Tag: best books

Writer’s Life: Jane Green is Back!

Published on by Laura Nicole DiamondLeave a comment

In anticipation of the June 4 publication of Jane Green’s new novel, The Friends We Keep, I am happy to share the Writer’s Life Interview on the occasion of her previous novel’s publication (Falling). She shares her motto (something aspire to live by it, though it’s not always easy), and tells about where she likes to write, and why. But first, a bit about The Friends We Keep:

Evvie, Maggie, and Topher have known each other since university. Their friendship was something they swore would last forever. Now years have passed, the friends have drifted apart, and none of them ever found the lives they wanted – the lives they dreamed of when they were young and everything seemed possible.
Evvie starved herself to become a supermodel but derailed her career by sleeping with a married man.
Maggie married Ben, the boy she fell in love with at university, never imagining the heartbreak his drinking would cause.
Topher became a successful actor but the shame of a childhood secret shut him off from real intimacy.
By their thirtieth reunion, these old friends have lost touch with each other and with the people they dreamed of becoming. Together again, they have a second chance at happiness… until a dark secret is revealed that changes everything.
The Friends We Keep is about how despite disappointments we’ve had or mistakes we’ve made, it’s never too late to find a place to call home.
The Friends We keep by Jane Green is out June 4th, but available for pre-order now at the following links:
Jane Green photo credit Ian Warburg (004)
Jane Green (credit: Ian Warburg)

What have you learned from parenting, or from your own parents, that you bring to your work as a writer?

I was very much an invisible child, and always say I became a writer because I was a reader; I found my solace and joy within the pages of books. Invisibility as a child can manifest as an adult who needs to be seen. I don’t know that I write for attention, but it is the way I can best express myself, and the way I am seen.

Where do you write? What do you love about it?

I have a little office in the bowels of the Westport Country Playhouse. I get too distracted at home, and suspect that renting an office would be too isolated. I need to be surrounded by people and feel in and of the world, whilst still having enough privacy to write.

If you had a motto, what would it be?

Do As You Would Be Done By.

Who inspires you?

Strong women who understand who they are and make no apology for it.

What charity or community service are you passionate about?

The MRA, Melanoma Research Alliance, for funding research and drug development that has completely changed the prognosis of stage IV melanoma.

 

Jane Green is the author of 16 New York Times bestselling novels, and a regular contributor on radio and TV, including Good Morning America, The Martha Stewart show, and The Today Show. When Jane is not writing, cooking, gardening, filling her house with friends and herding chickens, she is usually thanking the Lord for caffeine-filled energy drinks. A cancer survivor – she has overcome Malignant Melanoma, she also lives with Chronic Lyme Disease, and believes gratitude and focusing on the good in life is the secret to happiness. Jane lives with her husband and blended family in Westport, Connecticut. (From http://www.janegreen.com).

Learn more about Jane on her website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest

Behind the scenes of Shelter Us

Published on by Laura Nicole Diamond2 Comments

I thought I’d share some “behind the scenes” of how my debut novel, Shelter Us, evolved from first draft to final form. Today’s tidbit: Torah study.

What’s that? You heard me.

After I had completed the first draft and was working sloooowly on revising, I began attending Torah study with Rabbi Amy Bernstein, at Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation, a progressive and all-around awesome place. (Her podcasts are here.)

Every week in Torah study we read and dissected ancient stories, and found connections to modern human foibles, habits, and yearnings — both personal and universal. What surprised me about Torah study, and what kept me coming back, was twofold: how relevant it was — how much I learned from it as a parent, a friend, a citizen. And how completely beautiful its purpose — to inspire humans toward becoming our best selves, all the while recognizing hey, we’re only human.

So nuts and bolts, how did this affect Shelter Us? Well, the first draft already had Sarah meeting and reaching out to Josie, a young homeless mother. (Obviously, my good Jewish Tikkun Olam training had already seeped into the plot.) But I went back and deepened Sarah’s motivation for doing that, deciding to make her late mother a Jewish convert, someone who often modeled the most important Jewish value: Remember we were strangers; welcome and take care of the stranger.

There more I think about it, the more Jewish values I find infused in Shelter Us, from its title, to the idea of passing values from one generation to the next, to the role of ritual, and even to the biggie: beliefs about God. And the more questions there are to explore.

  • How do you continue to learn and grow, be it philosophy, spirituality or history or something else?
  • Have you found yourself more or less drawn to religion or spirituality as you’ve gotten older?

Thanks for reading. Any questions you’d like answered? Feel free to ask in a comment, or contact me. More to come soon!

“Beautiful, Hopeful, Gorgeous…” OMG!

Published on by Laura Nicole DiamondLeave a comment

It is with humble gratitude (and a helluva a lot of glee!) that I share a review by my fellow novelist, Lorraine Devon Wilke. Check her out, too!

What a beautiful, heartrending, ultimately hopeful story this is! I absolutely loved this book by Laura Nicole Diamond; it is gorgeously written, deeply felt, and set with such detail of character, plot, and emotion that a narrative about motherhood, loss, and the meaning of life becomes a true page-turner.

Told from the point of view of Sarah, a former attorney and married mother of two boys who has lost her six-week-old daughter to crib death, we follow her tumultuous trajectory through grief, self-examination, and a fascination with, and compulsion to help, a young homeless mother she stumbles upon in downtown Los Angeles. Distanced from her husband by a mix of his work demands and her own emotional turmoil, Sarah finds herself so drawn to the young woman that she takes some dubious risks, and makes some questionable choices, that not only cause her to question her own motives, but put her marriage and the life she’s attempted to rebuild in serious jeopardy. How she struggles to resolve each layer and nuance of this tsunami of issues becomes the churning center of Shelter Us.

As a native of Los Angeles, I particularly enjoyed the specificity of her “place,” picturing each turn of the road and image up ahead! As a mother, I reveled in her absolutely spot-on descriptions of the many elements of “mother love,” that powerful emotional world of indescribable, passionate love and never-ending need and frustration. Her illuminations on loss and grief will, no doubt, resonate deeply with anyone who’s lost someone they loved, particularly a young child to unexpected death. In fact, every element of this story rang true and deep, with its resolution built on compassion, forgiveness, and love the most salient of its themes.

A deeply satisfying read that I heartily recommend, I will be sure to follow this writer to whatever is next.