The Bookworm in Edwards, CO

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It was a two-and-a-half hour drive from Denver to Edwards, but well worth it. The Bookworm is one of the best bookstores I've seen, and they really know how to put on an event: great advertising, good wine, exceptionally tasty appetisers.

Okay, this may sound silly, but I discovered the first sign of their savvy advertising in the washroom:



What a perfect place for an ad! It's a universal truth known to all bookstore owners that book browsing and the need to use a washroom are mysteriously yet biologically linked. (Seinfeld confirmed this in a skit.)

It was a great audience. Many of them had already read — and loved! — Mistress of the Sun.



There were 51 in attendance, a number of them from book clubs. Here is another mother/daughter portrait: Therese and her lovely daughter, Rachel.



Another mother told me that she was looking forward to going to Paris with her daughter. They had read the Trilogy and would be tracing Josephine's route. What did I suggest? I recommended that she read Walks through Napoleon & Josephine's Paris by Diana Reid Haig. This is a gorgeous book, recently given to me by a very special person, Janet Park Datema (more on Janet later), in St. Louis. Another good guide I recommend to Trilogy tourists (of whom there are a number!) is You Go Girl Paris. The authors list many Josephine B. sites to see.

All-in-all, a fabulous evening! Thank you, Bookworms all.

Awesome luncheon!

Sue Boucher is an amazing book-seller. She's sold 1600 Josephine B.! This luncheon for 70 in elegant Loveli's restuarant in Lake Forest, IL, was a fantastic event.

To the left, a photo of Eileen and Beth, a charming mother and daughter.

Launch of luncheons by Nicola's Books

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I was honored to be the first guest author at a Nicola's Books luncheon in Ann Arbour, IL. It was such a lovely event that I predict that people will be clamouring to come. Nicola, in the blue dress at the front, is a vibrant book-passionate woman, which accounts for how wonderful her busy bookstore is, and how lovely the staff.

I had wonderful chats with the readers after. One, Anna, told me that it was her grandmother's crypt that's mentioned in the last story in Alice Munroe's The View from Castle Rock. Another, Helen, related the story of her father, who was born in a sod house in Rosetown, Sasketchewan.

On airport bookstores

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I cannot pass a bookstore without browsing, and for a few moments in a Virgin bookstore in the Vancouver airport, I loose myself in the titles. And then I wake up: I'm an author, I've a new book just published, is it on the shelves?

No.

I can't believe it. How is that possible? It's not that it's a hardcover, for they do have other hardcover fiction titles displayed, and published by my own publisher — titles not on the Maclean's best-selling fiction in Canada list for over two months, I note with angry jealousy. For a crazy moment I consider inquiring of the clerk, and imagine her saying, Oh, we just can't keep it in stock, it flies off the shelves. Instead I skulk away, pouting.

It's amazing how emotional this can be. I'm not this type of person — normally. But normally, too, I'm not on a book tour, I don't have a book out, and normally I do not have a book on anyone's best-seller list. A sense of entitlement comes quickly ... and lethally.

I remember walking in a mall with my then-young son just before my first book was to be published. Passing a bookstore I told him, "Next time we come, my book will be in that store." I realized, then, that my bookstore experience would change forever. No longer, relaxed and easy browsing. Once I had a book published, I would approach bookstores as an Author, making sure I was presentable, checking to see if my titles were on a table or shelf, and then going up to the clerk and explaining that I was the author of a book on their shelf (pointing), and offering to sign.

It's a job, what you do. My experiences have been varied, from the manager of a large store jumping up and down with enthusiasm, to an annoyed end-of-day who-needs-this response from a clerk. More and more, I'm asked to prove my identity first with an ID before being allowed to sign.

I came to see airport bookstores as the cream of the crop, and longed for the day when my books would be in one. I remember with great satisfaction when I first saw the titles of the Josephine B. Trilogy on the shelf of a bookstore in a San Francisco airport. As the Trilogy became more successful, I began to even expect to see it.

And so, grumpily, I left the Virgin bookstore in the Vancouver airport and proceeded through check-in. There was another bookstore on the way to my gate: I glanced over the shelves warily. No. No. No.

And then: yes. There is was, Mistress of the Sun stacked ever so nicely on a shelf at the front.

Happily, I got on the plane.