Touring this week on the GCC, I TAKE THIS MAN by Valerie Frankel. This one sounds great! How could it not, being described as "a hilarious story of suspense, revenge and revelation, involving a bride, a groom, her mother and his father"?
Penny Bracket has waited two years to marry her dream man, Bram Shiraz. Just as Penny’s putting on the final touches on her wedding day, she receives a note from her beloved that simply says, “Penny, I can’t go through with it. Sorry, Bram” Mortified, Penny is determined to figure out what went wrong, even if it kills her, or, preferably Bram.
Ester Bracket, Penny’s divorced mother wants Bram’s head on a platter. And she gets it: In a fit of maternal rage, Ester finds Bram as he’s packing to flee, knocks him out with a bottle of champagne, and kidnaps him to a secret room in her mansion in affluent Short Hares, New Jersey. Will Penny get the answers and revenge she’s after from Bram, who (as she may or may not discover) is locked in her attic? Will Bram’s widowed father, handsome tough guy Keith Shiraz locate his son and/or seduce Ester Bracket? Will Bram, athletic and regretful, escape both his wedding and his imprisonment in one piece? Find out in I TAKE THIS MAN.
About the author:
“Valerie Frankel cracks me up! Kooky, sexy, and downright hilarious, Hex and the Single Girl had me laughing to the very last magical page”
— Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries series and Size 12 Is Not Fat
“Reading a novel by Valerie Frankel is like hanging out with your favorite and funniest friend”
-Melissa Senate, author of See Jane Date
Valerie Frankel is a freelance writer who resides in Brooklyn, NY with her two daughters and husband. She contributes to many national magazines, including O, [Glamour], Allure, Self, and Parenting. She’s also been a featured writer for the New York Times Style section. [Val has written thirteen novels thus far, including The Accidental Virgin which has been optioned to become a movie starring Heather Graham, Smart Vs. Pretty, optioned to be made into TV show, and The Girlfriend Curse, nominated for a Quills award.
Val's Answers to My GCC Questions:
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR TYPICAL “WRITING DAY”?
I take my kids to school at 8:30, go to the gym, come home, shower, waste an hour online, and then I write straight until school pick-up at 3. I'm lucky to get three hours of solid writing time, during which I hope to get 1,000 words of raw material down.
DO YOU RECALL THE KERNEL OF INSPIRATION FOR THIS BOOK?
The basic idea for I Take This Man was cranked out on a typical day in the life of a working mother. My daughter came home from school, and announced that some little girl in her first grade class made her cry. A flash of anger flooded my brain. After a minute or two, I calmed myself down. Lucy and I discussed what had happened, and worked out an appropriate response. But that flash of maternal rage got my meat grinder going. Any intense emotion is a kick-start. It made me wonder: What offense against one of my daughters would actually move me to lash out with violence against another human being? I fixated on the question, lay awake in bed, wondering what indeed would make an otherwise controlled, rational woman thirsty for blood? I imagined being the mother of a jilted bride who, in a fit of vengeance, attacks the runaway groom. From there, I asked more questions: “Why did the groom cancel the wedding?” “What did the mother do with the groom after she bashed him?” “How would the bride find out what happened?”
Five hours later, at three o’clock in the morning, I had the framework of a plot.
PICK A CHARACTER IN THE BOOK AND TELL US WHAT TRAIT YOU SHARE (OR COME CLOSEST TO SHARING) WITH THAT CHARACTER.
In I Take This Man, I relate to Esther, the brides mother, the most. She's a mom, a widow, in her forties, like me. Also like me, she finds herself a new man to love who makes all the pain of her past go away.
IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND, WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE A MAGICAL TRUNK THAT GAVE YOU LIMITLESS BOOKS TO READ, OR A LIMITLESS SUPPLY OF PAPER ON WHICH TO WRITE?
I'll take the books.
BEER OR WINE?
Wine. But I'm not much of a drinker anymore. I get insta-hangovers.
CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
does anyone say Vanilla? Chocolate, of course.
WHAT’S YOUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE BOOK?
Simply impossible to say.
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