PINCH ME
by Adena Halpern
Women's Fiction
Simon and Schuster
5 autographed copies will be given away on Friday, November 11, 2011!
About the Book:
“Never marry a man unless he’s short, bald, fat, stupid, and treats you badly.” That is the romantic advice that twenty-nine-year-old Lily Burns has heard her entire life from her grandmother, Dolly, and mother Selma. Despite this, when she meets Gogo, the handsome, successful pediatrician who treats her like a queen, she has no choice but to let her heart take over. When she agrees to marry him, Dolly and Selma are inconsolable. They decide it’s time to tell her the truth: the women in their family are cursed. If she marries for love, there will be unimaginable consequences.
Thinking she can somehow evade the curse that has plagued their lineage for generations, Lily elopes with Gogo. Unable to believe her good fortune, she asks Gogo to pinch her to make sure this isn’t a dream. The moment he does, Lily finds herself transported back to the house she lived in when she was single. Gogo is gone. It’s as if they never met. When Lily tracks him down she finds that he’s married to someone else and has no memory of her. In this reality, Gogo has none of his boyish charm, and instead of being a doctor, he sells drainpipes for a living. Lily knows it’s up to her to save Gogo and return them both to the wedded bliss they were meant to have - but the only way to do that is to break the curse.
With Dolly and Selma’s help, Lily sets out to determine where Gogo’s life went off track. In doing so, she builds his confidence, physically and mentally transforming him back to the man he once was. But when he starts to fall in love with her all over again, Lily is faced with the age-old question: Is it better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all? Or should she just say screw it all and let the chips fall where they may?
Check out our Exclusive Interview with the author here:
1) How did you get the idea for the novel?
I got the idea for PINCH ME in the hot foods section of Whole Foods. This particular Whole Foods was located around the corner from where I lived when I was single. Before I met my husband, my personal and professional lives were pretty dismal. I was practically broke. Each man I dated was worse than the next, and I was sure my writing career would exist solely on my home computer. As luck would have it, I sold my first book two months before I met my husband. When it rains it pours. Three books, and four years of blissful marriage later, I found myself in my old neighborhood and decided to pop into my old Whole Foods for some lunch. As I stood there deciding what to eat, it suddenly occurred to me, “what if I walked outside and my beautiful new car wasn’t there and my old piece of junk with the broken sunroof was sitting in its place? What if I dreamed this whole thing, the perfect man, amazing career and I’ve just woken up?” I looked around the store and it suddenly looked like I was transported back to 2004. I really freaked myself out. That’s when I thought the idea would make a great book and I went from there.
2) When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer? Have you had other jobs along the way?
I can’t remember when I didn’t want to be a writer, specifically an author. It was always my dream to write books. I sold shoes, I was as an assistant to a Hollywood producer; I was a publicist for a short time, worked at an ad agency and wrote for magazines. I never looked at any of those jobs as careers. I looked at them as good writing material and each of them have popped up someplace in my books.
3) Considering a book from the first word you write to the moment you see it on a bookstore shelf, what’s your favorite part of the process? What’s your least favorite?
My favorite part of writing a book is the actual writing of the book. My least favorite is coming up with the outline for the book because it’s just so darn tedious. Sometimes it takes me longer to write the outline than it does to write the book. The thing is, at least for me; you can’t do one without the other. I need to have a solid outline of where the story is going and who the characters are so that I can just let my mind wander into the world of the book. When I write a book, I see it as a movie in my head. I imagine the characters as they would speak, what they look like, what their environment is like and I let it play out. Every now and then though, the movie stops and I come back to reality because I have no idea what’s going to happen next. For me, that’s why an outline is key.
4) If you could have dinner with one of your characters who would it be?
If I could have dinner with any of the characters in my books, it would be the grandparents and uncle in my book THE TEN BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. The grandparents and uncle in the book were my actual grandparents and uncle who died when I was a teenager. When I wrote the book, I imagined their voices in my head and their characteristics. It would be a dream come true to have dinner with them again. I hope my grandmother would make her mouthwatering brisket and we’d have her cream cheese cookies for dessert.
5) What book are you currently reading or what was the last book you read?
I’m currently reading some “old school” chick lit. We all owe a debt to Jane Austen, but we tend to forget about the more recent classics. I started with DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE. Fabulous. Then I read VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Couldn’t put it down. I’m about to start PEYTON PLACE, and after that, I’ll read FEAR OF FLYING and finish my excursion with Judy Blume’s WIFEY (which I did read as a pre-teen, but something tells me I won’t snicker at the dirty parts this time).
About The Author:
Adena Halpern has a bachelor of fine arts degree in dramatic writing from New York University and a master of fine arts degree in screenwriting from The American Film Institute. A proud Philadelphia native, she’s resides in Los Angeles with her husband, screenwriter Jonathan Goldstein (co-writer of the film Horrible Bosses releasing July 2011 starring Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Spacey and Jason Bateman). Visit the author online at: www.AdenaHalpern.com.
**Please enter to win using the form on the left side bar of our website. Comments left on the post are not used as entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment