My Cup Runneth Over

There are so many great things to celebrate right now I'm beginning to lose count of them! For one thing, BINDING AGREEMENT comes out on Today!!  And the early reviews have been amazing!

To celebrate the release of this final book in the JUST ONE NIGHT trilogy I had a launch party this last Saturday and honestly, it was beyond spectacular. Friends, celebrities, family, loved ones, they were all there. Party planner Jordi & Co  was hired to make the celebration everything it could be and more. When it comes to event planning Jordi is an absolute artist and she managed to make me feel insanely spoiled throughout the whole process.

Then today (starting at 10 am PT and going on continuously until 9pm PT) I have a Facebook BINDING AGREEMENT launch party for my readers. If you haven't attended the other JUST ONE NIGHT Facebook launch parties you're seriously missing out . Not only is there a lot of fun girl talk about books, guys and the like there's also a plethora of posted photos of the hottest men you have ever seen or lusted after. We'll also be discussing casting ideas for who should play Mr. Dade as well as any of the other characters. Come on over and join in the fun! And don't forget, while I'll be providing you with a lot of great pictures of gorgeous men this is also a BYOB party (Bring Your Own Babe). If there's a picture of a guy you think is hot come on over and post it at the launch party, because that's what cool people do: they share.

Oh and there's something else too...something really big happened this last week. Some of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter already know what I'm talking about. Those of you who don't...well come join me at the Facebook Launch party. I'll let you in on the whole extraordinarily romantic tale. It's a story that's worthy of a Nicholas Sparks novel...except in this case, it's true.

Books That Encourage "Alternative Thinking"

"Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call...boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song--it went "Twinkle twinkle little star..." What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!"

That's a quote from Terry Pratchett's YA fantasy novel, HAT FULL OF SKY. There are many reasons why I love Pratchett but perhaps the most important one is that he writes in a way that makes you look at things differently. I had never seen boredom as a talent before, never thought about how we protect ourselves from being overwhelmed by the world we live in by building "little stories, little shells around (our) minds." But of course that's completely accurate, it's what we do. It's what we have to do to get through every day.

Any book that can make me look at something differently is book that I will most likely end up reading over and over again. Any author who manages to consistently frame things in unique and interesting ways will make me fall in love with them a little and will inspire my writing for life. It doesn't have to be "deep" necessarily.

For instance Jennifer Belle gave me a whole new way to look at vasectomies.

Admittedly, it wasn't something I spent a lot of time thinking about before but when I did I never thought of getting a vasectomy as a romantic gesture...at least not until I read Belle's book, THE SEVEN YEAR BITCH. In that novel Izzy is having trouble with her marriage but when her husband tells her, about a year after their son, Duncan, is born, that he's thinking about getting a vasectomy she softens. Quote:

"A vasectomy implied having sex with abandon.  Lots of it, anytime, anywhere. But even more than that, it meant to me security for Duncan, that he was enough, and even after we divorced and Russell married a much younger woman, he would not have children with her.  It was a kind of vow of fidelity stronger than the bonds of marriage or the cut of divorce."

Now that's a different view point. Even though the above statement doesn't hold true for everyone I love the framing of it.

Or Anne Rice's THE VAMPIRE LESTAT. When Lestat awakes to the late 20th century he sees it with the eyes of a 18th century man and thereby brings the readers attention to things that I don't think most of us have ever considered. The first being that "...something all together magical had happened to time. The old was not being replaced by the new anymore." He goes on to note:

   "In the art and entertainment worlds all prior centuries were being "recycled." Musicians performed Mozart as well as jazz and rock music; people went to see Shakespeare one night and a new French film the next.
  In giant fluorescent-lighted emporiums you could buy tapes of medieval madrigals and play them on your car stereo as you drove ninety miles an hour down the freeway.  In bookstores Renaissance poetry sold side by side with the novels of Dickens or Ernest Hemingway."

In a time when we all wait anxiously to replace our iPad 4 with an iPad 5 I had failed to notice that we  stopped demanding that our world be exclusively modern. We do still listen to music of the past, mixing it in with today's popular singles. It's perfectly logical to me that someone who enjoys Shakespeare would also enjoy modern french cinema.   And why wouldn't you listen to Mozart while driving around in a Tesla? And yet the very fact that I don't find any of these things peculiar is proof that our time in history is so peculiarly unique. I owe Anne Rice for pointing that out to me.

In a way all of these authors inspired the JUST ONE NIGHT series. I thought about them as I wrote each novella, forcing myself to look at things through the eyes of Terry Pratchett's mystical creatures, Anne Rice's vampires or Jennifer Belle's quirky heroines. Little details in Kasie's internal monologue point to their influence, like in JUST ONE NIGHT Pt.2: EXPOSED when she takes a new twist on the idea that love is transformative:

"Maybe it's the lack of love that is transformative. Maybe it's the distance between what we want and what we have that sculpts our behavior." 

Or Asha's different take on how women can "use" sex in the upcoming JUST ONE NIGHT pt.3: BINDING AGREEMENT:

"When I use sex as a tool it's as a knife not a stepladder." She finally looks at me with a thin smile.  "You use sex as a skeleton key. It opens doors for you. Your way appears to be amazingly effective."

There are dozens of little examples in those books that reflect my love of..well, of what I would call "alternative thinking." It's not everybody's thing. But it's mine. And I will always be grateful to the authors who taught it to me.

For me, it's the books I love most that have been transformative.

The Russian Way

Yesterday I had coffee with one of the other mom's at my son's school. I was talking to her about the upcoming release of JUST ONE NIGHT: BINDING AGREEMENT(the last installment of the JUST ONE NIGHT trilogy) . All signs point to that book being a success. Both JUST ONE NIGHT (pt. 1): THE STRANGER and JUST ONE NIGHT (pt. 2): EXPOSED made the New York Times and USA Today bestsellers list and stayed there for several weeks. While people will often give up on a trilogy after the first book they rarely do after the second and I've been told that pre-orders for BINDING AGREEMENT look good.

Yet I simply Can. Not. get myself to see the success of BINDING AGREEMENT as a given. It's like, a physical impossibility for me. I hope it will be but I'm fretting about this release just as much as I've fretted abut all my other releases. When I explained this to my coffee-companion she simply cocked her head to the side and asked, "You said your mother's side was Jewish...are they Russian or Eastern European Jewish?"

I nodded that yes, they were.

She gave me an understanding smile. "That's my background too. And let me tell you something, you may be able to celebrate the successes you've already achieved, you can even hope for more of them, but you will never be able to expect them. It's simply not how we're wired."

I thought about that for a moment. My mother certainly isn't an optimist. She's not cynical or anything but she's extraordinarily cautious about predicting good fortune. In fact if she does it's only because she has literally a mountain of facts to base that prediction on making it less of a prediction and more of a scientific conclusion. As for my grandmother...well, when it came to her family she was very proud of our abilities and our achievements and she was very hopeful. She hoped that we would all go on to accomplish great things. But did she predict those successes? If she did why did she always seem so surprised when things worked out the way she wanted them to? At my college graduation when it was announced that I was being awarded a special honor for my volunteer work and contributions to the community my grandmother reportedly stood up and said, "That's my granddaughter!"

When I asked her about that she said, "Well I suppose I was happy but mostly I was just shocked!"

That's pretty much how she reacted to all my good news. This was a woman who could appreciate good news as much as the next person but she rarely anticipated it. It would be hard to label her an optimist.

In fact I can't think of anyone on my mother's side of the family who fits that definition. We're not negative people. Generally speaking we're goal setters and we work hard to achieve those goals.  We just don't take it for granted that we'll get the things we want out of life...which in some ways makes it all the more exciting when we do.

I guess it's just the Russian in us.

So for those of you who have been reading the JUST ONE NIGHT SERIES, I really hope you continue on to the the last novella in the trilogy which will be released May 20th. I don't expect you to...but if you do I will celebrate your support.

Why Kasie's Choices Aren't As Smart As She Is

Okay, before we get into this I have a quick announcement to make. Many of you have been asking when the audiobook of the Just One Night series will be available. We're currently looking at the first week of June and all three novellas will be on one audiobook. If you're going to listen to it in the car be sure your kids aren't in the backseat.

Now, about those Just One Night books. I know there are a handful of readers who have expressed frustration, even confusion about how Kasie, a highly educated, intelligent, accomplished woman could make so many stupid decisions in her personal life, frequently showing weakness and confusion.

When I first saw that comment I was a little surprised. Anyone who thinks individuals of high academic intelligence will automatically know how to handle themselves socially has never visited the M.I.T campus. From Cleopatra to Einstein, the list of smart people making bad personal choices is as long as recorded history.

But truthfully, Kasie's problems have less to do with her intelligence and more to do with her environment. Yes, watching her sister self-destruct was traumatic but what really messed her up was the way her parents turned that into a sort of sick teaching-moment. They actually used her sister's death to bring home a point, one that society tries to teach us all the time: women, good women, must color inside the lines. And when they don't they not only fall apart but they're not respected by those around them and eventually they're ostracized. But when you play the role you're supposed to play, marry the right guy, dress modestly, be likable without being pushy or daring, intelligent without challenging your partner, then you can get ahead.

And Kasie did everything right. She went to the right school, got the right job, found a respectable guy and she got ahead...but she didn't quite get the control or power she craved...especially not at her firm.  She worked hard for it. She was one of the best consultants on staff, but she knew she wasn't going to be able to leapfrog over anyone to get to a position of any real authority. She would have to wait her turn. For six years she had been waiting for her turn. At work, in her relationship, Kasie had mastered the art of waiting patiently like a "good woman" should.

And then Robert shows up. This man who doesn't play by the rules at all. This man who is her lover. And he hands her that power she's been working for. He just snaps his fingers and she's a project manager. She gets her coveted authority...and it doesn't come from her six years of hard work, or her Ivy League education, it comes from her lover who elevates her because he enjoys their sexual chemistry. She has authority because of an illicit affair.

For Kasie that sends everything into a tailspin. She sees that she could lose the respect she craves from her co-workers and family. She feels that this isn't the right path for her.  She wants to cling to the rules she's been playing by even if that game is blowing up in her face (and we can see how dramatically it blows up in Exposed). She's never been the woman who wanted to sleep her way to the top. The very thought horrifies her...except it works so much better than the method she was taught...and in a world where rule breakers are rewarded, what does it mean to be respected? How do you define that?

For Kasie these kinds of questions are crazy making. She's in a tailspin and she makes some stupid decisions. She's off balance and she keeps grasping at the wrong things for support.

Harvard Business School didn't prepare her for this. Her upbringing certainly didn't prepare her for this.   This was not on the GMAT. Kasie has an extremely analytical mind and nothing about her situation can be solved by using analytical thinking.

That's how you can get a highly educated, intelligent, accomplished woman to make stupid decisions in her personal life. You just tell her that everything she's been studying and learning is beside the point...

...and then just sit back and watch her unravel.