Coming October 29th…
Have you been to the San Juan Islands? Then you know where All About Evie is set…
Evie Lindsay has premonitions. They’ve haunted her her whole life.
There’s one premonition that ends her life. Maybe. Possibly.
In the meantime, she runs her bookstore and hangs out with her mother and aunts who wear floppy hats and do crazy things.
Sometimes Montana calls my name.
Or, uh, maybe it’s my fun and funny sisters begging me to move there and live next door. Hard to tell…
Innocent Husband cracks me up sometimes. Well, often.
We’re sitting around drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, the kids’ cats all over meowing, and he says, as if TOTALLY exasperated and shocked,
“This is HORRIBLE. Kylie Jenner officially unfollowed Jordan Woods on Instagram. Well, it’s about time!”
I thought his eyes were going to roll so far back into his head he would lose them.
And on we go, creaking along…
I can’t believe that it has been 12 years since my first book, Julia’s Chocolates, was released. By then I had had many discouraging, head-bashing rejections of other books, and if Julia’s Chocolates hadn’t sold I was going back to teaching school. The kids were getting older and I had to save for college.
So, this was it. If it was a no-go with Julia’s Chocolates, I would have been teaching about the Oregon Trail and multiplication tables come fall. I sent 40 pages of Julia‘s Chocolates to three agents and an editor. I never heard from the editor. The agents all wanted to see the full book. I had not written one more word past those initial 40 pages. I figured it was going to be rejected anyhow, so why put more effort into it?
Finally, my favorite agent, the one who I am still with, asked for it. Then I told a tiny lie, I said, “I need to do a little more editing, then I’ll send it back to you.” Ha! So, with three young kids and a freelance writing job for our state’s newspaper, my schedule was packed.
I wrote from 10 at night until 2 in the morning for months. And then…miraculously, unbelievably, the agent liked it, my publishing house liked it, and it sold.
The first scene is of a woman throwing her wedding dress up into a dead tree on a deserted street in North Dakota. It’s dusty, it’s hot, and she’s crying. It was an image I had in college. Julia’s Chocolates is my favorite book. I hope you like it. It’s on sale for less than six bucks.
Friends,
I am easily distracted by Innocent Husband, Darling Laughing Son, Adventurous Singing Daughter, and Rebel Dancing Daughter.
They call, I want to talk. They want to go and have fun with Mom, I’m on it. Innocent Husband wants to take me out fishing, I’ll read a book like a pro in the boat and eat nutritious cookies.
Plus, I like to laugh at my weird cats and garden and read books.
However, now and then, rarely, hardly ever, I do gather myself together and put out a newsletter. If you would like to sign up for my newsletter, you can do so below. If you put your name and email in and then hit SUBSCRIBE it will instantly vanish. Don’t worry, it went through.
Cheers and happy reading to all.
Hello everyone!
Need a summer book? Here’s a quick excerpt from my latest book The Man She Married…
Chapter One
He had lied.
He lied about his past, he lied about where he was from, and he lied about what he’d done before I met him.
All of it.
“What isn’t a lie, Zack?” I heard my voice pitch straight up, a screech and an accusation in one.
“Natalie, I—” He closed his eyes for a second, his face pale.
“Answer the question!” I slammed my hands down on the granite island in our kitchen. It hurt, but I didn’t even wince. The coffee machine gurgled. It gurgles every morning. The gurgling is usually comforting. Today it sounded as if it were choking which was exactly how I felt. “Answer it!”
He ran a hand over his eyes, his expression exhausted but determined. So determined. “What I told you from the time I lived in Alaska is all true.”
“And before that?” I had had enough lies already in my life; they had stalked my childhood, and I didn’t need any from him.
“What I told you about my life before Alaska is not true.”
“Is your real name Zack? Zack Shelton?”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
I hit the granite countertop again. I couldn’t believe this. My husband of five years, whom I had made love to, in the bath, last night, whom I had also made love to during halftime of the football game, was not named Zack.
Well, happy day.
The ARCS of my new book, All About Evie, arrived.
So I stacked them up in my garden because I am a bit odd and I spent A LOT of time in my garden writing that book, on computer and in journals, and when I was sick of writing or editing and thinking that I should become a trapeze artist or a lion tamer instead of a writer, at least I was around flowers.
Out October 29th. Premonitions and DNA tests. What can go wrong?
Amazon, less that 10 bucks.
A QUICK UPDATE ON FELIX THE RACCOON.
I have a raccoon.
He is not a pet.
He lurks outside my home in suburbia wearing his bandit mask and a little smile. He wants to come inside. He wants to warm his bones by the fire. He wants to eat our cat food. He wants to hang out. I don’t want him in the house. I don’t want to hang out with him.
I am all for wildlife, but having a raccoon sprawled out on my couch eating my cookies is taking it too far.
I named the raccoon, Felix, a good boy’s name, even though Innocent Husband said I should not name wild animals.
Then came a problem: Felix disappeared. I thought he had become a coyote’s dinner. Yes, in the middle of suburbia we have raccoons and gangs of raucous, partying coyotes. But no. Felix returned.
Felix returned with three baby raccoons, one of whom scratched my screen door because, like her mother, she wanted in. She wanted to sit by our fire, warm her bones, eat our cat food, etc.
Felix is not a boy. Felix is a mother. I have renamed her. Her name is now Felix-Anita. The babies are Elizabeth, Isabella, and Estelle. Innocent Husband says I should not name the baby raccoons.
The raccoon saga continues.
As you can see, KC The Cat, age 17, clearly does not want raccoons in front of her fireplace.
She votes no.
Hello all,
My latest book, The Man She Married, is on sale for less than eight bucks, on kindle, on Amazon.
This book is part fiction, part thriller, and part epic love story. If you read it, I so hope you like it.
Cathy Lamb All rights reserved © 2011-2025 |
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