Sister was an instant bestseller in the U.K. and quickly climbed the bestseller lists in the U.S. as well. The New York Times compared Rosamund Lupton to Kate Atkinson, Patricia Highsmith, and Ruth Rendell, and called Sister “both tear-jerking and spine-tingling.”

But don’t just take the New York Times’ word for it! We all know that a recommendation from a friend is the best way to find a great new read. Your fellow RIFers are smart, voracious readers like you, and they have great things to say about Sister. Here are some excerpts of just a few of the amazing reviews RIFers shared with us (click the RIFer’s name to read the full review).

“The love between Beatrice and Tess is so tangible. Sister had me guessing until the end. -Tammy H

“A deeply affecting and well-written tale that takes the reader step by step through one sister’s journey to find the truth and to find forgiveness. -LA Musing

“I admire the love between Beatrice and Tess as much as I do Lupton’s ability to convey it through her writing.” -Sylvia

“Written in the form of a letter to the narrator’s missing sister, Rosamund Lupton’s debut novel Sister is wonderfully written and very captivating. It works remarkably well on two separate levels. On the one hand, the book is a solid, fascinating thriller which kept me hooked as I tried to unearth the mystery. On the other, it is a beautiful, touching account of loss and the bonds of sisterhood and family.” -Betty-Anne

“This book was a fantastic read: well-written and suspenseful. It was hard to put down. The main characters were so well-developed that they made you care about them.” -Anne M

“What a powerful story of the bonds of sisterhood!” -Jennifer B

“Full of suspense: yes. Compelling: yes. And when I thought I had figured out the ‘twist,’ it twisted one last time and left me with my mouth hanging open and tears running down my cheeks. Nicely done indeed.” -Tina W

“Really didn’t want it to end and was twisted up in it as others have stated! Passed it on to two friends after I finished, and they loved reading it also.” -Barbara P

Sister by Rosamund Lupton – Excerpt





ROSAMUND LUPTON read English Literature at Cambridge University. After a variety of jobs in London, including copywriting and reviewing for the Literary Review, she was a winner of Carlton Television’s new writers’ competition and was selected by the BBC for a place on their new writers’ course. She was also invited to join the Royal Court Theatre’s writers group. Before becoming a novelist, she was a script-writer for television and film, writing original screenplays. Her debut novel, Sister, is now available in paperback. The highly anticipated follow-up, Afterwards, will be in book stores everywhere on April 24, 2012. She lives in London with her husband, two children and Tango, a large ginger cat.

Visit Rosamund on RosamundLupton.com and learn about her top 10 favorite books.

Read It Forward favorite Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted and Cowboys Are My Weakness, says Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail “is a big, brave, break-your-heart-and-put-it-back-together-again kind of book. Cheryl Strayed is a courageous, gritty, and deceptively elegant writer. She walked the Pacific Crest Trail to find forgiveness, came back with generosity – and now she shares her reward with us. I snorted with laughter, I wept uncontrollably; I don’t even want to know the person who isn’t going to love Wild. This is a beautifully made, utterly realized book.”

Hope Edelman, author of Motherless Daughters, says “Cheryl Strayed is one of the most exciting writers I’ve come across in a long time.” Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle, calls Wild “unforgettable.” And Mira Bartók, author of The Memory Palace, says that Cheryl Strayed “reminds us, in her lyrical and courageous memoir Wild, of what it means to be fully alive, even in the face of catastrophe, physical and psychic hardship, and loss.”

Wild is a powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe – and built her back up again.

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State – and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

CHERYL STRAYED is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Torch. Her stories and essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Allure, The Rumpus, The Missouri Review, The Sun, The Best American Essays, and elsewhere. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Wild is published by Knopf and will be available wherever books are sold on March 20, 2012.

Visit Cheryl online at CherylStrayed.com, on Facebook, Twitter @CherylStrayed, and Goodreads. A perfect selection for your book group – download the reader’s guide for Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild.

RIFer fans of memoir! What’s your very favorite memoir, and why? We want to hear from you – leave a comment!

We need to have headshots but, being writers, we don’t want to pay for them. Sometimes your publisher will commission some publicity stills but that doesn’t always work out – Hodder & Stoughton once sent me to a man who specialized in photographing fruit for Marks & Spencer. Maybe they chose him because of the “&”. I don’t know what fruit he had in mind when he studied me – maybe Zombie Cucumber. We took the shots in his attic, with me lurking behind a wormy pillar or looking out around a peeling chimney wall. The result: I looked like a ghoul in the fourth stage of something terminal.

I fared no better when I decided to splash out on some shots of my own. I picked a local wedding photographer with a sideline in industrial work – he should have been good, he had a studio and everything. I asked for no diffusion but he thought he knew better. The results were well nigh unusable – not sharp enough for good reproduction and I looked like one of those primped 80s guys in Movies4Men softcore porn.

Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.

My first professional headshot was for the jacket of Valley of Lights. I forget who put me onto him, but the photographer was Arthur Waite of Arthur Waite Publicity, a one-man operation in a poky studio behind Salford Cathedral just down the road from the Granada TV. Arthur looked a little bit like Paul Daniels, as I recall… there was an electric fire warming the studio and a Sheltie lying on a dog bed in the corner. Arthur specialised in photographing Variety acts and advertising copy for The Stage. His portfolio included Ken Dodd, Tom O’Connor, and International Cabaret Stars Margo and Trevor.

I told him what I did and what I needed. He’d never had a writer for a client before. He thought it over then gave me the lighting he used for magicians, which I rather liked the idea of. I liked the work he did, as well. Hey. I’ve not changed that much. Maybe I could get away with using this one….

Bernice Summerfield did my latest headshots. Seriously. Lisa Bowerman – aka Doctor Who’s Bernice Summerfield – is a talented portrait photographer, specialising in actors’ headshots. You’ll find numerous examples of her work in the Spotlight directory of performers. She works with traditional film negative and natural light, moving to digital for delivery.

Okay, so Pitt and Clooney have nothing to worry about. But I love the way she takes honest shots with no flattery or fakery. And technically she’s so good that you can zoom in to my eyeball at the highest resolution and see her with the camera reflected there.

STEPHEN GALLAGHER is a novelist, screenwriter, and director. He is the author of fourteen novels, including Nightmare, with Angel; Red, Red Robin; and The Spirit Box. His latest novel, The Bedlam Detectives, features unlikely detective Sebastian Becker and will be available wherever books are sold February 7, 2012. From dank asylums to the lush and treacherous Amazon, through the makeshift studios of the early film industry and a traveling fair of freaks and illusions, Sebastian Becker’s search for answers brings him face to face with madmen and monsters, both imagined and real. Confronting immense danger in his hunt for the truth, he will explore murder, tragedy, and the tempestuous depths of his own mind.

Visit Stephen online at StephenGallagher.com and on Twitter @brooligan. Get more insider takes on book, film, and TV on his blog at brooligan.blogspot.com.

RIFers! We’re giving away copies of The Bedlam Detective on Read It Forward Facebook – enter for a chance to win!

Some of the biggest names in thrillers are rallying behind Pavone’s remarkable first novel. Patricia Cornwell thinks you won’t soon forget the “powerful female protagonist.” John Grisham says The Expats is “smart, clever suspense, skillfully plotted.” John Connolly believes it’s “one of the most accomplished debuts of recent years.”

The Expats is getting starred early reviews across the board, and we’re so excited to share it with you before it hits the shelves on March 6, 2012. Be among the very first readers to discover a powerful new voice in thriller/suspense!

The Expats by Chris Pavone – Excerpt Selection


CHRIS PAVONE grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Cornell. For nearly two decades he was a book editor and ghostwriter; he is also the author of The Wine Log. Chris and his family have lived in Luxembourg, but recently returned to New York City. The Expats is his first novel.

Visit Chris Pavone online at ChrisPavone.com and on Facebook.

RIFers! Who is your very favorite thriller/suspense author, and why? We want to hear from you – leave a comment!

Drawing on a rich store of materials from the archives of Highclere Castle, including diaries, letters, and photographs, the current Lady Carnarvon has written a transporting story of this fabled home on the brink of war.

RIFers in book groups! Here’s a delightful pairing: read Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey and watch the hit PBS show Downton Abbey – sure to inspire a lively discussion! Check out this The New York Times article, “If You’re Mad for ‘Downton,’ Publishers Have Reading List,” for even more reading suggestions.

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by the Countess of Carnarvon – Excerpt

Watch Downton Abbey, Season 2: Ep. 1 on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

LADY FIONA CARNARVON married the current Earl of Carnarvon in 1999, and they took over Highclere eight years ago.





RIFers! Do you watch Downton Abbey on PBS? Leave a comment with your thoughts! And enter for a chance to win a copy of Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey via Read It Forward on Facebook!

“Why is the movie never as good as the book?”

It’s the age-old lamentation of book-lovers everywhere. Here’s my reply: There’s at least one movie that’s as good as the book — and I should know, for I wrote the book!

Readers are asking the wrong question. The question should be: “Why is the movie always different from the book?”

The answer lies in the nature of a screenplay. Each page of a screenplay equals roughly one minute of screen time. Do the math: 140-page screenplay = 2-hour-and-20-minute movie.

Now consider: My novel runs a little over 400 pages. The movie has 140 pages to tell the same story. Something has to give.

This is why I’m so excited about the upcoming television mini-series based on my novel. It has TWO nights to tell the story of Pope Joan. It will air on ReelzChannel TV on December 18/19. (Find out where ReelzChannel airs on your TV.)

Here’s what matters: The movie needs to capture the soul of the book – the part that made readers love it. I’m so lucky this happened with “Pope Joan.” The theme of my novel is female empowerment through learning. That theme has survived intact – and very movingly – in the film.

I chat by speakerphone 2-3 times a week with reading groups all over the U.S. and Canada. I often hear that intriguing question: “Why is the movie never as good as the book?”

To which I can now reply: “Ah, but it is. Sometimes it is.”

I’d love to speak to your book group too! Please contact me through my website at PopeJoan.com. You can also reach me on Facebook and Twitter @DonnaWCross.

Pope Joan | Hollywood Dailies | Pope Joan | Movie Trailer | Review


DONNA WOOLFOLK CROSS graduated cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in English. She moved to London, England, after graduation, and worked as an editorial assistant for a small publishing house on Fleet Street, W.H. Allen and Company. Upon her return to the United States, Cross worked at Young and Rubicam, a Madison Avenue advertising firm, before going on to graduate school at UCLA where she earned a master’s degree in Literature and Writing. The product of seven years of research and writing, Pope Joan is her first novel. She is now at work on a new novel set in 17th century France.

RIFers! Visit Read It Forward on Facebook to enter for a chance to win a copy of Pope Joan!

–Tatiana de Rosnay, international bestselling author of Sarah’s Key and A Secret Kept

In 1945, Elsie Schmidt was a naive teenager, as eager for her first sip of champagne as she was for her first kiss. She and her family have been protected from the worst of the terror and desperation overtaking her country by a high-ranking Nazi who wishes to marry her. So when an escaped Jewish boy arrives on Elsie’s doorstep in the dead of night on Christmas Eve, Elsie understands that opening the door would put all she loves in danger.

Sixty years later, in El Paso, Texas, Reba Adams is trying to file a feel-good Christmas piece for the local magazine. Reba is perpetually on the run from memories of a turbulent childhood, but she’s been in El Paso long enough to get a full-time job and a fiancé, Riki Chavez. Riki, an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol, finds comfort in strict rules and regulations, whereas Reba feels that lines can often be blurred.

Reba’s latest assignment has brought her to the shop of an elderly baker across town. The interview should take a few hours at most, but the owner of Elsie’s German Bakery is no easy subject. Reba finds herself returning to the bakery again and again, anxious to find the heart of the story. For Elsie, Reba’s questions are a stinging reminder of darker times: her life in Germany during that last bleak year of WWII. And as Elsie, Reba, and Riki’s lives become more intertwined, all are forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of the past and seek out the courage to forgive.

SARAH McCOY is author of the novel, The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico. She has taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. The daughter of an Army officer, her family was stationed in Germany during her childhood. She calls Virginia home but presently lives with her husband and dog, Gilbert, in El Paso, Texas. The Baker’s Daughter is her second novel and will be available wherever books are sold January 24, 2012. She is currently working on her next.

Visit Sarah online at SarahMcCoy.com, on Facebook, Twitter @SarahMMcCoy, and on Goodreads.

RIFers! Have you read Sarah McCoy’s coming-of-age novel The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment with your review. ]]> http://read-it-forward.crownpublishing.com/2011/12/08/sarah-mccoys-new-novel-the-bakers-daughter/feed/ 89 http://read-it-forward.crownpublishing.com/2011/11/30/reader-review-queen-hereafter-by-susan-fraser-king/ http://read-it-forward.crownpublishing.com/2011/11/30/reader-review-queen-hereafter-by-susan-fraser-king/#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:50:27 +0000 kwalton http://crownpublishing.com/?p=15060 Siobian at The Owl Bookmark Blog. "Reading Susan Fraser King's Queen Hereafter, it was easy to see why the Catholic church made Margaret a saint. Equally moving to me was the love between her and Malcolm. The scenes of them together were so sweet and I enjoyed watching her go from indifference toward the king to bliss. Overall, I liked this book and learned a lot about Scotland and its heritage."]]> “I knew very little of Queen Margaret or King Malcolm and this was a great introduction,” writes Siobian at The Owl Bookmark Blog.

“Margaret was truly a great woman who cared for the people of Scotland although she was a foreigner and many did not trust her. She fed the poor, sometimes from her own spoon, and gave money from her own dowry to beggars. She was so focused in her religion and devotions to God that she spent hours a day in prayer and fasted to the point of anorexia.

Reading Susan Fraser King’s Queen Hereafter, it was easy to see why the Catholic church made her a saint. Equally moving to me was the love between her and Malcolm. The scenes of them together were so sweet and I enjoyed watching her go from indifference toward the king to bliss. Overall, I liked this book and learned a lot about Scotland and its heritage.”

Queen Hereafter by Susan Fraser King – Excerpt


SUSAN FRASER KING has graduate degrees in art and art history and is the author of several bestselling novels praised for lyrical style and historical accuracy. Raised in upstate New York and a frequent visitor to Scotland, she lives in Maryland with her family. Susan Fraser King’s Queen Hereafter will be available in paperback wherever books are sold December 6, 2011.

Visit Susan online at SusanFraserKing.com and on the Word Wenches blog.

For more, check out Read It Forward’s interview with Susan Fraser King and Susan Fraser King’s Author’s Note on her research. Sign up for Susan Fraser King’s newsletter.

RIFers! Were you a lucky winner of our Read It First giveaway of Susan Fraser King’s Queen Hereafter? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment below with your review.

This is the motto of Anka Muhlstein’s erudite and witty book about the ways food and the art of the table feature in Honoré de Balzac’s The Human Comedy. Balzac uses them as a connecting thread in his novels, showing how food can evoke character, atmosphere, class, and social climbing more suggestively than money, appearances, and other more conventional trappings.

Full of surprises and insights, Balzac’s Omelette invites you to taste anew Balzac’s genius as a writer and his deep understanding of the human condition, its ambitions, its flaws, and its cravings.

RIF: Reading Balzac’s Omelette inspired me to begin reading The Human Comedy. What a pleasure it is to read your book alongside Balzac’s masterpiece. Reading Balzac’s Omelette also made me want to take a tour of the restaurants of Paris. I’m curious about what drew you to this time period and to Balzac in particular.

Anka Muhlstein: It’s hard to imagine that there was a time when food was awful in France and restaurants did not exist in Paris, but prior to the late eighteenth century, this was the unhappy fact. One consequence of the French Revolution was that when the wealthy aristocrats fled, the chefs who had been in their employ were suddenly out of a job. They lost no time and opened the first Parisian restaurants.

My new book, Balzac’s Omelette, traces the ways in which food and the art of the table feature in Balzac’s writings.

Honoré de Balzac was born at just the right time, when restaurants were allowed to flourish in the capital. By the time he was writing his masterpieces, restaurants numbered in the thousands. Suddenly everybody discussed food. The best places to meet for dinner became a question of the utmost interest, and food became a popular subject. All sorts of restaurant guides appeared.

In my view, The Human Comedy is the best restaurant guide you could ask for, for the era. Balzac was a regular at some forty restaurants, and he sent his characters off into the most refined establishments, as well as into the lowliest ones. The result is both an ideal Michelin Guide of gastronomical delights (and disasters) in nineteenth-century Paris, and an enchanting introduction to the work of one of the greatest French novelists.

It will satisfy both food lovers and bookworms.

Balzac’s Omelette by Anka Muhlstein – TOC, Chronology, Introduction, and Excerpt


ANKA MUHLSTEINwas born in Paris in 1935. She has published biographies of Queen Victoria, James de Rothschild, Cavelier de La Salle, and Astolphe de Custine, a study on Catherine de Médicis, Marie de Médicis, and Anne of Austria, and a double biography, Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart. She is currently writing a volume on Proust as a reader. She has won two prizes from the Académie Française and the Goncourt Prize for Biography. She and her husband, Louis Begley, have written a book on Venice, Venice for Lovers. They live in New York. Balzac’s Omelette is published by Other Press and is available wherever books are sold.