The Creation of Eve 
Lynn Cullen, 2010
Penguin Group USA
392 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425238707


Summary
It's 1559. A young woman painter is given the honor of traveling to Michelangelo's Roman workshop to learn from the Maestro himself. Only men are allowed to draw the naked figure, so she can merely observe from afar the lush works of art that Michelangelo sculpts and paints from life.

Sheltered and yet gifted with extraordinary talent, she yearns to capture all that life and beauty in her own art. But after a scandal involving one of Michelangelo's students, she flees Rome and fears she has doomed herself and her family.

The Creation of Eve is a riveting novel based on the true but little-known story of Sofonisba Anguissola, the first renowned female artist of the Renaissance. After Sofi's flight from Rome, her family eagerly accepts an invitation from fearsome King Felipe II of Spain for her to become lady-in-waiting and painting instructor to his young bride.

The Spanish court is a nest of intrigue and gossip, where a whiff of impropriety can bring ruin. Hopelessly bound by the rules and restrictions of her position, Sofi yearns only to paint. And yet the young Queen needs Sofi's help in other matters—inexperiences as she is, the Queen not only fails to catch the King's eye, but she fails to give him an heir, both of which are crimes that could result in her banishment.

Sofi guides her in how best to win the heart of the King, but the Queen is too young, and too romantic, to be satisfied. Soon, Sofi becomes embroiled in a love triangle involving the Queen, the King, and the King's illegitimate half brother, Don Juan. And if the crime of displeasing the King is banishment, the crime of cuckolding him must surely be death.

Combining art, drama, and history from the Golden Age of Spain, The Creation of Eve is an expansive, original, and addictively entertaining novel that asks the question: Can you ever truly know another person's heart?  (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 11, 1955
• Where—Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
• Education—B.A., Indiana University
• Currently—lives in Atlanta, Georgia


Lynn Cullen grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the fifth girl in a family of seven children. She learned to love history combined with traveling while visiting historic sites across the U.S. on annual family camping trips.

Lynn attended Indiana University in Bloomington and Fort Wayne, and took writing classes with Tom McHaney at Georgia State. She wrote children’s books as her three daughters were growing up, while working in a pediatric office and, later, at Emory University on the editorial staff of a psychoanalytic journal.

While her camping expeditions across the States have become fact-finding missions across Europe, she still loves digging into the past. She does not miss, however, sleeping in musty sleeping bags. Or eating canned fruit cocktail. She now lives in Atlanta with her husband, their dog, and two unscrupulous cats.

Books
Lynn is the author of the 2010 novel, The Creation of Eve, which was named among the best fiction books of the year by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and was an April 2010 Indie Next selection.

Her 2011 novel, Reign of Madness, about Juana the Mad, daughter of the Spanish Monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, was chosen as a Best of the South selection by the Atlanta Journal Constitution and was a 2012 Townsend Prize finalist.

Her 2013 novel, Mrs. Poe, examines the fall of Edgar Allan Poe through the eyes of poet Francis Osgood.

Twain's End, published in 2015, explores the tangled relationship among Mark Twain, his secretary Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager Ralph Ashcroft.

Lynn is also the author of numerous award-winning books for children, including the 2007 young adult novel I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter, which was a Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" selection, and an ALA Best Book of 2008. (From the author's website.)

Be sure to check out Lynn Cullen's essay on how she and a group of women formed their book club some 25 years ago. She was a guest on the Booking Mama blog.

Book Reviews
An intoxicating tale of love, betrayal and redemption…Cullen tackles the contradictions of the Renaissance and captures the dangerous spirit of the Inquisition while handling these vivid characters with prodigious control. The Creation of Eve is a historical romance that teaches as it touches.
Eugenia Zuckerman - Washington Post

Cullen's previous books include I Am Rembrandt's Daughter and Moi and Marie Antoinette. With this suspenseful, evocative tapestry of Renaissance life, art and royal skullduggery, the author has made a skillful—and, with any luck, permanent—jump into adult fiction.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Cullen richly draws her principal characters and their milieu, effectively transporting the reader back to 16th-century Italy and Spain.... Believable storytelling and wonderfully descriptive writing make The Creation of Eve a must-read for those who love historical fiction, especially if they also love art.
Newark Star-Ledger

The largely unknown story of female Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532–1625) is beautifully imagined here in YA novelist Cullen's sparkling adult debut.... [A] page-turning tale.... Ongoing references to the Spanish Inquisition and the life of the controversial Michelangelo add depth to this rich story.
Publishers Weekly

Cullen captivates her readers with the thrill and drama of 16th-century Spain. Hewing closely to historical record, the author fills in enough spaces to make a satisfying story but strategically leaves certain details to the imagination, a trick that has the reader deliciously wishing for just a little bit more.... Highly recommended. —Leigh Wright, Bridgewater, NJ
Library Journal

[F]ew are familiar with Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola. Cullen, best-selling author of the YA hit I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter (2007), corrects this oversight with this finely textured fictional biography.... Cullen does a magnificent job reinvigorating a still-life portrait of an all-but-forgotten maestra. —Margaret Flanagan
Booklist

Discussion Questions 
1. Were you surprised to learn that Sofonisba Anguissola, a Renaissance woman in a male-dominated culture, was a renowned portrait painter? How much of her fame do you think was attributable to her talent, and how much to other factors?

2. In the novel, we see (to varying degrees) the private lives of a servant, a lady, and a queen. How do their lives differ, and in what ways are their lives defined by their gender or their rank?

3. How might Sofonisba’s life story have changed if she had married Tiberio Calcagni?

4. As stated in the Author’s Note, Michelangelo was attracted to men at a time when homosexuality was a crime against the Church, punishable by death. In what ways does Sofonisba’s attitude toward him change over the course of the novel, in part because of what she learns about his personal life, and in part because of the twists and turns of her own fate?5.

5. One of the themes in The Creation of Eve is how people make judgments of others and how fallible these judgments can be. The author has stated that she purposely gave her characters both good and bad sides. Did your opinion of any of the characters change over the course of the novel?

6. In her Author’s Note, Lynn Cullen points out how effectively the Dutch and the English manipulated the historical legacy of Felipe II (as well as their own historical reputations). As a result, slander from the 1500s is still accepted as historical fact. Have you seen examples in your own life in which events as reported on the news differed from a scene you actually witnessed?

7. When Elisabeth of Valois was growing up in the French court, titillating questions such as “Which is the greater in love, fulfillment or desire?” were debated. Which of those would you champion?

8. Court intrigue, capable of dooming a queen to death, is a potent force in The Creation of Eve. Certainly, public opinion can affect the lives and careers of public figures today. Are women still more vulnerable than men?

9. The novel poses the question: How well do we really know those closest to us? Is it sometimes better not to know them too well?

10. At the end of the book, Sofonisba asks: “Will I ever know why we so often love those whom we cannot possess?” Is what she questions here universal to the human condition?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Interpretation of Murder
Jed Rubenfeld, 2006
Macmillan Picador
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312427054

Summary
National Bestseller The Interpretation of Murder opens on a hot summer night in 1909 as Sigmund Freud disembarks in New York from a steamship. With Freud is his rival Carl Jung; waiting for him on the docks is a young physician named Stratham Younger, one of Freud's most devoted American supporters. So begins this story of what will be the great genius's first—and last—journey to America.

The morning after his arrival, a beautiful young woman is found dead in an apartment in one of the city's grand new skyscrapers, The Balmoral. The next day brings a similar crime in a townhouse on Gramercy Park. Only this time the young heiress, Nora Acton, escapes with her life—but with no memory of the attack. Asked to consult on the case, Dr. Younger calls on Freud to guide him through the girl's analysis. Their investigation, and the pursuit of the culprit, lead throughout New York, from the luxurious ballrooms of the Waldorf-Astoria, to the skyscrapers rising on seemingly every street corner, to the bottom of the East River, where laborers are digging through the silt to build the foundation of the Manhattan Bridge.

Drawing on Freud's case histories, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the historical details of a city on the brink of modernity, The Interpretation of Murder introduces a brilliant new storyteller who, in the words of the New York Times, "will be no ordinary pop cultural sensation. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1959
• Where—Washington, D.C., USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in New Haven, Connecticut


Jed Rubenfeld, (born 1959 in Washington, D.C.), is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is an expert on constitutional law, privacy, and the First Amendment. He joined the Yale Law School faculty in 1990 and was appointed to a full professorship in 1994. Rubenfeld has also taught as a visiting professor at both the Stanford Law School and the Duke University School of Law. He is also the author of two novels and a nonfiction work, co-authored with his wife, Amy Chu.

Education
Rubenfeld was a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University (A.B., 1980) and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D., 1986). He also studied theater in the Drama Division of the Juilliard School between 1980-1982. Rubenfeld clerked for Judge Joseph T. Sneed on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1986-1987.

After his clerkship, he worked as an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York.

Books
2001 - Freedom and Time: A Theory of Constitutional Self-Government
2005 - Revolution by Judiciary: The Structure of American Constitutional Law
2006 - The Interpretation of Murder, a novel
2010 - The Death Instinct, a novel
2014 - The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of
          Cultural Groups in America (with Amy Chua)

Personal
Rubenfeld is Jewish. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut and is married to Yale Law School professor Amy Chua, author of several nonfiction works, the most well-known of which is her 2011 memoir on parenting, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011). They have two daughters. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/18/2014.)

Book Reviews
As The Interpretation of Murder races past ravished damsels, sinister aristocrats, architectural marvels (the building of the Manhattan Bridge), hysterical symptoms, a Hamlet-Freud nexus and downright criminal wordplay ("there are more things in heaven and earth, Herr Professor, than are dreamt in your psychology"; "sometimes a catarrh, I’m afraid, is only a catarrh"), it cobbles together its own brand of excitement. That excitement is as palpable as it is peculiar. In a book that pays too much homage to contemporary suspense templates, there are still deep reserves of insight, data, wit and anecdote upon which the author ingeniously draws.
Janet Maslin - The New York Times

Turning a psychological thriller with a cast that includes Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and several important American politicians and millionaires from a rich textual experience to a gripping and exciting audio event requires a reader with many skills. Heyborne knows how to use just his voice to bring a variety of nationalities and social classes to life. He can catch the inherent smartness of a working-class detective in a phrase, and can as quickly mark a pioneering medical examiner as a dangerous crank. But where he really succeeds is in the three very different psychoanalysts who move Rubenfeld's story of murder and psychosis down its distinctive road. Heyborne's Freud is an all-too-human man of obvious charm and originality; Freud's disciple Jung is cold, calculating and obviously envious; and fictional narrator Dr. Stratham Younger is a bright and admiring early Freudian who is also somewhat skeptical about some of the Viennese master's theories. This goes a long way in easing listeners through some of Rubenfeld's longer monologues about life and architecture in New York in 1909-passages that readers had the option of skimming without missing any vital nuances.
Publishers Weekly

This is a gloriously intelligent exploration of what might have happened to Sigmund Freud during his only visit to America. The tortured body of a young society woman is found in a posh New York apartment in the summer of 1909. A day later, beautiful Nora Acton is found with similar marks, only she has managed to survive the brutal attack. Freud, en route with Carl Jung to a speaking engagement in Boston, finds himself drawn into the investigation. He asks an American colleague to psychoanalyze Nora, who has repressed all memory of the attack. Meanwhile, a determined if inexperienced police detective follows another trail. Can Freud and his fellow psychoanalysts find the killer before he strikes again? Filled with period detail, this historical thriller challenges the reader to reason out the mystery. Rubenfeld (law, Yale Univ.; Revolution by Judiciary: The Structure of American Constitutional Law) shows great talent for psychological suspense and uses shifting viewpoints to build tension. Fans of Caleb Carr will adore this work. Given the publicity planned, it is highly recommended for all fiction collections. —Laurel Bliss, Princeton Univ. Lib., NJ
Library Journal

Sigmund Freud and friends play Sherlock Holmes in an Alienist-style historical murder mystery. Human monsters stalk the teeming streets of early-20th-century New York City in Rubenfeld's ambitious debut. A sadist is assaulting rich society girls with whips and blades. Is the villain unscrupulous, wealthy entrepreneur George Banwell, who is mean to his horses and denies his gorgeous wife sexual intercourse because pregnancy would ruin her figure? Is it mysterious William Leon of Chinatown, in whose room one of the corpses is found? Or could Harry Thaw, notorious murderer of Stanford White, be slipping out from Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane? Freud, making his only visit to America, to lecture at Clark University, is in New York with a group of colleagues. Among them is one who seems crazy enough to be another murder suspect: Carl Jung. Carl has violent mood swings, carries a pocket revolver, lies about his ancestors and believes that he can hear supernatural voices. Freud's cohorts also include Dr. Stratham Younger, an American psychoanalyst given the job of analyzing lovely 17-year-old Nora Acton, who has survived an attack by the sex maniac but can't remember anything about it. Into this already-teeming stew, the author tosses a group of powerful grandees scheming to ruin Freud's visit and reputation, political corruption, the plight of the working poor, the coming psychological revolution, Oedipus, Hamlet and much more. Rubenfeld tends to slice and splice his chapters in cinematic fashion; Younger's first-person narration repeatedly jars with the remainder of the book's third-person perspective, often spoiling the buildup of tension. Other weaknesses include the author's failure to establish exactly who the central character is. Eventually, relying heavily on bait-and-switch, the story reaches its conclusion, giving Freud the last, prophetic word. Meaty and provocative, though also grandiose and calculated.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Discss the use of the title, The Interpretation of Murder.

2. The author’s portrayal of women is noteworthy: Is Nora still a victim when she is empowered by a sympathetic listener? What are Clara’s motives for the events in the novel? How is Betty the maid, Susie Merrill, and Greta depicted? Do these characters reflect the turn-of-the-century society, or do they represent a more timeless portrayal of women?

3. Dr. Stratham Younger, a thirty-three-year-old Harvard graduate who teaches at Clark University and who is the narrator of the book, insisted at age seventeen that all great art and scientific discoveries were made at or near the turn of a century (Michelangelo’s David- 1501; Cervantes’s Don Quixote-1604; Beethoven’s symphonies-1800; Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams-1900, etc.) Discuss this phenomenon.

4. Is Younger the right man for the job of trying to unravel the attempted murder of Nora? Discuss psychoanalysis versus interrogation.

5. Consider the role of class conflict in the book: Jung’s feelings of shame over his obvious wealth; Jung versus Freud; Acton versus Banwell; Chong versus Leon; Malley and Betty, etc.

6. What role does psychological transference and sexual attraction play in the book?

7. Younger asks, “How can human beings be loved if we carry within such repugnant desires?” Freud thinks that Nora wants to sodomize her father. Is this ultimately true?

8. Discuss the author’s mix of fact and fiction. How has this device been used in previous New York novels, such as The Alienist, Ragtime, Dreamland: A Novel, Paradise Alley, etc.

9. Younger is obsessed with solving the riddle of Hamlet in the book. Discuss his analysis of “to be or not to be” in terms of Freudian/Oedipal theories. What does Younger finally decide? Is this the correct interpretation?

10. Younger says, “Some people feel a need to bring about the very thing that will most torment them.” How does this describe the characters in the book?

11. When he boards the ship back to Europe, Freud says that “America is a mistake.... A gigantic mistake.” What does he mean?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Nights in Rodanthe
Nicholas Sparks, 2003
Grand Central Publishing
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446612708


Summary
Adrienne Willis is forty-five and has been divorced for three years, abandoned by her husband for a younger woman. The trials of raising her teenage children and caring for her sick father have worn her down, but at the request of a friend and in hopes of a respite, she’s gone to the coastal village of Rodanthe in North Carolina’s outer banks to tend the local inn for the weekend. With a major storm brewing, the time away doesn’t look promising…until a guest named Paul Flanner arrives.

At fifty-four, Paul is a successful surgeon but in the previous six months his life has unraveled into something he doesn’t recognize. Estranged from his son and recently divorced, he’s sold his practice and his home and has journeyed to this isolated coastal town in hopes of closing a painful chapter in his past, completely unaware that his life is about to change forever.

Adrienne and Paul come together as the storm gathers strength over Rodanthe, but what begins between them over the weekend will resonate throughout the rest of their lives, intertwining past and future, love and loss. (From the publisher.)

Nights in Rodanthe was adapted to film in 2008, starring Diane Lane and Richard Gere.

Author Bio
• Birth—December 31. 1965
• Where—Omaha, Nebraska, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Notre Dame
• Currently—lives in New Bern, North Carolina


Nicholas Charles Sparks is an American novelist, screenwriter and producer. He has published some 20 novels, plus one non-fiction. Ten have been adapted to films, including Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John, The Last Song, The Lucky One, and most recently The Longest Ride.

Background
Sparks was born to Patrick Michael Sparks, a professor of business, and Jill Emma Marie Sparks (nee Thoene), a homemaker and an optometrist's assistant. He was the middle of three children, with an older brother and a younger sister, "Dana", who died at the age of 33 from a brain tumor. Sparks said that she is the inspiration for the main character in his novel A Walk to Remember.

His father was pursuing graduate studies at University of Minnesota and University of Southern California, and the family moved a great deal, so by the time Sparks was eight, he had lived in Watertown, Minnesota, Inglewood, California, Playa del Rey, California, and Grand Island, Nebraska, which was his mother's hometown during his parents' one year separation.

In 1974 his father became a professor of business at California State University, Sacramento teaching behavioral theory and management. His family settled in Fair Oaks, California, and remained there through Nicholas's high school days. He graduated in 1984 as valedictorian from Bella Vista High School, then enrolled at the University of Notre Dame under a full track and field scholarship. In his freshman year, his team set a record for the 4 x 800 relay.

Sparks majored in business finance and graduated from Notre Dame with honors in 1988. He also met his future wife that year, Cathy Cote from New Hampshire, while they were both on spring break. They married in 1989 and moved to New Bern, North Carolina.

Writing career
While still in school in 1985, Sparks penned his first (never published) novel, The Passing, while home for the summer between freshman and sophomore years at Notre Dame. He wrote another novel in 1989, also unpublished, The Royal Murders.

After college, Sparks sought work with publishers or to attend law school, but was rejected in both attempts. He then spent the next three years trying other careers, including real estate appraisal, waiting tables, selling dental products by phone and starting his own manufacturing business.

In 1990, Sparks co-wrote with Billy Mills Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding. The book was published by Random House sold 50,000 copies in its first year.

In 1992, Sparks began selling pharmaceuticals and in 1993 was transferred to Washington, DC. It was there that he wrote another novel in his spare time, The Notebook. Two years later, he was discovered by literary agent Theresa Park, who picked The Notebook out of her agency's slush pile, liked it, and offered to represent him. In October 1995, Park secured a $1 million advance for The Notebook from Time Warner Book Group. The novel was published in 1996 and made the New York Times best-seller list in its first week of release.

With the success of his first novel, he and Cathy moved to New Bern, NC. After his first publishing success, he began writing his string of international bestsellers.

Personal life and philanthropy
Sparks continues to reside in North Carolina with his wife Cathy, their three sons, and twin daughters. A Roman Catholic since birth, he and his wife are raising their children in the Catholic faith.

In 2008, Entertainment Weekly reported that Sparks and his wife had donated "close to $10 million" to start a private Christian college-prep school, The Epiphany School of Global Studies, which emphasizes travel and lifelong learning.

Sparks also donated $900,000 for a new all-weather tartan track to New Bern High School. He also donates his time to help coach the New Bern High School track team and a local club track team as a volunteer head coach.

In addition to track, he funds scholarships, internships and annual fellowship to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Sparks (A Bend in the Road, etc.) logs more miles on the winding high road of romance with the story of two middle-aged people who meet by chance in the small North Carolina coastal town of Rodanthe. The impassioned but doomed romance seems to owe much to Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County. Once again, a housewife who has focused on everyone but herself indulges in a brief, intense, secret affair with a stranger who changes her life forever. As the story begins, Adrienne Willis is 60, the divorced mother of three grown children. To help her troubled daughter cope with the untimely recent death of her husband, Adrienne tells her the tale of her love affair, which took place 15 years before. At the time, Adrienne was an uptight matron whose ex-husband had just left her for a younger woman. This rejection colors her entire life, and Sparks realistically portrays a vulnerable and isolated woman who throws herself into raising her children to escape her despair. Paul Flanner, her paramour, is a surgeon and an obsessive workaholic with no genuine connection to his wife or son, whose world completely falls apart when one of his patients inexplicably dies. Sparks builds a taut, plausible relationship between his protagonists, but even fans may be irked by the obviousness of their story and the inevitability of their fate.
Publishers Weekly

Sparks...is back at it with his latest mix of love story and pathos. He doesn't disappoint, whipping up plenty of melodrama in the story of two shattered people, both badly scarred by past experiences, who find each other late in life and realize they are soul mates. —Kathleen Hughes
Booklist

A mother unburdens a story of past romance to her troubled daughter for no good reason. Adrienne Willis is a middle-aged mother with three kids who, not surprisingly, finds herself in an emotional lurch after her husband dumps her for a younger, prettier thing. Needing to recharge her batteries, Adrienne takes a holiday, watching over her friend's small bed-and-breakfast in the North Carolina beach town of Rodanthe. Then Dr. Paul Flanner appears, himself a cold fish in need of a little warming up. This is the scene laid out by Adrienne to her daughter, Amanda, in a framing device of unusual crudity from Sparks (A Bend in the Road, 2001, etc.). Amanda's husband has recently died and she hasn't quite gotten around to figuring out how to keep on living. Imagining that nothing is better for a broken heart than somebody else's sad story, Adrienne tells her daughter about the great lost love of her life. Paul came to Rodanthe in order to speak with the bereaved family of a woman who had just died after he had operated on her. Paul, of course, was not to blame, but still he suffers inside. Add to that a recent divorce and an estranged child and the result is a tortured soul whom Adrienne finds absolutely irresistible. Of course, the beach, an impending storm, the fact that there are no other visitors around, a roaring fireplace, and any number of moments that could have been culled from a J. Crew catalogue and a Folgers's commercial make romance just about inevitable. Sparks couldn't be less subtle in this harshly mechanical story that adheres to formula in a way that would make an assembly-line romance writer blush. Short, to the point, and absolutely unremarkable: sure to be another medium-hotromance-lite hit for Sparks, who at the very least can never be accused of overstaying his welcome.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. In the opening scene, Adrienne decides to tell her daughter about a story from her past about Paul Flanner, a relationship that had obviously ended. Did you realize that he had died, or did you think that the relationship had ended differently? How would the novel have been different had the author decided not to let the reader know the ending in advance? Could the story have been told in another way, as simply a remembrance for instance, and still had the same impact?

2. Amanda lost her husband to cancer, and Adrienne lost Paul to an accident. Adrienne also lost her husband to a younger woman. Yet Adrienne found a way to heal, despite her losses, while Amanda has not. Is this difference a function of age and maturity, or simply the passage of time? If its both, do you believe that Amanda will eventually fall in love again? Is that important to her? What other lessons did she draw from her mother's story?

3. Rodanthe is described in detail. How does the setting play a role in the story? Could this story have occurred in a larger city? Why or why not?

4. The novel deals with the theme love and sacrifice. How did the major characters -- Adrienne, Paul, Amanda and Robert Torrelson -- sacrifice? How did love play a role? What else played a role? Is sacrifice an act, or is sacrifice an on-going process? Explain.

5. In this novel, as in Message in a Bottle, there are scenes that take place in the beach. What is the significance of the beach in this story? How does it play into the theme of the novel? Also in this novel is a storm, just as there was in The Notebook. What is the significance of the storm? How does it play into the theme of the novel?

6. Adrienne never told her children about Paul in the year that followed their relationship in Rodanthe. Think about Adrienne at that point in her life. Why wouldn't she tell the children about him? Is that believable? How do her children remember her from that time? How does Amanda see her mother now, in knowing that she'd kept him a secret?

7. Paul is a wounded character when the novel opens because he feels that all the sacrifices in his life haven't been worth it. His wife has left him, he's estranged from his son, he's sold his medical practice, and has come to Rodanthe to meet Robert Torrelson. Was he a necessary character in this novel? Why or why not? How does Robert Torrelson influence the relationship between Paul and Adrienne? Would you like to read a novel based on the love story between Robert and his wife?

8. Mark plays a central role in letting us get to know Paul Planner. He also writes a letter that lets Adrienne know what had happened. Why did the author choose to use the epistolary method for describing these things? Is the letter more effective than a conversation? Why or why not? What is the relationship between Mark and Paul like in the final moments of Paul's death? How do you think Mark views Paul now? Is this typical of father/son relationships?

9. The inn is described in the opening paragraph of the novel. Why did the author start the novel with a description of an inn? How does the inn play a role in all that happens?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Summer Blowout
Claire Cook, 2008
Hyperion
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401340957

Summary
A good makeup artist never panics. Bella Shaughnessy knows this. She’s the resident makeup maven in a family of Boston Irish hair salon owners; she has an artful solution to almost every problem. But Bella feels bruised beyond the reach of even the best concealer when her half-sister runs off with her husband. What could she come up with to cover a hurt like that?

Plenty, it turns out. She conceives an invigorating new business idea, and soon meets a cute entrepreneur who can help out. Despite their bickering, they can’t seem to stay away from success—or from each other. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 14, 1955
• Where—Alexandria, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., Syracuse University
• Currently—Scituate, Massachusetts

Raised on Nancy Drew mysteries, Claire Cook has wanted to write ever since she was a little girl. She majored in theater and creative writing at Syracuse University and immersed herself in a number of artistic endeavors (copywriter, radio continuity director, garden designer, and dance and aerobics choreographer), yet somehow her dreams got pushed to the side for more real-life matters—like marriage, motherhood, and a teaching career. Decades passed, then one day she found herself parked in her minivan at 5 AM, waiting for her daughter to finish swim practice. She was struck with a now-or-never impulse and began writing on the spot. By the end of the season, she had a first draft. Her first novel, Ready to Fall, was published in 2000, when Cook was 45.

Since then, this "late starter" has more than made up for lost time. She struck gold with her second book, Must Love Dogs. Published in 2002, this story of a middle-aged divorcee whose singles ad produces hilariously unexpected results was declared "funny and pitch-perfect" by the Chicago Tribune and "a hoot" by the Boston Globe. (The novel got a second life in 2005 with the release of the feature film starring Diane Lane and John Cusack.) Cook's subsequent novels, with their wry, witty take on the lives of middle-aged women, have become bestsellers and book club favorites.

Upbeat, gregarious, and grateful for her success, Cook is an inspiration for aspiring writers and women in midlife transition. She tours indefatigably for her novels and genuinely enjoys speaking with fans. She also conducts frequent writing workshops, where she dispenses advice and encouragement in equal measure. "I'm extraordinarily lucky to spend my time doing what I love," she has said on countless occasions. "The workshops are a way to say thank you and open doors that I stumbled through to make it easier for writers coming up behind me."

Extras
From a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:

• I first knew I was a writer when I was three. My mother entered me in a contest to name the Fizzies whale, and I won in my age group. It's quite possible that mine was the only entry in my age group since "Cutie Fizz" was enough to win my family a six-month supply of Fizzies tablets (root beer was the best flavor) and half a dozen turquoise plastic mugs with removable handles. At six I had my first story on the "Little People's Page" in the Sunday paper (about Hot Dog, the family Dachshund) and at sixteen, I had my first front page feature in the local weekly.

• In the acknowledgments of Multiple Choice I say that even though it's probably undignified to admit it, I'm having a blast as a novelist. To clarify that, having a blast as a novelist does not necessarily mean having a blast with the actual writing. The people part—meeting readers and booksellers and librarians and the media—is very social and I'm having lots of fun with that. The writing part is great, too, once you get past the procrastination, the self-doubt, and the feelings of utter despair. It's all of the stuff surrounding the writing that's hard; once you find your zone, your place of flow, or whatever it is we're currently calling it, and lose yourself in the writing, it really is quite wonderful. I've heard writers say it's better than sex, though I'm not sure I'd go that far.

• I love books that don't wrap everything up too neatly at the end, and I think it's a big compliment to hear that a reader is left wanting more. After each novel, I hear from many readers asking for a sequel— they say they just have to find out what will happen to these people next. I think it's wonderful that the characters have come to life for them. But, for now, I think I'll grow more as a writer by trying to create another group of quirky characters. Maybe a few books down the road, I'll feel ready to return to some of them—who knows?

• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, here is her answer:

I get asked this question a lot on book tour, and I'm always tempted to say anything by Jane Austen or Alice Munro, just so people will know I'm well read, and sometimes I'm even tempted to say something by Gogol, just so people will think I'm really, really well read. But, alas, ultimately I tell the truth. The Nancy Drew books influenced me the most. I think they taught me a lot about pacing, and about ending chapters in such a way that the reader just can't put the book down and absolutely has to read on to the next chapter. I also think these books are responsible for the fact that I can't, for the life of me, write a chapter that's much longer than ten pages.

There's another variation of this question that I'm asked all the time on book tour: Who are your favorite authors? I always answer it the same way: My favorite authors are the ones who've been nice to me. It's so important for established authors to take emerging authors under their wings. Two who've been particularly generous to me as mentors and friends are Mameve Medwed and Jeanne Ray. Fortunately, they both happen to be very talented—and funny—so if you've somehow missed their books, you should read them immediately. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
The exuberant and charming Claire Cook (ask anyone who saw her at this spring's Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival) is one of the sassiest and funniest creators of contemporary women's fiction.... Summer Blowout, is every bit as much fun as Must Love Dogs and Life's a Beach.
New Orleans Time-Picayune

Nobody does the easy-breezy beach book with a lighter hand than Claire Cook.... In Summer Blowout...you soon find yourself on another of Cook's delightful tours of the funny side of big family life.
Hartford Courant

You won ’t have to don your sunglasses for this sunny delight by the author of Must Love Dogs. Makeup artist Bella Shaughnessy has a thing for lipstick—with names like Catfight, Damaged and Revive—a family that gives new meaning to the expression blended (thanks to a half-sister who’s dating Bella’s ex-husband) and a ban on men (see half-sister). Which is too bad, because she’s just met Sean Ryan, an entrepreneur with sparkling eyes and a proposal, business that is—or is it?—for Bella. As refreshing as an icy drink on a sultry day.
Family Circle

A brisk story, Summer Blowout is primed to become a big-screen romantic comedy. —Hilary Hatton
Booklist

Cook updates the themes of love and disenchantment that drove Life's a Beach and Must Love Dogs in her latest beacher. Bella Shaughnessy, a makeup artist whose solace in times of hardship is finding just the right lipstick to match her mood, gets a divorce and quits men after discovering that her husband of 10 years has been seeing her younger half-sister, Sophia. During a wedding job, she gets stuck with dog-sitting Precious (who "looked kind of like a flying squirrel") and quickly gets so attached that she takes drastic measures to keep the dog. Can other kinds of attachment be far behind, as cute and easygoing Sean Ryan enters the picture? Sufficient comedy and romance keep readers entertained until the last page.
Publishers Weekly

Lipstick rules in this sunny romance tucked inside a Boston family's chain of beauty salons. Recently divorced makeup artist Bella Shaughnessy is going down swinging as she reacts to newcomer Sean Ryan and the gnawing possibility that developers are sabotaging her family's original shop. Cook's (Life's a Beach) ability to make families' foibles ring true—and funny—ensures a delightful read. Snap this one up and enjoy the makeup advice.
Teresa Jacobsen - Library Journal

Cook's fifth, about a family of beauticians, falls as flat as a badly layered mullet. The formulaic chick-lit elements are duly provided: family craziness, brand-name-dropping, egregious infidelity. Lucky Larry Shaughnessy gave Italian names to his five children and to the chain of beauty salons he runs in the Boston area. Why? Well, he's been an "Italiophile" ever since he spent his first honeymoon in Tuscany, and "how much money could you really charge at Salon de Seamus?" Daughter (and narrator) Bella recently lost her husband Craig to her half-sister Sophia. This makes work awkward, since all of Lucky's offspring, along with two of his ex-wives, are employed in the salons. Makeup artist and lipstick addict Bella meets rich, handsome Sean Ryan at a college admission fair where she's providing makeovers and he's test-marketing a "college application survival kit." They exchange wisecracks and snappy comebacks, but not, just yet, bodily fluids. Burned by bad relationships, both have commitment issues. Among the other developments: Bella, assigned to prettify a bridal party, dognaps the bride's neglected tiny terrier, dyes and crops the dog's fur and renames her Cannoli. There are a few funny bits, as when the Shaughnessys, including gay stylist Mario and his spouse Todd, perform a hair intervention to force Lucky to give up his Donald Trump coiffure. But the climactic ensemble scene in Atlanta, where the family congregates for a nephew's wedding, is not the madcap laugh-fest it labors to be. Nor is eminently self-satisfied Bella the sort of wryly self-deprecating protagonist the genre requires. Intense beauty-product placement may be this novel's onlyselling point.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Summer Blowout:

1. Summer Blowout, while not a fount for heavy philosophical discussion, can still yield up some good questions about family, loyalty, trust, and love. So start with Bella's family—what did you find funny about them...or irritating. A fun family to be a part of? Any comparisons to your own family? Family businesses...good idea?

2. Then, of course, there's Bella's sister Sophia. What a b.... um, back-stabber, dating Bella's ex-husband. Do sisters (even half-sisters...why is that important in the story do you think?) really DO that?

3. Talk the about the irony of Bella as a make-up artist, skilled at covering up flaws, bruises, dark spots...etc. How does this apply to her own life? Then, of course, there's the irony of all of Bella's wedding jobs.

4. Sean...see it coming? Predictable?

5. Of course, Blowout is about a woman who surmounts an emotional trauma, changing her life to achieve happiness and fulfillment. A realistic picture of what happens to women (or men) after suffering losses? Is it possible in real life to put all that pain behind us and forge a new life? Or is this the stuff of romance novels, movies, and dreams?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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