessly cliché. If you understand the title of this novel, you'll certainly enjoy what's inside.

Riding on a Beam of Light came out of a conversation I had with my 11-year old son. He’s fascinated with stories of all kinds in books and movies. As long as he could write, he’s been writing down his ideas in many forms. The last couple years, he’s created reams of these ideas, some just notes, others comic books, even some movie scripts.

One day after getting one of these ideas down, he asked me if all these stacks of ideas would amount to anything. I saw it as a time of introspection and growth, his ideas developing with each story. Looking back, he might have been wondering how he came up with such silly ideas.

Silly? They were magic! Reality, as set in, was turning into set of limitations in his storytelling, so I gave him an example of where a young boy’s leaps into imagination led to the Noble Prize. Early on, Albert Einstein had his own fascinations, noticing one of those small things we see every day but don’t give much thought; light, much like faries and magic, move around us all the time - we can’t see it unless we look really close. Young Albert Einstein saw what few others saw, light moving from one place to the next. From the sun to the earth, and from the lamp to his face. And it moved so fast, you couldn’t actually see it, you just had to watch it, and think about it, and put your faith in it, and if you did, you could see something magic that many people never saw before.

Einstein enjoyed this idea so much he kept it with him, imagining what it would be like to move at the speed of light. He’d think of ways he could ride that light beam and it piqued his curiosity in the way our world worked and how he could unlock more of its mysteries. As the boy grew into a man, he became more practical in his application of what came to be known to him as theoretical physics, and made a name for himself by trying to fit the things he’d imagine into terms his colleagues might understand.

It was when the reality of his Theory of Relativity posed a conundrum that he found himself re-visiting his childhood idea. He questioned how his new theory would apply to someone riding on a beam of light, and he came up with the breakthrough idea he called “Special Relativity.” When he wrote about it, everyone else thought it was so special, they gave him a Noble Prize. In accepting the prize, Albert thanked his boyhood self for coming up with the thought that led to the  this career-defining achievement in the grown-up world.

So I explained to my son, if Albert Einstein came up with one of his greatest ideas when he was a kid, what’s sitting in your stack of ideas? It could change the course of your life, or even change the world. I took a lamp and began turning it on and off to show him how a beam of light shoots across the room, and we started doing what we do best, making up a story about a kid who loved to use his imagination. Before we knew it, the idea had turned into a story and the story turned into a book that we called Riding on a Beam of Light!

Highlight: The Hunt for Hitler’s Warship by Patrick Bishop

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2013

Winston Churchill called it "the Beast." It was said to be unsinkable. More than thirty military operations failed to destroy it. Eliminating the Tirpitz, Hitler's mightiest warship, a 52,000-ton behemoth, became an Allied obsession.

In The Hunt for Hitler's Warship, Patrick Bishop tells the epic story of the men who would not rest until the Tirpitz lay at the bottom of the sea. In November of 1944, with the threat to Russian supply lines increasing and Allied forces needing reinforcements in the Pacific, a raid as audacious as any Royal Air Force operation of the war was launched, under the command of one of Britain's greatest but least-known war heroes, Wing Commander Willie Tait.

Patrick Bishop draws on decades of experience as a foreign war correspondent to paint a vivid picture of this historic clash of the Royal Air Force's Davids versus Hitler's Goliath of naval engineering. Readers will not be able to put down this account of one of World War II's most dramatic showdowns.

Patrick Bishop was born in London and went to Wimbledon College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Before joining the Telegraph he worked on the Evening Standard, the Observer and the Sunday Times and in television as a reporter on Channel Four News. He is the author with John Witherow of a history of the Falkands War based on their own experiences and with Eamon Mallie of The Provisional IRA which was praised as the first authoritative account of the modern IRA. He also wrote a memoir the first Gulf War, Famous Victory and a history of the Irish diaspora The Irish Empire, based on the TV series which he devised.

Showcase: Black Venus by James MacManus

Book Description

Release date: May 7, 2013

A vivid novel of Charles Baudelaire and his lover Jeanne Duval, the Haitian cabaret singer who inspired his most famous and controversial poems, set in nineteenth-century Paris.

For readers who have been drawn to The Paris Wife, Black Venus captures the artistic scene in the great French city decades earlier, when the likes of Dumas and Balzac argued literature in the cafes of the Left Bank. Among the bohemians, the young Charles Baudelaire stood out—dressed impeccably thanks to an inheritance that was quickly vanishing. Still at work on the poems that he hoped would make his name, he spent his nights enjoying the alcohol, opium, and women who filled the seedy streets of the city.

One woman would catch his eye—a beautiful Haitian cabaret singer named Jeanne Duval. Their lives would remain forever intertwined thereafter, and their romance would inspire his most infamous poems—leading to the banning of his masterwork, Les Fleurs du Mal, and a scandalous public trial for obscenity. 

James MacManus's Black Venus re-creates the classic Parisian literary world in vivid detail, complete with not just an affecting portrait of the famous poet but also his often misunderstood, much-maligned muse.

James MacManus was born in London in 1943, educated at Westminster School and graduated from St Andrews University in 1966.He broke his Guardian reading parents’ hearts when  he joined the Daily Express in Manchester as a trainee reporter that year. He redeemed himself  when he moved to The Guardian in 1972, working first as a reporter in the London office  and then as a foreign correspondent in France, Africa and the Middle East for twelve years. The bulk of this time was spent in what was then Rhodesia where he was based as the Guardian’s Africa correspondent from 1974-80. In 1985 he joined the Diplomatic staff of the Daily Telegraph in London.

He joined the Times in November 1992 as Assistant Editor (Home) and took over as Managing Editor of The Times in September 1996.

He became Managing Director of The Times Supplements in April 1997, a company that published the Times Educational Supplement, the Times Higher Education Supplement and the Times Literary Supplement (TLS).

Following heart surgery in 2009 James relinquished many of his Corporate Affairs duties to concentrate on speech writing and managing the TLS.

In 2006 after a gestation of almost 20 years a film script  James had written finally made it to the screen under the title The Children of Huang Shi. The film takes place at the height of the Sino-Japanese war in the 1940s and tells the story of 65 Chinese school children who were recued from certain death by George Hogg, a young Englishman who had been caught up in the conflict. To escape the advancing Japanese forces in the bitter winter of 1944 Hogg took the children in a convoy of mule carts  over the highest mountains in China  to Shandan in the remote North West. There he died in 1945 of tetanus aged 30. MacManus heard about Hogg’s brief and heroic life while working in Beijing as a reporter in 1985 and his subsequent news story in a London paper attracted the attention of Hollywood. The film starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and directed by Roger Spottiswoode was released in 2006. James MacManus has also written a book about Hogg’s life called ‘Ocean Devil’ which was published in March 2008.

In 2010 James’s first novel was published by Harper Collins in |London. On the Broken Shore won critical acclaim and is to be published by Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St Martins Press in New York. The book will be re-titled the Language of the Sea. Thomas Dunne is a senior and widely respected publisher in the US and he said of On The Broken Shore: "What an odd, brilliant, shocking, moving, clever, perceptive book."

James MacManus has been married twice and has three children. He is currently separated from his second wife.

Q. What inspires your writing?

A.  The desire to tell a good story in the hope that readers will find the book hard to put down.

Q.  What is your favorite thing about being an author?

A.   Reading through yesterday’s draft pages and realizing that actually those hours of hard work produced words that a reader might really enjoy.

Q.  What is the toughest part of being an author?

A.  Reading through yesterday’s draft pages and realizing  that hours of hard work had  produced words that needed to be rewritten – again.

Q.  If you could not be author, what would you do/be?

A. farmer

Q.  What would the story of your life be entitled?

A. It is never too late

Q.  What is your favorite book of all time?

A. A tough, indeed impossible question. When I was a teenager it was Gone with the Wind; as a young man I loved  Chandler’s The Long Goodbye ;when I was a foreign correspondent in Lebanon I took refuge in Wodehouse and the Jeeves books,;when I was a father of very young children we all loved  the  Beatrix Potter stories. But now I return to the one classic that still captivates me: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.It is a wonderful story in which young Pip grows up to show us how love can redeem the sins of pride and snobbery.

Q.  Which character from ANY book are you most like?

A. There is a bit of Hamlet in us all is there not  ?– uncertain of ourselves, indecisive, questioning the  way forward and then leaping into action –but not always in my case, so far, with the tragic consequences that befell Shakespeare’s hero.

Q.  What character from all of your books are you most like?

A. My characters are based heavily on people I have known and loved or disliked , in fact or fiction, but very definitely not on myself  so I am I hope unlike any of my characters.

Q.  Which book would you love to take a weekend vacation inside of?

A. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote. A romantic comedy set in New York of the 1950s .It was a time when that city was at its dazzling best as indeed was Capote’s witty, frothy writing. I  would have insisted on meeting Audrey Hepburn of course because the book and film have sort of merged in our cultural consciousness

Q.  What is your favorite season?

A. Fall: Bright  russet coloured days,  shivery silver nights and fireside poems of Keats and Shelley when the wind and rain rattles the windows. It is essential throughout the nights of this season  to have a bottle of Californian Pinot Noir  on hand to make one forget the coming nightmare of Christmas shopping..

Q.  What inspired your book cover(s)?  Or what is your favorite book cover and why?

A. The cover of Black Venus is a huge tribute to Thomas Dunne and his designer Lisa Marie Pompilio. I have never in my life seen a book jacket that so vividly captures the  time, the place and the mood of a book. It is a brilliant work with the lady in a red dress seen  against the beautifully created black and white backdrop of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. Everyone who has seen the jacket here in London has had an almost identical one word reaction : Wow !

Q.  Tell me something funny that happened while on a book tour or while promoting your book.

A. Just as I was about to speak to an audience of some 100 people at the Boston Book fair the year before last year my phone pinged me with a text message from my daughter in London. Foolishly `I opened the text and read that she had just got engaged to her long term, boyfriend. I was so happy that I  announced the news from the platform and everyone clapped !

Q.  Anything you want to say to followers of this blog or those that are just stopping by?

A. Do not live the life you are given –make the life you live.

Highlight: Fun and Games by David Michael Slater

FUN & GAMES

The 1980’s: it’s the time of Dungeons & Dragons, banana clips, and Atari. Jonathan Schwartz is growing up in a family like no other. His sisters, Nadia, the dark genius, and Olivia, the gorgeous tease and temptress, manipulate Jon and his friends for their own entertainment.And his Holocaust survivor grandparents? Their coping techniques are beyond embarrassing. A disastrous visit to Jon’s class by his grandmother unhinges his famous father, setting off a chain of events that threatens to send the dysfunctional Schwartz clan up in flames once and for all. Fun & Games is a heartbreaking and hilarious story of faith, family secrets, betrayal, and loss—but it’s also a tale of friendship, love, and side-splitting shenanigans.

David Michael Slater is an acclaimed and award-winning author of books for children, teens, and adults. His books include Cheese Louise!, Flour Girl, Ned Loses His Head, and the controversial teen series, Sacred Books, which is being developed for film. David teaches in Reno, Nevada, where he lives with his wife and son. You can learn more about David and his work at www.davidmichaelslater.com.

My friends and I were in ninth grade. They were fourteen—I was a birthday behind, having skipped kindergarten. It was Jake Baker, Cory Minor, Milo Atkins, and me.

The main purpose of the evening was to continue a long-running game of Dungeons and Dragons. These were always fairly chaotic affairs involving the rolling of many oddly shaped dice, the consulting of cryptic manuals, and a great deal of furious debate. But two other highly complex tasks were also on tap that night. The first was an evaluation of the better-looking girls in our grade. This required the passing back and forth of a chart circulated from Health class with columns in which to mark a score for the following categories: Face, Chest, Butt, Eyes, Mouth, Hair, Clothes, Overall Body, and lastly, for tie-breaking purposes, Personality. On the back was an appendix created by Dougie Marlin to settle disputes that arose from the dissemination of earlier versions of the chart. I remember under ‘Chest’ it said that voting was for size and shape alone—and that points couldn’t be added because a girl frequently didn’t wear a bra, purposely kept extra buttons open on her tops, intentionally brushed past boys in the hall with her boobs, or pressed them into you when you hugged her.

The other activity was called “The Purity Test,” which was a list of 100 questions that determined what was called one’s “Purity Rating.” A score of zero indicated absolute purity, while a score of one hundred signified ultimate depravity, neither of which was in the realm of possibility for any real human being, at least any we knew. The hope was for a respectably high score, which meant one checked the yes box for a fair number of questions. Anything in the low fifties was passable for a ninth-grader, though in no way impressive. Dom Lambert supposedly got an 81, which no one really believed, but no one really doubted, either. Rumor had it he fooled around with his cousins. The point of a decent score was to signal an adventurous nature, not to be disgusting.

There were many questions that were givens, things like, “Have you ever lied to your parents?” and “Have you ever seen a naked picture of a member of the opposite sex?” Of course, “Have you ever masturbated?” could be taken for granted as well, but people (other than Milo) tended to count that one and keep go- ing without comment. And then there was always, “Would you perform oral sex on yourself if you could?” This is why the test was typically taken in at least semi-private—but only semi because some questions we aspired to answer yes to publicly. These included the likes of, “Have you ever seen a porno?”, “Have you ever gotten drunk enough to puke?”, and all of the sex questions: “Have you ever had sex in a car? On an airplane? Outside? In your parents’ bed?”

The seemingly innocent question, “Have you ever kissed two different girls within twenty-four hours?” was currently causing controversy because kids looking for loopholes wanted to count mother- and sister-kisses. It was later revised to “French kissed,” by Dougie Marlin, who was also the facilitator for the Purity Test. I happened to be present when he was drafting a new version with this change. He looked at me after altering the term and said, “I kid you not, bro: if Olivia were my sister, I’d totally put the moves on her. I swear to God, I’d have a check in the incest box so freakin’ fast.” 

Highlight: Come Fly With Me by Judith Whitmore

Come Fly With Me is the debut novel from Orange County-based author Judith Whitmore. Inspired by her own life in the clouds, the story chronicles a woman coming into her own in a world where the sky is the limit. The award-winning, romantic novel makes a perfect beach read this summer.

Kate Randolph is young, rich and beautiful, and her passion is flying. In the air, she feels a freedom she experiences nowhere else, and it’s where she dreams of escape from her marriage to a cold, distant husband. Rick, her tough flight instructor, challenges Kate to trust her instincts and always rise to the occasion. A series of unexpected events forces both to look beyond the usual facades, and, as a result, Kate and Rick liberate each other. She rescues him in a harrowing mission to Southeast Asia that proves her mettle once and for all, and he releases her to be the woman she was meant to be, no holds barred.

Kate felt too keyed up to sleep.  Instead of settling into her room, she filled a crystal cordial glass with homemade orange blossom liqueur and wandered down to the beach, then sat on the low stone wall to watch the ocean.  Each cresting wave reflected moonbeams like Fourth of July sparklers.  She sipped the sweet spirits and made designs in the soft sand with her bare feet.  This was her special spot, where she came to be alone with her thoughts.  The sound of the surf calmed her restless heart.

                She set aside her glass.  Putting her hands, palms down, on the cool wall to support herself, she leaned backward to look up at the moon.  It was high in the sky, casting a silvery glow over the beach.

                “I need some help,” she whispered.

                She stared at the star-studded sky and waited, as though she expected the moon to answer her.

                I feel so alone.  She swallowed hard.  I wish I knew everything’s going to be okay.

                At that moment, a meteor shot across the sky.  Where it disappeared on the horizon, the figure of a man appeared strolling the beach at the edge of the surf. 

                Kate instantly recognized Rick.  What was he doing here?  She thought he had gone back to the guest cottage.  Her pulse jumped, and she sucked in a great gulp of air.  A voice in her head said, Run back to the house before he sees you.  But it was already too late.  He waved and came across the sand to sit beside her on the stone wall.  The butterflies in her stomach did barrel rolls.

                “I thought you were going to sleep,” she said.

                “I don’t like to go to bed right after I’ve eaten.  That was a great dinner.  Too bad your husband couldn’t be here.”

                “If he was, he’d probably be on the phone doing some deal, and I’d still be here on the beach alone.  Sorry.  I don’t mean to complain.”  She picked up her glass, offering it to Rick. “Would you like to try this?  It’s my specialty.  I make it with orange blossoms, sugar, and two hundred proof alcohol.”

                He took the glass from her, sending shivers up her spine when his fingers brushed against hers.

                “Thanks.”  Rick took a sip of the golden liqueur.

                A flush of delight shot through Kate like an electric current.  She had “the glitters.”  In high school, she and Janet used the term to describe excitement bordering on delirium.  Get a grip, she thought.

                Rick handed the glass back to her.  “That stuff is sweet.”

                Kate smiled.  “Once, Sam drank half a bottle.  Then he drove into town, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts.  I think that’s why he likes it here.  It’s so laid-back.  Nobody judges you.”

                For a while neither of them spoke.  They just watched the rolling waves sparkle in the moonlight.

                “I’ve always loved the ocean,” Rick said.  “My condo in Laguna is right on the beach.  When I get back from a long flight, I turn off my phone, sit on the terrace, and listen to the waves.”

                Kate nodded.  “When I was a little girl,” she told him, “I remember my mother taking me to Santa Monica beach.  She made egg salad sandwiches and put potato chips inside the bread.  We played this card game called Spite and Malice for hours.  It was the best time I ever had with her.”  Kate abruptly stood up.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your walk.”

                Rick got to his feet, too.  “I was planning to go up to the end of the cove,” he said.  “Walk with me?”

                Kate smiled.  I’d go anywhere with you.  “Okay.”

                They strolled down to the water’s edge, heading for the rocks that marked the end of the private beach.

                “When do you think I’ll be ready to take my check ride in the Lear?” Kate asked.

                “As far as the flying goes, I think you could pass it now.  What we need to focus on is getting you ready for the oral exam.  You never know what they’re gonna ask.  You really need to be prepared.”

                “After I get my type-rating, my fantasy would be to have a job like yours so I could fly every day.”  Kate laughed.  “I think I’ll ask Bob Hansen for a position at Executive Air.”

                “I’m sure your husband would like that.”

                “He doesn’t even like me working at Safe Haven.” 

                They had reached the end of the cove.  “There’s a path over here,” Kate said.  She took the lead and headed toward a brick walkway that connected to the sand.  They meandered up the gentle incline until, after a short distance, the path split in two.  She pointed right.  “Follow this walkway and you’ll end up at the guest house.”

                Kate gazed at him, longing to touch him, to tell him how lonely she felt, and that she ached for him to wrap her in his arms and never let her go.  She took a step toward the opposite path.  “Well...goodnight,” she said.

                Rick smiled at her.  “Goodnight.”  He turned and walked away. 

                Kate paused, watching him until he disappeared around a cluster of palms.  The Gods have played a trick.  She still loved Sam despite his faults, but she sensed that the Fates now offered her an unexpected choice.  Was Rick the man intended for her?  Was he her true soul mate?