The best book club ever!

If any of you out there ever wonder where I am at 5:30pm on the first Sunday of the month, wonder no more, I'm with the best book club ever! I had always hoped to find a book club but the only thing I ever heard about was at the library and it was pretty much dominated by all the nasty gray hairs in my town. I got to talking to my neighbor, Karen (blowing kisses to Karen for introducing such a great group of people into my life), and she said that she was in a book club and she wanted me to come and talk to them about my book.



I was a little bit horrified. This was back last fall and I didn't really have any proof that I was an author. I felt like a fraud. I think I may have put it off for a few months (sorry, Karen). But then I got my cover and it all started to feel real. So I went to Panera to my first official meeting of the Chix & Lil book club(we have one guy in the club and his last name is Little, is that name genius or what?) Everyone was SO nice and interested in my book. I ended up knowing a few of the members and others by a six degrees of seperation sort of way. I was hooked, and luckily I was immediately considered a chick, sans any weird sort of book club hazing.



They don't just all gather and sit around arguing the pros and cons of the monthly book trying to show how smart they are like a lot of clubs. They celebrate holidays and birthdays with gift bags and treats. One month our book was The Strawberry Shortcake Murder so Myk decorated his table with a Strawberry Shortcake tablecloth dotted with the occasional bloody handprint, and meat cleaver. Several members made all of the recipes from the book and we pigged out. We pretty much pig out every month. As a lover of books, food, and gifts, I'm pretty much in heaven those precious couple of hours each month.



They never get tired of hearing what's going on with my book or what I'm doing now. They are my biggest cheerleaders. They even chose my book (behind my back over much protest)as the September book pick. Which was totally sweet even if it gives me the hives to think of them reading it.



But it really is about more than gifts, food, and me pretty much feeling like a rock star when I'm with them. It is the amazing power that books have to bring people from all different walks of life together. We may not always like the books that were chosen, but we will always like each other! Just to show photographic evidence for how awesome they are. Here is what they got me for my birthday. I seriously had to hold back a flood of tears.
My horrible digital photography skills don't do it justice. It is a beautiful framed picture of my cover with all of their signatures on it, with clever little sayings about how I am the most famous person they know (sad, I know) and other lovely wishes.


I hope that you are lucky enough to have a book club as unique as mine. If not, why not start one of your own?





xo,

Steph



What I'm reading....Dead End Dating by Kimberly Raye (another RITA finalist), and Candy Girl: The Year in the life of an Unlikely Stripper by Diablo Cody(yes, this was Lil's choice! )



All that matters is what's inside...as long as your outside is wearing the tiara!

REVENGE OF THE HOMECOMING QUEEN, July 3,2007, Berkley Jam Books

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