Get Lost with Bestselling Author Judith Arnold

To get Judith Arnold’s bio, I went to her web page.  Get Lost in a Story Readers, we don’t have a blog long enough to give credit to all this talented author has written.  MIRA, HCI, Harlequin (American, Superromance, Single Title, Temptation).  Let’s just say if Harlequin had a line for it, Ms. Arnold wrote for it (although now that I think about it, I think I’ve got her.  I didn’t see LUNA on the list).  Several of Ms. Arnold’s books have also been reissued as limited editions. 

And, today, I’m particularly excited because she’s teamed with Bell Bridge Books http://bellebooks.com/ with a new release called, GOODBYE TO ALL THAT.   Please welcome the extraordinarily prolific and talented Judith Arnold.

ABOUT GOODBYE TO ALL THAT

What do women want? Belgian chocolates? A trip to Paris? A bed strewn with rose petals and occupied by Johnny Depp? Lovely fantasies, but what women of a certain age really want is to put themselves first. They want a life in which they can hold the remote control, a life in which they can eat whatever they want, whenever they want. A life in which they take care of no one but themselves.

            At least, that’s what Ruth Bendel wants. For forty-two years, she’s been a wife, mother, homemaker and volunteer. Now she wants a room of her own, a place where she can blast the classical music her husband loathes and not have to scrub his beard shavings out of the sink every morning. She finds an apartment, lands a job as a convenience store clerk and announces her departure to her family.

            But how will her loved ones cope without her?  Husband Richard doesn’t know how the steam iron works, let alone how to ask a woman on a date.  If Ruth and Richard are no longer together, who will take care of son Doug’s children when he and his wife fly off for a romantic week in Nevis?  Should daughter Melissa heed her biological clock and have a baby now that she’s discovered, at age thirty-one, that she’s the child of a broken home?  And how can Jill, the overwhelmed middle child trying to hold the family together, host a Thanksgiving dinner and her own daughter Abbie’s bat mitzvah when the entire Bendel clan is falling apart?

~~  AND NOW GET LOST IN A STORY'S FUN QUESTIONS FOR JUDITH ARNOLD ~~

DONNELL:  Judith, welcome:  Your blurb references Paris.  So here’s our first question.  Have you ever been there?  If so, would you go back?  If not, where’s your favorite place to visit?

JUDITH: No, I’ve never been to Paris.  (Isn’t that a line from a song?)  But I’ll get there someday.  My most recent trip abroad was to Barcelona, which I adored.  And there’s a trip to Hawaii waiting for me a few months from now—I’m counting the days.  I’ve been there before and loved it.  Love the Caribbean.  Love Nova Scotia.  Love Italy.  Love Walt Disney World.  Love Cape Cod.   Honestly, I’m thinking about all the places I’ve visited in my life, and I can’t think of any I didn’t like.

DONNELL:  If you’re not writing, where will we find you?

JUDITH:  On the streets of my town, jogging.  I’m pretty compulsive about it.  I run between 7 and 8 miles every morning, even in rain and snow.  Since I wind up spending the rest of the day sitting at my computer, I crave the exercise and the fresh air I get while jogging.  It helps me clear my head and plan the day’s writing.  And it enables me to indulge my sweet tooth without feeling too guilty.

DONNELL:  What’s in your refrigerator right now?

JUDITH:  Stuff to indulge my sweet tooth. <g>  I’m a serious ice-cream junkie.  Fortunately, I also love fruits and vegetables.  And wine.  There’s usually a bottle chilling in there.

DONNELL:   In your new book, GOODBYE TO ALL THAT, your heroine runs away.  Have you ever ran away in your life?

JUDITH: I’ve lit out for the territories a couple of times, as Huck Finn might put it.  When I was nineteen, I lived on a commune in Nova Scotia for a few months.  No electricity, no indoor plumbing (although there was a clear, painfully cold stream nearby for bathing.)  I had a tent, a cooking pit, a typewriter and a lot of paper.  I wrote my first (not very good) novel there.  When I was twenty-three, I moved to rural Northern California for a couple of years.  I was a native New Yorker; my family was all on the East Coast, as was my then-boyfriend/now-husband.  But I had an interesting job offer, so I stuffed everything I owned into my car and drove across the country.  Two years later, I stuffed everything back into the car and drove home again. 

DONNELL:   Do you bowl? 

JUDITH: Very poorly.  In New England, where I live now, candlepin bowling is popular.  This involves short, squat pins and a ball not much bigger than a softball.  I’m as bad at candlepin bowling as at regular bowling, but at least my thumb doesn’t hurt at the end of the evening.

DONNELL:  What was your favorite subject in school?

JUDITH:  I loved English (all those wonderful books to read, all those writing assignments!)  Also music.  Like the heroine of GOODBYE TO ALL THAT, I majored in music in college, and like her, I fell in love with the music of Arcangelo Corelli.

DONNELL:   You’re in a boat in the middle of the ocean.  It’s sprung a leak.  Fortunately your cell phone is operational.  Who do you call for help?

JUDITH: My husband.  He can fix pretty much anything—and he also was a varsity swimmer and a Red-Cross certified lifeguard, so I imagine he could rescue me if he had to.

DONNELL:  How many hats do you own?

JUDITH: Lots, and I hardly ever wear them.  I have a few favorites in my collection: a big, floppy “hippie” hat, a fedora that was used as a prop in a play I wrote in graduate school, a straw sunhat for the beach, a blue-and-white striped engineer hat that we always haul out of the closet when my husband sets up his electric train set.  (If the question is how many metaphorical hats I wear...the answer is also lots.  Mother, wife, daughter, novelist, friend, cook, crossword puzzle addict...)

DONNELL:    Do you listen to music when you’re writing?

JUDITH:  Never.  Too distracting.  I often listen to music before I start writing, to get me in the mood.  But once I’m writing, I need silence.

DONNELL:  Do you read your reviews?

JUDITH:  I try to read only the good ones.  The bad ones are obviously written by crazy people. <g>  Seriously, I’ve developed a pretty thick skin, so I can read bad reviews if I have to.  But I much prefer reading good reviews.  If anyone wants to write a good review of GOODBYE TO ALL THAT, let me know.  I’ll read it, I promise!

DONNELL:  If you could visit with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be, and what might you chat about?

JUDITH:  I would visit my sister.  She died fourteen years ago, and I miss her every day.  Sometimes I talk to her in my mind, but it would be so much nicer if we could actually hug each other.  Whenever I think about her, I picture her in a peaceful, verdant garden, sitting comfortably, smiling her gorgeous smile.  If I could visit her, I’d sit beside her and we’d talk about all the stuff we always talked about when she was alive—our kids, our husbands, our friends, our work, books, recipes, laundry, faith, memories...all the things, big and small, that defined our lives.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN.  THIS IS A QUESTION YOU ASK FOR YOUR FAN AND READERS.

JUDITH:  How about the old desert island question?  If you were stranded on a desert island, what five books would you want to have with you?

Readers, there you have it.  What a challenge.  Can't wait to hear your answers.  Answer the question and/or comment to be entered in a digital giveaway.

Note: Offer void where prohibited. Prizes will be mailed to North America addresses only unless specifically mentioned in the post. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants. Winners of drawings are responsible for checking this site in a timely manner. If prizes are not claimed in a timely manner, the author may not have a prize available. Get Lost In A Story cannot be responsible for an author's failure to mail the listed prize. GLIAS does not automatically pass email addresses to guest authors unless the commenter publicly posts their email address.

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