Book Clubs and “Dirty” Books
Delilah, thanks so much for inviting me here in my new incarnation as Savanna Fox (also writing as Susan Fox and Susan Lyons).
Do you belong to a book club? I always wanted to, and so, years ago, I started one. I invited three friends and we each invited one more friend, so we started with eight members. We’ve gone through a few evolutions, but we’re still going strong. I love my book club! We take turns choosing books and there are NO RULES!! The books can be literary fiction, commercial fiction, non-fiction. We discuss them over dinner, and look for a restaurant that suits the theme of the book – e.g., when we read “The Paris Wife,” of course we had to eat delicious French food. (And drink French wine. Can’t forget about the wine part of the club!)
I’ve heard that many book clubs are a little, shall we say, stuffy and pretentious. If a book isn’t literary fiction – preferably a prize winner or an Oprah Book Club selection – then it’s beneath consideration. It’s really interesting to me that a lot of clubs are now choosing “Fifty Shades of Gray,” I think because of the huge buzz about the book. Seems to me, it’s not typical of what most clubs have chosen in the past.
However, that choice fits perfectly with an idea I had two or three years ago, when clubs were mostly reading literary fiction. Nothing against those books, but they aren’t always a lot of fun. And we deserve to have fun sometimes, right? That’s the idea that got me thinking about the Dirty Girls Book Club. Imagine a group of women sitting around, discussing the latest weighty, yawn-worthy tome, and one asks, “Is there a rule that says a book club can’t ever read anything fun?” Another chimes in with, “Or sexy? What’s wrong with sexy?”
That’s my premise, and of course the club in my book votes to read a sexy book, in this case “The Sexual Education of Lady Emma Whitehead.” Now comes the second part of my premise. Each time the club chooses a sexy book, one of the members has a personal sexual – and romantic! – journey that in some ways parallels that in the book.
In the first book, “The Dirty Girls Book Club” (Berkley Heat), Georgia Malone is a widow like Lady Emma. Emma was in an arranged marriage to a much older man who, to put it bluntly, sucked in bed. She has no idea that sex could be pleasurable. Georgia’s marriage was a love match and she and her husband adored each other. For her, sex was transcendent because it was a joining of bodies and souls – and yet, she never actually had an orgasm.
Lady Emma allows herself to be seduced by a suave, sexy French count. The only new man in Georgia’s life is the figurehead for her new marketing campaign – hockey star, Woody Hanrahan. He’s totally masculine and rough around the edges, and somehow she has to transform him, to make him more suave without erasing his sexy masculine edge.
Complicating matters is the fact that she has an inexplicable, unprecedented reaction to him: arousal. Though he’s certainly no sophisticated seducer like Lady Emma’s count, Georgia can’t resist the opportunity to experience the kind of physical pleasure she never believed she was capable of. And Woody is more than happy to take on her sexual education!
But of course, it’s never that simple, is it? It turns out, there’s more to Woody than meets the eye, and soon it’s not only Georgia’s body that’s turned on, it’s her heart. Do they get their happy ending? Well, I do write romance, after all!
If you’ve read my books before, you know that my mind tends to work in series, and so of course it’s my plan that the other club members will have their own sexy, romantic journeys as the club chooses more erotic selections.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about book clubs. Do you belong to one? What kinds of books do you read and how do you choose them? What type is your favorite? What do you get out of belonging to your book club? And if you don’t belong to one but would like to, why don’t you start one of your own?
I’m giving away an autographed copy of “The Dirty Girls Book Club” to someone who comments.
You can find an excerpt and purchase links on my website: http://www.susanlyons.ca I’m also on Facebook: www.facebook.com/SusanLyonsFox
Savanna Fox
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I do not belong to any book clubs. I wish I had the time to do them. It would also be fun to socialize with other adult females about books. Maybe I should find some. I have 2 kids, ages 7 &10, plus I work 2nd shift and is hard to find book clubs in the small town that I live in.
This book sounds great, love the cover. This is also a new author for me and would love to win and read this book. Thanks for the giveaway.
😉
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I tried joining a book club once. It was a disaster, not my style of books. I like my books with bite and spice. The hotter the better. I like a story that I can get lost in for a few hours.
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I am apart of Double Day Book Club and The book depository I just got on there yesterday. I am always on the look out for new authors to feed my appetite for books. I read so much that If I was to keep purchasing them I would be broke. I am thankful when they have specials and I hope to pray that my local library gets them in.
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Chris, I’m glad the book appeals to you. You might think about starting a club of your own. That’s how the one in the book forms. One woman posts a notice in a coffee shop (could be a book store or library bulletin board, whatever works in your town) and the others respond. They start out as total strangers – and part of the story line through the series is how the book discussions bring up some personal stuff and the women become friends.
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Lisa, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. Finding like-minded readers is so important. You might try starting your own club too. Lots and lots of readers are into those books with “bite and spice”!
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Christine, I’m like you – basically, I’m addicted to books. I use the library too. If the author is a bestseller and well-established, I figure she/he needs my purchasing dollars less than the authors who aren’t as well established, so those are the books I often get from the library. As an author who’s scrambling to make a go of it, I feel huge sympathy for the others like me who rely on book royalties for grocery money! But I also realize that many readers are also scrambling to buy the week’s groceries, and I love it when libraries purchase my books and make them available to readers.
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I’m not a member of a book club, for one I don’t know anyone that reads books like myself. I have read many of your books and I’ve love everyone one them. My favorite was the “Champaign Series”. Thank you for write awesome books.
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Thank you, Penny! That’s so sweet of you. And I’m glad you made the connection between Susan Lyons and Savanna Fox. It’s so confusing for readers when authors have a variety of names, but publishers often advise it for marketing reasons. The marketing side’s a bit of a mystery to me. LOL. I just write the books.
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Another thing i also do is post on Facebook what I do read and my friends also comment or check out the books that I have read or I read books based on what they state also.
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Christine, I do that sometimes too. I never do formal reviews because that tends to lead to people saying, “please review my book,” and if I don’t happen to like the book I don’t want to post a bad review. It’s so subjective, right? Someone else might love the book. And I sure don’t want to slam other authors! But occasionally I do post a quick comment on Facebook when I’ve read a book I particularly enjoyed.
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I don’t belong to any book club, but I am a member of a discussion board about romance novels. Once a year we gather at the house of one of the members and have a lot of fun. 😀
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I bet those gatherings are a blast, Stefanie! I absolutely love getting together with my book club.
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I tend to shy away from book clubs and initially that was because many of the ones I had heard about did seem rather pretentious and didn’t read my kind of books. More recently, I seem to be a little too busy to keep up with the fantasy & sci-fiction bookclub that I belong to on Goodreads but I enjoy seeing what is being voted on and ultimately chosen. Your series sounds lovely, thank you for the giveaway and good luck with the release!
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Thanks, ELF. And yes, time is always a factor, isn’t it? There’s never enough time to do everything we want to do.
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I don’t belong to a book club. Not many people
Love to read my type of books and those who do don’t have good attitudes.
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That’s too bad, Aniya. But I think book clubs are loosening up. At least from what I’ve heard, a ton of them are reading “Fifty Shades of Gray,” which sure isn’t the kind of pretentious literary novel that many clubs used to read. (Not to say that it’s your type of book, just saying that clubs may be changing.) But I agree, finding compatible people with similar tastes and a positive attitude is so important.
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I don’t belong to any book club. I fear with the genre I prefer reading, I would send the ladies running for the hills!! LOL!! My preferred genre is menage, with or without paranormal elements. I live in Georgia. No way will Southern Belles admit to liking something like that, let alone talk about it!! The old fuddy duddies. :p
Stacy Wilson
dragn_lady at yahoo dot com
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Oh, poor Stacy! Those Southern Belles don’t know what they’re missing – bless their hearts.
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Congratulations to Christine Houser, who has won the autographed copy of The Dirty Girls Book Club! Christine, you can go to my website and use the Contact page, and send me your snail mail address. Happy reading!