The title of this blog may mislead you.  I definitely am glorifying food, just not in the way you think.  Let me explain.

I’ve always had a weight problem.  When I tell people this, they say, “But you’re so thin!”  Right now, I may be slim, but only because I’ve just lost ten pounds.  It’s been that way all my life – up ten, down ten.  And that’s fine.  For me, the key has been never letting it go too much beyond that.

Still, it’s a struggle.  I’ve tried most diets – have paid a fortune over the years for food, meetings, counseling.  The problem is that these are, well, diets.  Once you call it a diet, you’re thinking deprivation and punishment, both of which are negative.  Clearly negativity hasn’t worked, since my weight (and that of so many of us) continues to yo-yo.  So let’s try something different.  Let’s focus on the positive.  Let’s focus on learning to like – learning to prefer foods that are good for us.

Take a baked potato.  Fattening, huh?  Sure, with all that butter and sour cream.  But when was the last time you actually tasted the potato?  All alone.  Maybe with a drop of salt, but just a drop.  A good potato has taste of its own.  If you’re shaking your head, either the baked potato in front of you isn’t a good quality potato, or you’re wolfing it down too fast to think about its taste.

Try this.  Close your eyes, and your sense of taste is stronger.  When you close your eyes, you shut out distractions and focus solely on your food, which means you eat more slowly and feel more satisfied when you’re done.

What does this have to do with books?  The main voice in Escape!, my work-in-progress, realizes that she doesn’t taste food anymore but is just shoveling it in on the run.  The point of the story is her need to slow down and savor life.  In part, that means tasting food.

This is the first of what I hope will be a serious of blogs to help us all get a grip – and I do include myself here.  I have more years behind me of eating the wrong things than I do ahead of eating the right things, and old habits die hard.  So anything I write here is for my own benefit as well.  Think of me as your weight coach, with a morsel of common sense in each blog.

Today’s morsel:  Ketchup.

My husband and I have been dieting together.  This helps, by the way.  Over dinner at night, we talk about what we eat, and one of those things is sugar.  Natural sugar, as found in apples, is great.  Added sugar, as found in so much else, is not.  Mindful of this, a month ago I bought a bottle of reduced-sugar ketchup.  It was a small bottle.  I didn’t know whether I’d like it or whether we would even try it, and indeed it sat unopened for several weeks.  Finally I dared to dribble a little over steamed broccoli – and, whoa, was I transported!  Yes, transported.  That’s the only word to describe it.  The years disappeared, and I was a kid again!  This was the ketchup I remembered from my childhood!  So when had they added the sugar?  And why?  We can all guess the answer to that one, and it isn’t pretty.

I’ve deliberately posted this before the holiday weekend, because I want us all to think.  You are what you eat, and, I don’t know about you, but this weekend, I want to be the good old-fashioned healthier kind of ketchup.

New England is my turf.  It’s where I’ve lived all my life, where nearly all of my books are set.  I’ve created any number of small New England towns from scratch – and, let me tell you, creating towns can be exhausting.  You have to pick a spot (e.g., mountain, valley, or coast), design the roads running through it, establish businesses in the town center and homes radiating out.  Not My Daughter is the latest book for which I’ve built a town – Zaganack, on the coast of Maine, a company town inspired by, but way different from, Freeport and L.L.Bean.  I do try to rotate through the New England states, though New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine are choice picks for tiny towns.

At while back, it was New Hampshire’s turn. (more…)

I write books about family relationships and books about relationships between friends.  How natural would it be to combine the two in a book about friends as close as family?

Annie Pope and Teke Maxwell were college roommates; Sam Pope and J.D. Maxwell, longtime friends, practice law together.  They have five teenage kids between them, back-to-back houses that share a lush yard, and a vacation home filled with years of memories.  With Annie a college professor and Teke a stay-at-home mom, they have crafted a tightly-woven and seamless working of lives.

Then comes the unexpected.  In a single, momentary indiscretion, Sam Pope and Teke Maxwell are found in a compromising position by Teke’s 13-year-old son, who races from the house into the path of an oncoming car.  The accident leaves the boy in a coma.

How do the families deal?  Do friends remain friends?  Can husbands and wives trust again?  And what of the daily lives that have been so entwined?

There you have it – the premise of my book More Than Friends.  I’m blogging about this today because More Than Friends hits bookstores tomorrow (March 16) in a gorgeous new trade paperback package that is fabulous to hold and priced to sell.  Written in the ‘90’s, More Than Friends was my very first New York Times Bestseller and, in that, a breakout book for me.

Rereading it just now, I had a ball.  My writing style has changed some, but the emotions are there in full, along with a plot as tightly woven as the Maxwells and the Popes.

So.  If you’re looking for a late winter read that will take your mind off, well, the weather for one thing, I recommend it.  Please let me know if it does the trick.

Who are my favorite authors?  My favorite books?  I’m asked this by nearly every group with which I talk, and the answer is that when I’m writing my own book, I can’t read at all.  I do knit, which explains the yarn in books like Not My Daughter and Family Tree.

Once monthly, I attend Stitch Night at Iron Horse, a local yarn store owned by Debbie Smith, and she has just introduced something new to her knitters.  The project is called Stitching for Babies (more…)

It’s been a while since I last blogged.  My apologies for that, but what with the publication of Not My Daughter and the promotional work it entailed, I’ve been distracted.  I also felt you’d heard enough from me in the days leading up to January 5 and deserved a break.

But I’m back — back writing, actually, because I spent the imaginative pre-dawn hours of December and January plotting my next book.  It’s an idea that came to me last June, on the very day I sent Not My Daughter off to my publisher.  Lots of other plot possibilities came and went during the summer, which is typically my time for new ideas, but this one wouldn’t let go.

You guys helped cement it. (more…)

I’m psyched!  Here’s the 3½-star (out of 4) review of Not My Daughter that just appeared in PEOPLE magazine.

“Calling to mind an ’08 news story about 17 girls thought to have made a pregnancy “pact,” this novel features three Maine teens who blithely orchestrate getting pregnant together. Refusing to name the fathers or to consider abortion or adoption, they are at once perplexing and heartbreaking – especially to their own mothers, who become primary characters. As the town erupts in outrage, the girls’ moms grapple with anger, sorrow and the nagging question: Where did I fail my daughter? It’s a topical tale that resonates with timeless emotion.”

Nice, huh?  And filling the whole lower third of the page, including a view of the cover? Thank you, PEOPLE Magazine.  A writer can’t ask for more.

But we do.  Every writer wants to be reviewed.  Why?  Three reasons. (more…)

Rarely does a week go by when I don’t meet with a book group, and oh, the luxury of it.  I can visit anywhere in the country from the comfort of my home, talking by speakerphone with a group of readers, all of whom have read my book.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

But I’m not in a book group, some readers cry, which is why I’m doing a live chat on Tuesday, January 12, 9-9:30 pm (EST) right here on this blog page.

But still, you say,  you want to talk with me on the phone like those other book groups?  Okay.  Form a book group of your own.  Even for one night, one meeting.  How to do it?  (more…)

Since you’ve so kindly indulged my going on and on for months, I’ll make this blog short and sweet.

My new book, Not My Daughter, is now on sale!  I hope you enjoy it.  As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you’d like a personalized bookplate for your copy, give me the info and it’ll be on its way.

If you’d like to take part in a live online chat to discuss Not My Daughter (or any other BD subject), be right here at this BLOG page one week from tonight, Tuesday, January 12, from 9:00-9:30 PM (EST).

And finally, if you haven’t put your name in for the sweepstakes, please do so now.  With $1000 in book gift cards up for grabs, it’ll be worth your while.

That’s it.  ‘Til Thursday.

Actually, that’s the second piece of my 2010 news.  The first is right there on my home page – the offer of an autographed bookplate for your copy of Not My Daughter.  I’ll sign up to three bookplates per person, one for each of three copies of the book.  Just follow the link to the order form, give me the pertinent info, and I’ll take it from there.  I pay postage and handling.  The only cost to you is whatever you pay, wherever, for Not My Daughter!

And here’s the online chat part. (more…)

There’s a reason why I set my stories in New England.  I love New England.  Sure, I’ve lived here all my life, still I love it.  Doesn’t that say something?

Maine holds a special place in my heart for many reasons, only the most recent of which is that it’s the Not My Daughter setting.  Here’s a little history of Maine and me. (more…)