BOOK LAUNCH PARTY, READING & SIGNING!!
Saturday, June 7th at 2pm at Books, Etc, in Falmouth, Maine. Come join me for a reading, discussion, signing, and delicious cake!   

Not only is QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING the title of my new novel, which will arrive on a bookstore shelf near you on Tuesday, May 27th, it's a variation of the title of the "most emailed" New York Times article of 2006: Questions Couples Should Ask Before Marrying (Or Wish That They Had). A simple list of 15 questions, ranging from finances to sex to religion to friends to expectations. "What does my family do that bugs you to death?" "TV in the bedroom?" "Will you be willing to move to New York City or a one-stoplight town for my career?" "You'll stop buying shoes, right?" It's a good list, a practical list, but when it comes right down to it, I think the very last question, #15, is the most important because it is THE question. If this, would that, what about, blah, blah, blah . . .  But let's say you and your intended are in agreement on most of the questions, the ones most fundamental to you. Then let's say during the course of your marriage, one of you says/does/wants something different. This is where #15 seems to be the most important question: Can the bond between the two you survive whatever challenges you might face? 

Such a serious question! And can you really know? I was so interested in exploring that. And so I sent my main character, Ruby Miller (with her sparkling diamond engagement ring and the New York Times article folded in her purse) and her very different twin sister, Stella, on a very long and bumpy road trip from Maine to Las Vegas, where a ceremony by an Elvis impersonator may or may not await her. If Stella has anything to say about it (and Stella's in the car with Ruby for 3,000 miles), the answer is: no way. Stella doesn't think Ruby really loves her buttoned-up fiance.

But Stella (a professional muse and "Face Reader," has her own very important questions to ask, regarding the whereabouts and what-abouts (I think I just made that word up) of a certain guy whose name she isn't sure about. And by the end, both sisters are asking all sorts of questions–of each other and about life and love, about what they want, what they need, who they are.  

I know authors are not supposed to have favorites when it comes to their own books, but I must say, QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING is tied for favorite with my first book, See Jane Date. 

You can find the book in bookstores, Target, Amazon or any online retailer or basically wherever books are sold. Here's a link to read an excerpt (on Amazon). 

P.S. In Maine today, it's 61 degrees. Tomorrow it will be 71. And on Monday, 81. Then back to the 60s for next week. Crazy. Until I moved here I had no idea that you can't go swimming in the ocean until very late July unless you want to freeze.  

Happy long weekend… 

Looking for a fun novel to take to the beach this Memorial Day weekend? Here's one to pack in that bag: 

SECRETS OF THE HOLLYWOOD GIRLS CLUB by Maggie Marr

Secrets of the Hollywood Girls Club "Marr's prose is fast and sharp, and she keeps the plots flying."
   —Publishers Weekly

Life at the top of the A-list is fabulous, but it's a long way to the ground if you fall—and the cameras are always waiting to publicly humiliate you if you do. Jessica, Mary Anne, Lydia, and Celeste have stayed at the top by sticking together. The last time they collaborated on a project, the film was a huge success, launching ueber-agent Jessica's boutique management company, making Mary Anne the hottest new screenwriter in Hollywood, landing Lydia the top spot at Worldwide Pictures, and solidifying Celeste's position as the queen of Tinseltown. But this time, as these powerful movie mavens are called to the set, each of them has a lot more to lose.

At thirty (ahem . . . thirty-six), actress Celeste Solange is starting to feel her age. Tiny lines are beginning to appear near her eyes, and she's wondering how long she can hold on to her A-list status. But that's not her biggest problem—not by a long shot. A compromising DVD she made with her husband during the wild early days of their marriage is making the rounds, threatening to break out onto the Internet and ruin her image and her career. So Celeste turns to her girlfriends for help—good thing they're some of the most powerful players in town.

Mary Anne, Lydia, and Jessica have troubles of their own. Mary Anne has started seeing Holden Humphrey, the hottest leading man in Hollywood, and everyone in America is watching—including his crazy young stalker, who wants Mary Anne out of the picture. Lydia is busy running a studio, putting out fires, and playing politics with the big mouths and big egos of the entertainment elite, and now someone is trying to blackmail her. Jessica is juggling a family, a demanding career, and an even more demanding list of clients. And meanwhile, publicist Kiki Dee seems to have a hand in all the secrets . . . and she's willing to do anything to keep her spot at the top of the Hollywood PR machine. Can the Hollywood Girls Club hold their lives together and get a film made amid all the craziness?

That's life in Hollywood—where the right friends, and the secrets they know, can make or break a career.

Click on Maggie's name above to visit her website, read an excerpt, her blog and for more info. Read her bio–what a background this very talented author has!

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday weekend! 

If you missed the very cute TV movie that was made of my first novel, SEE JANE DATE, you can see it next Saturday, May 17th at 1pm on the Hallmark Channel. Here's a trailer (there's a weird 15 second commercial for msn first). I still love the fact that Antonio Sabato Jr. plays the heartbreaker when I had the huge Calvin Klein underwear poster of hot Antonio on my college dorm walls.

Anyway, the movie is adorable and is also available on DVD. Several fun TV actors star, such as Charisma Carpenter as Jane,  Holly Marie Combs of Charmed, Linda Dano of soap fame, Joshua Malina, Cameron Mathison, and the very first Millionaire guy, who has a hilarious cameo. In another six degrees of separation moment, I've recently discovered that Cameron Mathison of All My Children and Dancing With The Stars fame, suffered from the same rare childhood degenerative hip condition (Perthes Disease) that is now affecting my son. Cameron Mathison recently danced his heart out on Dancing With The Stars, proving like Earl Cole, the recent winner of Survivor Fiji, who also had Perthes Disease as a kid, that it's all about perseverance. 

And in QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING news, I just saw two very nice reviews, including this one from RT Bookclub Reviews magazine (4 1/2 stars): "Senate's relatable story involves two sisters struggling to secure their past. Senate broaches heavy topics of single motherhood, abandonment and true love and does so with a flourish of witty, complicated and realistic characters, subtle humor, and emergent relationship." 

You can check out an excerpt of QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING (and pre-order too!) on Amazon. If you go to the Barnes&Noble.com page, please note that my novel is NOT a Christian novel, despite the category at the top of the page. I and my publisher just can't seem to get B&N to change it to Women's Fiction.

The other nice review was from the famous Harriet Klausner and she said all kinds of nice things and gave me 5 stars.

Okay, off to Mother's Day dinner with my dear son, who made me the cutest card in his kindergarten class (10,000,000 stars!) 

I love cozy mysteries, especially when they're part of a series. Sara Rosett's new book in her Mom Zone series is next on my to-be-read list, so here's the scoop on what sounds like a really fun book:  

 Getting Away is Deadly

By Sara Rosett

GETTING AWAY IS DEADLY is the third book in the mom lit mystery series about a military spouse who runs a professional organizing business.

It was the perfect vacation until murder rearranged the itinerary

With swollen feet, pregnant Ellie joins the nation’s tourists in seeing the sights in Washington D.C.  But a fatal incident at the Metro station convinces Ellie that something is rotten in the capital city. Should she do the safe thing and pack her bags? Not likely when too many people are telling lies, hiding secrets, and acting suspiciously.  Luckily, Ellie Avery is just the right woman to clean up the most mysterious cases of murder—even if she has to brave the most dangerous byways in the corridors of power . . .

Reviews for Getting Away is Deadly:

Publishers Weekly:  “…sparkling….”

The Mystery Gazette:  “Fans of amateur sleuth mysteries will relish GETTING AWAY IS DEADLY as the tale contains a delightful whodunit that serves as a tour of Washington DC.”

Getting Away is Deadly will appeal to fans of Jill Churchill,

Ayelet Waldman, Leslie Meier, and Rett MacPherson.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in Amarillo, Texas, Sara Rosett has always loved to curl up with a good book. Her marriage to an Air Force pilot has taken her to central and southern California, Texas, Washington state, Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Maryland. Sara has worked as a credit processor, a reporter for two Air Force base newspapers, and a researcher and writer for the Citizen Ambassador Program of People to People International. Currently, Sara and her family live in Maryland where she combines full-time parenting with writing. Her work appeared in Chicken Soup for the Military Wife’s Soul, Simple Pleasures of Friendship, Simple Pleasures of the Kitchen Romantic Times Mystery Scene, Mystery Readers Journal, The Writer, and Georgia Magazine. Please visit her website, www.sararosett.com.

      Website: http://www.SaraRosett.com

      Blog: http://www.RosettWrites.Bravejournal.com

Happy Reading! 

My bedside reading pile is so high. SO many novels I'm dying to read, like Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner, and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, and the new Elizabeth Berg with the fun title. I'm in the middle of reading Olive Kitteredge by Elizabeth Strout, who wrote one of my favorite books (Amy and Isabelle). And a wonderful novel I recently finished, which is part of the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit tour, is MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT by Wendy Nelson Tokunaga.

Enjoy! 

Here in Maine I should say almost mud season!

Sorry for the long time between posts and also for not answering emails as quickly as I used to. In the immortal words of Marcia Brady: "Something suddenly came up." And in my case, it's a doozy. I'm now trying to remember what that was for her–a date with a cuter guy or was she just lying to get out of something? Anyway, I do apologize for not responding to the many emails I've gotten in the past few weeks asking about another Abby Foote mystery. It's made me so happy to know that Abby has her fans! In LOVE YOU TO DEATH, there's a note at the end that says another Abby Foote mystery is coming, but that book went to press before we could change that. 

I may come back to Abby and Ben in the future, but when I sat down to write a new novel about them, a different set of characters kept popping up on the page and there was no way to integrate their world and story in Abby's, so I decided to back burner Abby and write something completely new. Those characters were Ruby and Stella Miller, twin sisters who couldn't be more different, and who embark on a very long and bumpy road trip from Maine to Las Vegas, where Ruby may or may not get married in an Elvis wedding chapel. She won't if Stella has anything to say about it, and Stella never shuts up. Will she, won't she, does she, doesn't she are just some of the questions both sisters face in QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING, which will be published in early June (check out the very cute cover to the left). The book is available for pre-order on Amazon. If you check it out on Barnes & Noble's site, note that it is NOT a Christian novel, despite the category above the title. That's an error my publishing house is working to correct. QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING is good ole chick lit at, I'm hoping, its irreverent finest. 

This spring so many novels by my favorites are coming out. I can't wait to get my hands on the new Elizabeth Strout, the new Jennifer Weiner (Certain Girls, which I believe is a sequel to Good In Bed), the new Emily Giffin, the new Sarah Dessen, and the new Jhumpa Lahiri. Is it not time for another Anne Lamott? I wish there would be a new Anne Lamott once a week. I have a back log of books already out that I've been unable to get to, like the new Sophie Kinsella, who always makes me crack up. And trust me, a good laugh is exactly what I need these days. 

Hope your March has come in more lamb like. We are constantly under storm threat. And two more are scheduled this week. Late spring and the entire summer in Maine are worth every inch of snow.

:) Melissa 

Singers have American Idol. Writers have American Title, which debut author Jenny Gardiner won last year. RT Bookclub Magazine hosts the competition, in which readers actually vote every month on the best first paragraph, best scene, best dialogue, etc. Brilliant idea. The winner receives a publishing contract, so huge congratulations to Jenny (who is a very nice person, besides being very talented! I have this book on order (love the title) and can't wait to read it. 

Here's the scoop on SLEEPING WITH WARD CLEAVER, which has just been published:

Claire Doolittle is not a happy camper. The married mother of five seems to have lost her way in life. Swept off her feet years earlier by Mr. Right, she’s dismayed that husband Jack has turned into Mr. Always Right, and the only sweeping happening in her life involves a broom and a dustpan. Jack’s officious, perfunctory way has left fun, spontaneity and laughter at the doorstep, and Claire is beginning to wonder if she’s actually married to a modern-day version of Ward Cleaver, the stuff-shirted father figure from Leave it to Beaver sitcom fame.

Worse yet, she’s so bogged down by her overwhelming life and so turned off by the idea of getting it on with her stodgy father-figure of a husband, she’s simply blocked out all of her memories of the Claire-who-used-to-be. Cue a former fiancé, who re-enters her life when she desperately needs to figure out who she was, who she is, and who she wants to be. And if she wants to salvage her sagging marriage, or fall back on her old fiancé, who’s wooing her with promises of what could have been. Throw in a predatory hottie from Jack’s office who’s set her sights on Claire’s ho-hum husband, and you’ve got the recipe for a mid-life crisis of epic proportions.

Jenny Gardiner’s novel, winner of Dorchester Publishing’s American Title III contest, is sure to lure you into the mundane yet compelling world of Claire Doolittle and will leave you cheering for her marriage.

Okay, so in honor of my upcoming novel QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRIAGE, I asked Jenny Gardiner to give me her top five questions that couples should ask before saying I Do. Here's what she said:

That's an interesting challenge, particularly because SLEEPING WITH WARD CLEAVER revolves around a stale marriage in need of life support.

Thanks, Jenny! 

Visit Jenny's website: JennyGardiner.net for more information!

I have two earthly pleasures to write about. The first was watching the Giants beat the Patriots, which makes me feel a little guilty now that I'm a New Englander myself and not a New Yorker anymore. I've never watched a Super Bowl before (never watched a football game before, if you can believe that), but did watch the last hour. Really exciting stuff!

  The second is EARTHLY PLEASURES, the debut novel by Karen Neches. LOVE this book! So funny and whip-smart. Karen is not only a member of the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit, a group of authors who blog about each other's new books, but she is our fearless leader and founder. She's also incredibly talented and nice!  So, I proudly present EARTHLY PLEASURES by Karen Neches: 

"…Appealingly unorthodox… a heaven where angels lust, drink and follow terrestrial celebrity gossip… A tangled story of cold ambition and true love unspools. Neches’s funny and sweet novel shows that to err is human and angelic as well." –Publishers' Weekly

Welcome to Heaven. Use your Wishberry to hustle up whatever you want. Have an online chat with God. Visit the attractions such as Retail Rapture, Wrath of God miniature golf and Nocturnal Theater, where nightly dreams are translated to film. Your greeter might just be Skye Sebring who will advises her newly dead clients on what to expect now that they’re expired. “Heaven is like a Corona Beer commercial” she assures her charges. “It’s all about contentment.”
So different than Earth where chaos reigns. Unfortunately for Skye, she’s been chosen to live her first life. She’s required to attend Earth 101 classes, which teach all of the world’s greatest philosophies through five Beatle songs.

Skye has no interest in Earthly pursuits, until lawyer Ryan Blaine briefly becomes her client after a motorcycle accident. Just as they are getting to know each other, he is revived and sent back to Earth.

She follows his life via the TV channel “Earthly Pleasures” but discovers he has a wife as well as a big secret. Why then does he call a show for the lovelorn to talk about the lost love of his life?

In Earthly Pleasures (Simon and Schuster, February 2008, $14) great love can transcend the dimensions, narrowing the vast difference between Heaven and Earth.
Advance Praise for Earthly Pleasures:

"What a treat!  Earthly Pleasures more than lives up to its name.  I was glued to the pages of this delightful little gem of a novel, and wish it could have been twice as long!"
– Megan Crane, author of Frenemies

”Karen Neches' Earthly Pleasures is a rare treat. I laughed from the first page and cried in all the right places. Do yourself a favor and curl up with this book. Heaven knows, you won't be sorry!" –Julie Kenner, author of Demons Are Forever

About the Author
Karen Neches was single for over twenty years. She used to tell people she was in the “hospice stage” of being single as she never expected to recover. Then at the age of forty-three she finally met her soul mate. Earthly Pleasures is dedicated to him. She maintains a web site at www.karenneches.com
Neches also writes under the name Karin Gillespie and is the nationally bestselling author of The Sweet Potato Queen’s First Big-Ass Novel with Jill Conner Browne and three novels in the critically acclaimed Bottom Dollar Girl series. She’s founder of the virtual tour The Girlfriend Circuit as well as the grog for Southern authors A Good Blog is Hard to Find. She is a former lifestyle columnist for the Augusta Chronicle.

Enjoy! 

My email program (melissa@melissasenate.com) linked to my website has the flu or something, because every email I send seems to end up in spam folders or doesn't go through at all! If you've emailed me and didn't receive a reply in over a week-ish, that's why!

I've received so many emails in the past few weeks asking when the second Abby Foote book is coming out. I'm so glad to know so many of you loved Abby and were looking forward to more of her and her nutty family and hot Ben and a fun mystery. There won't be another book for the forseeable future–I had planned to write another Abby book and my editor was on board, but when I sat down to plan a story, some other characters kept showing up and pushing Abby out the way. Those characters turned out to be Ruby and Stella, twin sisters and main characters of my next book, QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING, which will be published the last week of May. Stella, a professional muse and face reader, thinks Ruby is making a BIG mistake by marrying her buttoned-up fiance, and off they go on a long and bumpy road trip to Las Vegas, where a wedding may or may not take place, but where some very other interesting and unexpected events DO take place. I may come back to Abby in the future. Who knows what 2008 will hold….

Hope YOUR 2008 is filled with all sorts of good things!

:) Melissa 

Wishing you all a joy-filled holiday and the happiest of new year celebrations! I will be typing away on a new novel and making a list of new year's resolutions (one of which includes: never buy moon sand for five year old son again).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

: ) Melissa