Welcome Hank Phillipi Ryan!

I'm going to Vancouver to visit the set of "Sins of the Mother," the LMN movie based on Orange Mint and Honey! (Stay tuned for pictures and stories.) Thinking about what to take with me to read. Do you ever get a taste for a certain kind of book? Right now I have a taste for light-hearted, something fun. Air Time by Hank Phillipi Ryan just might be next up on the menu.

Air Time Summary

Star reporter Charlotte (Charlie) McNally enters the glamorous and high-stakes world of high fashion . . . and soon discovers when the purses are fake, the danger is real.

To break her latest big-money blockbuster, Charlotte must go undercover—but what if the bad guys recognize her? This savvy TV journalist must face more than her fear of flying when her inside scoop on designer duplicates suddenly turns deadly.

Carrying a hidden camera and dressing to deceive, Charlie finds she's not the only one disguising her identity. Nothing—and no one—is what they seem. And that means nothing—and no one—can be trusted. In her high-risk job and in her suddenly steamy love life, how can she tell the real thing?

Charlie is forced to make some life-changing—and life and death—decisions. With only a split-second to act and with her own life in the balance, Charlie knows if she chooses wrong it will be the last decision she ever makes.

Real-life investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan devises a scheme so timely and innovative you'll wonder why someone hasn't tried it. AIR TIME takes you behind the scenes of TV news—and reveals what can happen when a savvy, sexy journalist turns from hard-working reporter into becoming a killer's target.

“Sassy, fast-paced and appealing. First-class entertainment.” **Sue Grafton

“I love this series!” **Suzanne Brockmann

“AIR TIME is a fun, fast read with a heroine who's sexy, stylish, and smart. I loved it." **Nancy Pickard

I'm especially interested because Hank is a reporter herself. According to her bio: Award-winning investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan is currently on the air at Boston's NBC affiliate, where she's broken big stories for the past 22 years. Her stories have resulted in new laws, people sent to prison, homes removed from foreclosure, and millions of dollars in refunds and restitution for consumers.

Hank was kind enough to answer some questions for readers of The Pajama Gardener. Here's our chat:

Q: Charlotte (Charlie) McNally is an investigative TV reporter, and so are you! What qualities do you share with Charlie, and how are you different?

A: When my husband talks about Charlie, he calls her “you.” As in—when “you” are held at gunpoint, when you track down the bad guys, when you solve the mystery . . . and I have to remind him, “Sweetheart, it’s fiction. It didn’t really happen.”

But a couple of things: I’ve been a TV reporter for more than 30 years. (Yes, really.) And so it would be silly, in writing a mystery about TV, not to use my own experiences. Think about it—as a TV reporter, you can never be wrong! Never be one minute late. Never choose the wrong word or miscalculate. You can never have a bad hair day, because it’ll be seen by millions of people! It’s high-stakes and high-stress—literally, people’s lives at stake—and I really wanted to convey that in the books.

And everything that TV people do and say in the books is authentic and genuine. (Of course, Charlie can say things I can’t say, and reveal things I can’t reveal.) We’re both devoted journalists, and over-focused on our jobs.

But Charlotte McNally is different, too. She’s single—I’m happily married. She’s ten years younger than I am, and so is facing different choices and dilemmas. She’s braver than I am, certainly. Funnier. And a much better driver.

Q: Charlie has some exciting adventures in your mystery series—going undercover, confronting some really bad guys. Tell us about some of your adventures as an investigative reporter.

A: There’s a huge been-there-done-that element to the books—I’ve wired myself with hidden cameras, confronted corrupt politicians, chased down criminals . . . been in disguise, been stalked, and threatened and had many a door slammed in my face. I’ve had people confess to murder, and others, from prison, insist they were innocent. So when that happens to Charlie, it’s fair to imagine me. Although the plots are completely from my imagination, those are real-life experiences.

Q: Your job sounds very demanding. How (and when) do you find the time to write? Do you ever take a vacation, and, if so, what do you do with your time off?

A: Short answer—no. I don’t take vacations anymore. We used to! We love Nevis, a tiny island n the Caribbean with empty white beaches and nothing to do. We love to go to western Massachusetts, to Tanglewood, to go to plays and the symphony and museums. We love to go to Cape Cod, to Truro, to sit on the beach with pals and read, then go out to wonderful dinners. All in the past. Now, I write. And Jonathan lounges in the back yard. Luckily, we have a lovely yard, with a pool and beautiful gardens.

Q: Charlie is afraid of flying, and the airlines are constantly losing her luggage. When you write in Charlie’s voice about these dilemmas, you sound like you’re writing from experience. Is this true?

A: Sigh. Yes. I am a luggage-loss magnet. If they can lose my bags, they will. It’s almost funny. Almost. As for fear of flying, yes, I am afraid. (Although not as much has I used to be. I’ve worked very hard and tried a lot of things to get over it.) I was once covering a very bad plane crash, in a major airport, and was in a room with a lot of the bleeding and upset survivors of the crash. I often wonder if that bad energy someone affected me.

Q: Since you write about what you do, do you ever have ethical dilemmas of your profession that cause conflicts between Hank, the author, and Hank, the journalist?

A: Ah, no. The closest I’ve come to an ethical dilemmas trying to make sure that no one is the books is a representation of a real person. I’m careful about that. There’s no real Franklin. Or Josh. Or Penny. (Is there a real Charlie? Well, that’s possible . . .)

Sounds like Air Time would give you a nice break whether you were on vacation or curled up in bed!

Jill Scott to play Nona!

The great, lovely, talented, fabulous Jill Scott is going to play Nona is the Lifetime movie version of Orange Mint and Honey called "Sins of the Mother"!!! Read it in Variety.

Win a copy of Children of the Waters!

Free Book Friday is a site that gives away...you guessed it...free books! This Friday, they'll be giving away 3 copies of Children of the Waters. Go to the site, leave a comment and you're entered to win! Good luck!

Joe Wilson, listen up!

Welcome Joanne Rendell!

I'm introducing authors all over the place! Got interviews up at my other blog, and over here I'm pleased to tour the Girlfriends of the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit. This week, please welcome Joanne Rendell, author of several novels, including Crossing Washington Square.

1. New readers want to know about your book! In 2-3 sentences, can you tell us the basic premise?

Crossing Washington Square is a story of two very different women and their very different love of books. Rachel Grey and Diana Monroe are both literature professors in the old boys club of Manhattan University. While this should create a kinship between them, they are very much at odds and when a brilliant and handsome professor from Harvard comes to town and sets his sights on both women, sparks really fly!

2. What was the inspiration behind your latest novel?

The idea for Crossing Washington Square evolved over a few years. As someone who has lived the academic life (I have a PhD in literature and now I’m married to a professor at NYU), I’ve always loved books about the university – novels like Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys, Richard Russo’s The Straight Man, Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, and Francine Prose’s Blue Angel. But what I noticed about such campus fiction was the lack of female professors in leading roles. Even the female authors like Francine Prose's and Zadie Smith’s novels focus on male professors. Furthermore, most of these male professors are disillusioned drunks who quite often sleep with their students! I wanted to write a novel with women professors taking the lead and I wanted these women to be strong and smart and interesting – instead of drunk, despondent, and preoccupied with questionable sexual liaisons!

3. Who’s your favorite character and why?

That’s a tough one! My knee jerk response is to say Professor Rachel Grey because, out of the two female leads, I identify most with her. Rachel teaches chick lit in her classes and has to defend her work and the genre to her stuffy colleagues who think only the classics and literary fiction should be studied. As a grad student, I would be reading classical literature and poetry by day, but then secretly read popular women’s fiction at night (Bridget Jones’ Diary, I have to say, is one of my all time favorite books!). Rachel is also flawed and emotional, yet good and honest and brave. I like that about her. Every time I revisit the book, however, I like Professor Diana Monroe more too. She’s super smart and has great poise and grace as a teacher. She’'s the kind of uber-professor that every academic secretly wants to be. She’s also pretty darn scary in her austerity and brilliance. But she has a vulnerability too and her life started out pretty tough and therefore, every time I revisit the book, I like her more.

4. What is one of the nicest compliments that you have ever received about your book(s)?

One of the nicest compliments I've gotten for Crossing Washington Square (so far… I hope there are more to come!) was from Lawrence Grossberg who is a distinguished professor at The University of North Carolina. He is a very big deal in the world of academia and I was so excited that he not only read it, but also said the book “admirably reveals the hypocrisy of an academic culture that claims to want to understand people and the world they live in, but refuses to take seriously the forms of culture that matter to them.” The book is not just for “high fallutin” professors, of course! But it was exciting for me that a distinguished professor liked it.

5. What’s next for you?

I'm working on final edits for my third novel (which was bought by Penguin last fall). The novel tells the story of a woman who thinks she might be related to the nineteenth century writer, Mary Shelley. On her journey to seek the truth and to discover if there really is a link between her own family and the creator of Frankenstein, Clara unearths surprising facts about people much closer to home – including some shocking secrets about the ambitious scientist she is engaged to. The book is told in alternating points of view between Clara and the young Mary Shelley who is preparing to write Frankenstein.

When real life becomes a cartoon

Tell me this isn't the same broad!

It's funny when it's on The Simpsons, but in real life it makes me want to slap somebody!

Happy Labor Day

Prince - Let's Work
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Happy September

AWP coming to Denver in April!

This will be my first time at a AWP Conference and that's because it's coming to Denver next April. (Great opportunity for local writers.) You can register for early bird rates between now and December 15.

Anybody else planning to be there?