First the romance:

The Color of Light
by Karen White I read one of Karen’s earlier books, and I still remember reading faster and faster, until finally I was speeding like a bullet train that had sprung the track. I cried and cried, reading that book. The good news is that there’s no reason to cry in this one. The bad news is that I found myself reading in the still of the night. I couldn’t hear a word from the children’s bedrooms; our fat Chihuahua, Milo, was sleeping on his back and my husband was sprawled on his stomach. There was no sound in the house except for peaceful breathing and me, turning the pages. I should not be sitting in the cool, dark house reading about a tawny summer and people who live by the water, not to mention ghosts and children whose eyes are too old for their faces. I should have been sleeping!I consider it a point of pride that I managed to make this book stretch to two evenings. Color of Light is a story about a divorced mom who goes back home with her seven-year-old. She’s pregnant. A boy from her childhood moves in next door. It all sounds very formulaic, doesn’t it? But in Karen’s hands, this book is by turns poetic and odd, scary and passionate.

One of my passionate wishes is that we could bridge the gap between so-called “romance” and so-called “literary fiction.” Well, here’s one book that does it. How does one define literary fiction? By sentences like this: “The shadows of the houses sat together with identical eaves and roof pitches, matching dormers and a single turret on opposing sides, like two sisters frozen in time in a perpetual shoulder shrug.” And romance is defined by sentences such as this: “She tasted the salt air on his lips first and then forgot everything else except for the heat… ” And when the hero says in one breath that Karen’s pregnant heroine most closely resembles a blow-fish, and then that she’s beautiful - well, that’s Women’s Fiction.

So I told Karen I wanted the inside scoop, and she came up with the news that a lovely older lady who sings in her choir longed to be named in one of Karen’s books, and she wanted to be the exact opposite of her “church lady” self. When you hear about “that slut Joanie,” I guess it’s the church lady who wanted to be immortalized.

But Karen also told me about the road she took to publish this book, and I thought it was a great story to share, especially if some of you out there are stubbornly hanging onto a book idea that no one wants to buy. Karen said:

“I left my previous publisher after I turned in my last contracted book in 2002. Even though I knew that writing for that publisher was not the right thing for me, when I became contract-less, I felt like the ugly girl left home on prom night and I wondered (briefly) what I could do to prostitute myself to make my former publisher take me back. Sure, my date would be the dorky boy with pimples, but at least I’d be going to the prom again!

Luckily, they wouldn’t have me back. I stayed home and proceeded to be unable to sell anything for 2 1/2 years. I cried a lot. I thought of quitting. I ground my teeth a lot. But I pulled out the book that I’d started in 2000 (and which my previous publisher had rejected) and kept writing. I’d threaten to quit and my writer friends would tell me not to. So I wrote some more. I even thought seriously about making voodoo dolls of certain New York publishing personnel and holding them over hot flames. I wrote more chapters. My confidence (already in short supply) sunk to all-time lows and I sometimes could only write a few sentences a day. But I kept writing.

I was within days of calling my agent and telling her it was all over when she called and left a message on my answering machine that she had sold my book to a publisher I had only dreamed about writing for. What was more, the editor had only read the first 6 chapters but liked it enough to buy that book and another book as yet unwritten. And they both would be published as trade paperbacks.

The funny thing is, my husband was in New York on business that day and before he left he asked me, as he always does when he travels, if he could bring me back something. My response: “A contract.” To this day, I still picture him standing behind my agent’s back with a gun held to her head as she phoned me.”

Now all you writers… you know what to ask for when your partner leaves on a business trip, right? A CONTRACT!

Go get The Color of Light. It was worth the two and a half year stalled career.

All Those Other Books:

My Pleasure: A Revolutionary Plan to Free Yourself from Guilt and Create the Life YOU Want
by Maria and Maya Rodale It’s My Pleasure is a book about just that: pleasure. OUR pleasure. And sorry, if there are any guys reading Pillow Talk, this one isn’t for you. It’s one of the most fascinatingly idiosyncratic books I’ve read in ages, I think because it’s designed the way I think. Perhaps the way lots of women think.Maria Rodale was the designated heir to her family’s publishing business, Rodale, Inc. As she says, she was expected to work her way up the ladder, proving all the while that she may look like a girl, but in reality she had the balls of two-and-a-half boys. Well, maybe I made up that particular analogy, but that was the jist of it.

Then, when she turned thirty-five, she quit. Quit! Horrors. She was already a maverick; when she was a girl she had a daughter out of wedlock and unlike most rich little girls, didn’t have an abortion or give up the child. She kept Maya, and by her own account, struggled along like any other single mother. So she dropped the family business and took time off, and then went back and apparently fired most everyone, getting rid of all the Guys with Big Balls. Then she launched Organic Style. Organic Style happens to be one of the two magazines I have a subscription to - the other is More. I love the magazine because it talks about eating and living organic, without having to eat soybeans and wear slack dresses that hang at your heels.? It acknowledges that when you’re eating caviar, you don’t want to have to be worrying about sulfates, but you might want to pay attention when you’re buying strawberries.? Anyway, apparently everyone in publishing thought that Maria was stark raving mad. They said her management style and the new goals of the company would lead to disaster…

Disaster? Anyone heard of the SOUTH BEACH DIET? Yep. Hey, some disaster! That book was on the New York Times bestseller list for the last five years.

Here’s the great part: Maria Rodale got through the tough times by reading romance. I can certainly sympathize with this: “I was embarrassed for myself. No one else I knew read romances, or at least admitted to it. In the publishing world of which I was a member, they were considered trash, drivel that was beneath the nose of anyone who had any intelligence and sophistication.” Yep. Been there, heard that - many times!

The book alternates between funny anecdotes, great ideas, and the occasional interview. There are some fabulous lists here: “Things We Thankfully Don’t Have to be Afraid of Anymore, in the United States, Anyway.” I need to memorize this one; I spend way too much time thinking about things I am afraid of. Who knew that Jackie O was turned out of a posh NY restaurant for wearing pants? “Wearing Pants” is number 6 on the list, after “Losing our children to Divorce” and “Dying in childbirth.” My favorite list is on page 229: “Our Favorite Romance Reading List - rated PG, Pleasure Guaranteed”. There I am! Number ten of ten. I suppose if I were a worthier person I wouldn’t write this review, but what the heck.

You can skip page 230 with its three lines about Eloisa James’s pleasurable novels, and still find a load of wonderful things here: funny stories about vibrators, a recipe for chicken soup, a hilarious, loving memory of playing with Barbies, an interview with Julia Quinn, a list of words that sound dirty but aren’t (Volvo, Dictum, Angina - I love this list!). It’s hilarious, funny, empowering and terrific.

We should all read it, and live by these lists. Believe that you are worth pleasure, and that the only pleasure a woman can take from life does not have to be from taking care of a man, or her children. Why do we have so much trouble grabbing time for ourselves and believing that we’re worth the time to have a massage, or a pedicure, or a cup of tea all by ourselves without folding laundry at the same time?

I think Lucille Ball said it best: “You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” See page 270.

My advice is to buy this book. Then buy one for your best friend, and your sister. That’s what I did. I didn’t even turn down page 230.