BONUS: Zibby's Summer Reads Party: Live!

Summary

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BONUS: Zibby's Summer Reads Party: Live!

Podcast: Totally Booked with Zibby
Host: Zibby Owens
Date: May 29, 2026

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Episode Overview

This special bonus episode offers listeners a front-row seat to Zibby Owens’ “Summer Reads Party”—a lively, intimate gathering of over 30 authors featured in her most anticipated summer reading list. In a unique format, Zibby passed a microphone around her NYC apartment living room, inviting each author to introduce themselves, share their upcoming book, and give a preview of its premise and inspiration. The episode becomes a vibrant celebration of the literary community, providing listeners with an engaging, behind-the-scenes glimpse at a selection of new and forthcoming books across genres.

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Key Discussion Points & Author Highlights

Each author introduces themselves, their book, and a quick pitch or backstory. The segment offers insight not just into upcoming releases but also the personal motivations, emotional journeys, and voice behind each work.

[04:15] Reimagining Grief: A New Path to Finding Healing, Strength and Joy After Loss
Kate Durgie & Sarah Bliss

• A co-authored guide on grief inspired by Kate’s personal losses, including her father, mother, and 16-year-old daughter.
• Sarah, a longtime ghostwriter, describes her shift to more meaningful projects after her son’s cancer diagnosis.
  • “This is the book that I wanted when I lost my father...” – Kate Durgie
  • “I decided I wanted to put my creative energies towards projects that I felt like really mattered.” – Sarah Bliss

[05:30] Imogen & Waiting
Imogen Waiting

• Memoir about modern reproduction, BRCA1 gene, and her profound dilemma: whether to bring a child into the world knowing she carries the gene.
  • “This book is my experience as a carrier of the gene as told to an embryo...”
  • “I discover my capacity as a woman, wife and mother and return to my creative self.”

[06:20] When You Loved Me
Beatriz Williams

• Out June 23rd.
• A young widow’s return to her childhood New England island, a pirate treasure hunt, and a romance with a disgraced NFL star.
  • “She discovers a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a pirate treasure and her long lost love...”

[07:01] This Changes Everything
Lisa Scottoline

• 40th thriller; features a woman with a premonition and intuitive powers tied to her best friend's grandmother's death.
  • “I really felt like we needed women in crime fiction to be the stars.”

[07:45] Dominion
Jean Kwok

• Asian-inspired romantasy—her first since her divorce.
• Described as “Hungry Games meets Fourth Wing.”
  • “I just wanted to do something that I loved and that I always kind of read for solace and hope.”

[08:58] When Lemons Give You Life
Anna Johnston

• Cross between “A Man Called Ove” and “Ratatouille.”
• Grumpy Michelin-star chef rediscovers joy by cooking in a nursing home.
  • “The act of cooking stirs a long dormant joy...”

[09:55] Roxie in Color
Diane Dubrovnir

• Middle grade debut.
• Girl with blind parents tries to hide their blindness. Some chapters told by a guide dog.

[11:41] Someone Else’s Husband
Kimberly McCreight

• Literary thriller involving a love triangle set on Mount Kilimanjaro.
  • “It’s really meant to humanize and show the layers and complications in that kind of situation...”

[11:43] Healthy with a Side of Happy
Sabrina Rudin

• Cookbook focusing on emotional health via vegetable-forward recipes.
  • “If you want to change how you feel, change the way you eat.”

[12:19] Big and Lily
Lisa Rowe

• Coming August 11th.
• Sisters on a survival trip in Alaska repair their bond.

[12:59] Worse Than Strangers
Kylie Letty

• Describes as “Gilmore Girls meets Jane Austen’s Persuasion” set in Nantucket.
• Focus on mother-daughter dynamics and second chances.

[13:29] What We Carry Home
Sunel Barnes

• Memoir interweaving travel writing and her experience with a brain aneurysm.
  • “I was actually on assignment for Travel and Leisure when I had a brain aneurysm rupture...”
  • “My husband ended up being my hands and feet to finish this book.”

[14:44] Don’t Buy What I’m Selling: On Breaking Up with Advertising and Finally Learning to Love My Whole Fat Self
Lu Chakowski

• Memoir about the harms of advertising, body image, and self-acceptance.
• Recounts her experiences at MTV, Comedy Central, Facebook.

[15:30] Dolly All the Time
Annabelle Monaghan

• Single mom, fake dating, family obligations, learning to care for oneself.
  • “It’s a story for anybody who needs to be reminded to put themselves back on their own to-do list.”

[17:05] Breathing Underwater
Jackie Friedland

• Split perspective: a college athlete in trouble, a mom facing empty nest, and an autistic teen as a connecting hero.

[17:20] Shaken to the Core
Dara Levan

• Photographer escapes to Vermont, faces sudden family losses, questions the meaning of mothering.
  • “How motherhood and mothering transcend biology...”

[21:39] The Introvert’s Guide to Kissing in Europe
Brenda Janowitz

• YA debut; a teen’s transformative gap year across Western Europe, inspired by Janowitz’s own studies abroad.

[22:02] With Friends Like You
Amy Chozick

• Thriller about female friendship: New mom in NYC hunts for her estranged best friend, a sex worker. Based on the author’s postpartum experience when assigned to profile Stormy Daniels.

[22:53] Lois K. Hall & Caitlin Mullen present...

• Lois K. Hall: Novel about Marilyn Monroe surviving her “death” and living under a new identity.
• Caitlin Mullen - Heather: Twin sisters, a 30-year-old disappearance, and unraveling secrets in New Jersey.

[27:44] Crash Into Me
Loven Yee

• Jamaican Chinese bisexual artist in LA, culture shock, and love triangle with another woman.

[27:57] Elizabeth Januzzi’s Memoir

• Story of entering recovery after her husband discovered her alcoholism, the journey of reconciliation, and hope for others struggling.

[27:44] The Au Pair
Kelly Link

• Set in Cosmo magazine’s 1960s heyday. Inspired by Link’s time at Cosmo under Helen Gurley Brown.
  • “I always wanted to write a book about Cosmo... This is a very pink book, and I see so many familiar faces here.”

[30:44] Unseasonably Cold
Steph

• Historical mystery set in 1939 New York.
  • “There are secrets, betrayals, suspects. It’s a love story, it’s historical fiction, it’s a mystery.”
  • “The background of 1939 suddenly became much more like today, where we all have a kind of calm exterior but underneath... turmoil.”

[32:48] Spotlight: Recent Book Releases
Kathleen (publishers’ representative)

• 40 Love by Jean Costello: A widow, empty nesting, transformation via tennis and friendship.
• Start at the End by Emma Gray: Sweeping romance, grief, and self-rediscovery after tragedy.

[35:14] Zibby’s Upcoming Book
Zibby Owens

• Out in September. Collection of essays about a decade of profound life changes: divorce, motherhood, and reinvention—told with humor and honesty.
  • “It includes funny stories of all the mistakes I made with my kids. It’s about female friendships, loss, divorce, pain, finding love again...”

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Notable Quotes

• “This is literally with my tiny little microphone going around the room where everybody answered the question: What's your book about and when is it coming out?” — Zibby Owens [03:23]
• “Some books are known and I have a bunch of books that no one knows that I wrote...I wanted to put my creative energies towards projects that I felt really mattered.” — Sarah Bliss [04:48]
• “I think we all have [intuition]... female intuition? Well, it’s actually real.” — Lisa Scottoline [07:16]
• “I just wanted to do something that I loved and that I always kind of read for solace and hope.” — Jean Kwok [07:56]
• “This event in this room with all of you... makes me feel it [being an author] more than anything.” — Sabrina Rudin [12:14]
• “My husband ended up being actually my hands and feet. To finish this book, I dictated.” — Sunel Barnes [14:26]
• “It’s a story for anybody who needs to be reminded to put themselves back on their own to-do list.” — Annabelle Monaghan [15:30]
• “It’s about creativity and ambition and a lot of what many people were saying here about coming back and finding yourself after all those years.” — Kathleen on Start at the End by Emma Gray [34:40]
• “It’s about female friendships, loss, divorce...and making the most of the time that we have.” — Zibby Owens [35:28]

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Theme & Tone

The episode is warm, enthusiastic, and communal—a rapid-fire celebration of books and the personal stories behind them. Zibby's energy is supportive and inclusive, echoed by the gratitude and camaraderie of the authors. The collective wisdom on resilience, transformation, and storytelling underscores the episode.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:23] Zibby describes the format and why she invited authors to share
• [04:15] Kate Durgie & Sarah Bliss on Reimagining Grief
• [05:30] Imogen Waiting's Imogen & Waiting
• [06:20] Beatriz Williams on When You Loved Me
• [07:01] Lisa Scottoline on This Changes Everything
• [07:45] Jean Kwok on Dominion
• [08:58] Anna Johnston on When Lemons Give You Life
• [09:55] Diane Dubrovnir on Roxie in Color
• [11:41] Kimberly McCreight on Someone Else’s Husband
• [12:19] Lisa Rowe on Big and Lily
• [12:59] Kylie Letty on Worse Than Strangers
• [13:29] Sunel Barnes on What We Carry Home
• [14:44] Lu Chakowski on Don’t Buy What I’m Selling
• [15:30] Annabelle Monaghan on Dolly All the Time
• [17:05] Jackie Friedland on Breathing Underwater
• [17:20] Dara Levan on Shaken to the Core
• [21:39] Brenda Janowitz on The Introvert’s Guide to Kissing in Europe
• [22:02] Amy Chozick on With Friends Like You
• [22:53] Lois K. Hall and Caitlin Mullen on Marilyn Monroe and Heather novels
• [27:44] Crash Into Me, Elizabeth Januzzi’s memoir, The Au Pair by Kelly Link
• [30:44] Steph on Unseasonably Cold
• [32:48] Kathleen introduces 40 Love and Start at the End
• [35:14] Zibby Owens on her own upcoming book

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Final Thoughts

The episode functions as a joyful literary roll call—sharing not only what to read this summer but why these stories matter to their creators. It's a valuable sampler for book lovers searching for inspiration and connection, and a love letter to the resilience and depth of women’s stories.

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Transcript

[Zibby Owens]

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[Zibby Owens]

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[Kate Durgie]

Hi, I am Kate Durgie and I have written Reimagining Grief A New Path to Finding Healing Strength and Joy After Loss. This is the book that I wanted when I lost my father to heart

[Imogen Waiting Author]

failure, my mother in a car crash

[Kate Durgie]

five days before Christmas, and my beautiful

[Sarah Bliss]

daughter penny at age 16.

[Imogen Waiting Author]

So I hope this book will reach

[Sarah Bliss]

all the people out there I know need it. So so it's coming out June 16th and I'm so excited.

[Imogen Waiting Author]

Thank you Zoe

[Kate Durgie]

and Sara's my co author.

[Sarah Bliss]

I'm Sarah Bliss. I am a writer and co author of several books and this is my latest project with Kate and it's just been an incredibly inspiring I used to do a lot of ghost writing for famous people and some books are known and I have a bunch of books that no one knows that I wrote and recently I decided I wanted to actually when my son had cancer, I decided I wanted to put my creative energies towards projects that I felt like really mattered. And then I met Kate. And the book is coming out soon, and I hope it will really inspire and help a lot of people.

[Imogen Waiting Author]

That is a tough act to follow. My book is also out June 16th.

[Sarah Bliss]

I'm.

[Kate Durgie]

Yes.

[Sarah Bliss]

Thank you. Hi, Kate.

[Imogen Waiting Author]

It's called Imogen and Waiting, and it's a memoir of modern reproduction. I have the BRCA1 gene, and this book is my experience as a carrier of the gene as told to an embryo. I make not to pass on the gene and then discover is female and just like me. And I debate whether or not to bring her into being. Given my experience and if my parents had the choice, I would want to be alive. So, yes, that is my story. And I discover my capacity as a woman, wife and mother and return to my creative self. So thank you.

[Sarah Bliss]

Hi, I'm Beatrice Williams. My book is called when youn Loved Me, and it's out June 23rd, which is, I guess, five weeks from almost today, tomorrow. And it's about a young widow. She returns with her daughter to the New England island where she grew up. In the wake of her father's death, she goes to settle his estate and discovers a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a pirate treasure and her long lost love, who is now a disgraced former NFL star. And he's also the last man to have seen her father alive.

[Kelly Link]

Wow.

[Brenda Janowitz]

Hi, I'm Lisa Scottellini, and this Changes Everything is out July 14th. It's my 40th thriller.

[Kate Durgie]

I think I've been writing it.

[Brenda Janowitz]

I know I started writing before you

[Kate Durgie]

were born because I really felt like

[Brenda Janowitz]

we needed women in crime fiction to be the stars. And so in this one, it's about a woman who has a very dear best friend and has a premonition of her best friend's grandmother's death. And then the character starts to understand that her intuitive power. Remember when we talked about female intuition? Well, it's actually real. I kind of think we all have it.

[Sarah Bliss]

And she discovers that she has some power she didn't know she had.

[Brenda Janowitz]

Hi, I'm Jean Kwok. And first of all, I want to thank Zibi for being such an incredible champion of all of us and of all authors. So my book is called Dominion. It is a romantasy. And those of you who know me know I've always written literary fiction and suspense. But then I got divorced. I was like, okay, all right. We're doing something else. And my divorce was a surprise to me, although not to everybody involved. And so I just wanted to do something that I loved and that I always kind of read for solace and hope. And I really hoped that I could bring that to people with my own book. Dominion is an Asian inspired cross between Hunger Games and Fourth Wing, about a ribbon dancer with amnesia and little magic who gets thrown into a deadly tiger bonding trial by a fierce warrior. Yes, it is very hot. Thank you guys so much. And it's out July 14th.

[Sarah Bliss]

Hi, I'm Anna Johnston and my book is When Lemons Give youe Life. I describe it as a cross between a man called Uwe and the Disney film Ratatouille. So it's about a retired Michelin star chef now living in a nursing home, who is grumpy, depressed and ready to take his own life. Determined that his last meal will not be the beige slop that they serve at the nursing home, he breaks into the nursing home kitchen to cook himself one last lemon tart. And the act of cooking stirs a long dormant joy. Soon he begins sneaking in after dark and cooking for other people and bringing joy and finding his way back into the world one plate at a time. It is out August 4th. Hi everybody. I'm Diane Dubrovnir. My book is Roxie in color. It's out June 2. It is a middle grade novel.

[Imogen Waiting Author]

I think I might be the only

[Sarah Bliss]

children's book here, but it's my debut novel. It's about a girl whose parents are both blind and she's starting seventh grade in a new town and she just doesn't want to be known as the girl with blind parents anymore. So she decides to try to keep their blindness a secret until the other kids get a chance to get to know her. Some of the chapters are told by her mother's guide dog. So there's a dog element in the book. And it was based on an article that I wrote for Parents magazine back in 2019. And I have a co author, Stacy Cervenka, who's one of the blind parents who I interviewed for the article. And it's been a great experience working together. And it's coming out from Candlewick Press. Hi, I'm Kimberly McCrate. This is my ninth literary thriller, which now sounds like nothing because Lisa went first. It is, yes. The title is Someone Else's Husband. It comes out on June 16th. I think the title is a little bit self explanatory, but it does involve a love triangle. It involves a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro, a climb I have done myself, among other climbs. So a young artist named Frankie meets a married man on this climb. But it really, more than anything, is the story of the two women. A wife narrates part of it and the quote unquote, other woman. And it's really meant to humanize and to show the layers and complications and that kind of situation where I think so often one or the other is villainized or made to look stupid or silly. And I didn't want that to be true. So I hope you enjoyed it.

[Kate Durgie]

Hi, I'm Sabrina Rudin, and my book

[Sarah Bliss]

Healthy with a Side of Happy came

[Kate Durgie]

out on April 28.

[Sarah Bliss]

It's a cookbook. It has two missions.

[Kate Durgie]

One is to remind people that if

[Sarah Bliss]

you want to change how you feel, change the way you eat. And the second is how to cook vegetables. And that vegetables are actually really vital to health.

[Kate Durgie]

And I just want to thank you all and especially Zubi for having me here.

[Sarah Bliss]

I'll say, the one thing I've wanted

[Imogen Waiting Author]

to do more than anything in my

[Kate Durgie]

life is an author. And this event in this room with all of you, even though I've done

[Sarah Bliss]

some cool things for this book, this makes me feel it more than anything.

[Imogen Waiting Author]

So thank you.

[Brenda Janowitz]

Very happy to be here.

[Sarah Bliss]

Hi, I'm Lisa Rowe, and my book is called Big and Lily. It's coming out August 11th. I call it Happiness for Beginners meets Wild. And it's a story about two sisters who take Alaskan survival trip that they have no business being on and they almost don't make it out of the wilderness.

[Kate Durgie]

But in the meantime, they learn to

[Sarah Bliss]

get over their sibling rivalry and their

[Kate Durgie]

grief and their guilt, and they learn to have a new perspective on life in the woods.

[Sarah Bliss]

Great. Hello.

[Imogen Waiting Author]

My book is Worse Than Strangers and I am Kylie Letty.

[Sarah Bliss]

It comes out June 23rd. My very quick pitch is always Gilmore

[Imogen Waiting Author]

Girls meet Strain Austen on Nantucket. But it's really kind of a beachy retelling of Persuasion by Jane Austen.

[Sarah Bliss]

And at the core, it's a mother daughter story. And both their past loves come back and have very different outcomes.

[Kate Durgie]

So that is the mysterious pitch. But thank you so much for having us.

[Sarah Bliss]

It's wonderful.

[Imogen Waiting Author]

Hi, everyone, I'm Sunel Barnes. Thank you again, Zibby. This is such a great party and I'll tell you why it's so exciting to be here for me. But I'm Sanel. I am a travel writer and memoirist, and I was actually on assignment for Travel and Leisure when I had a brain aneurysm rupture And I was also in the middle of writing the book within this book, which was the travel memoir part. And now it's kind of like this palimpsest where like old and new come together and make something completely different. So you get the story of me traveling home and traveling around the world, traveling home to my birth country of the Philippines for the first time in 20 years and then making my way home to myself after memory loss and cognitive decline and not knowing who my husband was. And he ended up being actually my hands and feet. To finish this book I dictated. I still have trouble looking at screens and sometimes typing. I am very heavily medicated to talk to you right now. But he and my daughter helped me type the rest of the book so that I could complete it and celebrate it with you today,

[Sarah Bliss]

June 9th.

[Dara Levan]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm Lu Chakowski. This is my book. It's called Don't Buy what I'm Selling on Breaking Up With Advertising and Finally Learning to Love My Whole Fat Self. It's the longest title my editor, Vivian Lee, who is also your editor, has ever published. I'm proud of being very wordy. They told me that in advertising I always had a lot of words. It's basically about my career in advertising and how it almost killed me. I worked at places like MTV, Comedy Central. My last job was at Facebook in 2018 as the Cambridge Analytica scandal was breaking. And I also suffered health consequences. And I've worked the last seven years to figure out how to tell my story and to not be a brand or a product but myself. And so it's a memoir and investigation of that.

[Zibby Owens]

Thank you all.

[Sarah Bliss]

Hi, I'm Annabelle Monaghan. This is Dolly all the Time. It's out on May 26th and it is a story about Dolly Brick, who is a single mom with a full time job and three side hustles and she's everybody's emergency contact and she has to go back to her Hometown of Whitfield, RI to care for her father and her disabled brother and finds herself in a fake dating situation with Stuart Whitfield himself, who also has the weight of the world on his shoulders. So it's a love story between two people who basically have the exact same issue to work out. It was pretty interesting to write from that perspective, but it's a story for anybody who needs to be reminded to put themselves back on their own to do list. Hi everyone, I'm Jackie Friedland and this is my first time ever speaking into a little microphone like this. So I hope I'm doing it right. This is my sixth book, which I thought was a lot and was totally wrong. It's called Breathing Underwater and it's about two women at very different stages of their life division. One college athlete who has been framed for something she didn't do and is at risk of losing her scholarship and her livelihood basically. And a middle aged mom who is staring down an impending empty nest and struggling with that transition. And an autistic teenager who helps both of these women get through their issues and becomes the hero of the book. It's out August 4th.

[Zibby Owens]

And after Dara, I want to hand it to Anne and you can talk about Emma's book. How about that?

[Sarah Bliss]

Start at the Emma Bright.

[Kate Durgie]

Yeah, Kathleen.

[Zibby Owens]

I was going to have Kathleen talk about 40 love, but she could do both. If you'd rather you want Kathleen to do both, okay, Kathleen will do both.

[Dara Levan]

My name is Dara Levan. My novel is out June 23rd. We have a lot of book birthdays at the same time, which is fun. It's called Shaken to the Core and it's about a photographer named Joy who she and her husband Andre go to the mountains of Vermont to escape the glitz and glam of Miami. But she's thrown. First when her mother dies suddenly and then when her husband receives devastating news that's altering the very carefully curated lives they've always had. They always thought they wouldn't have children. She suddenly yearns for it. And I won't ruin the rest of it. One of the big themes that explores is how motherhood and mothering transcend biology and how we can hold hope, healing and heartbreak all at once. So it's ultimately an uplifting story, lots of tears and very much inspired by my mother in law who died suddenly right before my wedding.

[Kate Durgie]

So thank you.

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[Kate Durgie]

Hello.

[Steph]

Okay.

[Brenda Janowitz]

Hi, I'm Brenda Janowitz.

[Sarah Bliss]

I have typically written women's fiction, but

[Brenda Janowitz]

this is my debut young adult novel and it's coming out this August.

[Kate Durgie]

It's called the Introvert's Guide to Kissing in Europe. And it's the story of a teen who impulsively takes a gap year throughout Western Europe.

[Brenda Janowitz]

It's a coming of age story and

[Kate Durgie]

it's loosely inspired by my own time studying abroad.

[Sarah Bliss]

Hi, I'm Amy Czozik. This is my debut novel, With Friends like youe. It's out July 21st. I think at its heart, it's a thriller about female friendship. It's about a new mom in New York who's lost and lonely and depressed. And she decides that the answer to her happiness is finding her former best friend who disappeared 15 years earlier and became a sex worker and is now a high end escort. So right when she has a new baby, she sort of dives into this world of sex work to find her friend. Previous to this, I was a journalist for many years. So this, the story started when I was three weeks postpartum. I had a brand new baby and Anna Wintour wanted me to profile Stormy Daniels for Vogue. So I literally left my baby to go to strip clubs in Milwaukee. And I was interviewing sex workers and I just thought what these two worlds colliding is just. It kind of stayed with me and it became this novel. And thank you so much, Siby.

[Kate Durgie]

My name is Nadie Marilyn. And I'm Lois K. Hall. And it comes out a 26, the week before the centennial of Marilyn Monroe's birth. So we're inundated with Marilyn Monroe books, but nothing more than this one because it's a novel. So with it, on the night of Marilyn Monroe's death, she didn't die during the five hours that no one called the police. She got away and she was issued a new identity by, I don't know, someone in the White House. And she decided to have the role of a lifetime, intriguing mother. She would shut up. That's all she ever wanted, was sexual. And she ends up in a place called Haycock, Massachusetts. And the role of a lifetime is to work in a diner or you do money gallery or what have you. Fast forward to 2019. Two reporters, young kids in the day of social media and all the insanity of the world, get a tip that she's alive. One from a dying coroner who says, I was there that night. I'm 95 years old on my deathbed. I'm telling the story now. She didn't die. We switched a body from the mort drawer, put a platinum wig on her and called her on my room. The other reporter gets a tip from a dying mobster. He said I worked for Jimmy Papa. I was sent to kill her. We let her go. So whether the reporters find Marilyn Monroe or not in 2019 remains to be seen. But what they do find is her very alive 24 year old Nandar. I just want to say it's a book about survival instead of being a big one. It's a book for women, for set issues. So I think this is the Marilyn media prefer in this hinge. This is novel my sophomore novel Heather My name is Caitlin Mullen June 9th not to be confused with the Winona Rider cult classic movie Heather's Vacant may also know so Heather is set between two timelines, 1990 and 2023. It's centered on a pair of twins. In the 1990 timeline, Twin Sister, super quite a bit of neglect and they disappear at 1991. And then in the present day timeline, a young woman who's returned to her hometown in Pine Baron, New Jersey uncovers this cold case and starts to excavate what actually happened. And then what she finds will undermine everything she knows. Hi I love and yee this my second novel. It's called Crash into Me. It will be in stores on July 7th. It's the story of Cecilia Chen who is a Jamaican Chinese bi artist living in Paris with her husband and two kids. She was raised in the state that led to Paris from the and her husband's a French filmmaker. He gets a huge deal shooting a trilogy in Los Angeles and they pick up and move to the very wealthy enclave on the west side of LA after she's been in Kuwait for 20 years. At feels very much like a reverse culture shock. And very early on in the story he runs into someone uppercast holy accident and they develop this very intense and relationship that threatens up into her entire life. And it's another woman. And so this story about identity, sexuality, desire, power, yourself the length of hi, I'm Elizabeth Januzzi. My debut memoir comes out July 21st. At age 38. I was living in the suburbs of New Jersey raising three young children when my life boded. Specifically my husband discovered I had a one night affair. With that discovery I admitted to my alcoholism. I'd been drinking vodka pretty much all day every day, but I was really good at hiding it. So this led to me entering recovery going to my first AA meeting where the women told me, you never have to feel this way again. It is a recovery story, but it's also a love story, as my husband and I were able to, using the 12 steps, find our way back to each other. So this is the bunk I wish I had when I first entered the meetings. It'll resonate with anyone in recovery, anyone who has a loved one, you know, struggling with addiction, anyone whose life imploded and needs to believe in secondhand.

[Kelly Link]

Hi, everyone. I'm Kelly Link. My next clip is called the affairs out is my 41st.

[Sarah Bliss]

Nope,

[Kelly Link]

it's called the Au Pair. This is the company. You know what it's about. You tell. I've been genuinely moved and inspired by so many descriptions of books here. They're not different ones. What's the opposite of moved? Inspired. That took this.

[Steph]

That's like it.

[Kelly Link]

Fun, hot. It's founded. When you got ringing bad, I broke the little mic.

[Kate Durgie]

Hi.

[Kelly Link]

Thank you, Zibby. So Zibby and I run into each other in very unglamorous places like the Warbury parking lot, and we just kind of look away. So it's nice.

[Zibby Owens]

I said, I said, hello.

[Sarah Bliss]

You were looking away. And I was like, hi, John.

[Kelly Link]

We used to have a thing. So I was the books editor and inventor of Cosmo for you. We used to have a chip in Cosmo that was. You want to treat your how we met story. You just add the words in Paris at the end. We met in the Watkins park in Paris. Anyway, my book is Single Girls that you're hold up out of Dallas. But the very peak cover looks very excuse and that. So I usually write character driven suspense. But I always wanted to write a book about Cosmo because 23 years ago I moved to the city, had no money, waiting tables. I got horrible rejections on a novel and I heard about a job opening in the books department. A Paulson and I went on the interview and a friend of mine said, I said, I guess I need a resume.

[Kate Durgie]

You're a writer.

[Kelly Link]

Writers don't have resumes. So when the very glamorous book senator said, well, where's your resume? I said, well, writer, we don't have those.

[Kate Durgie]

She hired me.

[Kelly Link]

She felt sorry for me. So that was under Helen Gurley Brown. And I'm excited. Yes, she has a message. Helen too. So Helen and I, she hired me and we, we stayed friends for many, many years. And I used to go to her office and see her, send me these notes. And I always said, someday I'm going To write a novel, but no longer with us. I wish she was. The book is dedicated to her memory, but it's about cosmo in the 1960s, when Helen takes over the magazine and hires a team of women to transform it into the best selling women's magic team of all time. And it's very fun. I usually write these dark, creepy suspense novels, and then I go on book tour and these women come up.

[Steph]

They're like, you seem so bright and

[Sarah Bliss]

sunny, too afraid to read your books.

[Kelly Link]

They're really creepy.

[Kate Durgie]

So now I feel like I have

[Kelly Link]

a book for them. It's a very pink book, and I see so many familiar faces of people. Like Annabelle Hive's book I talked about on the Today show or Lisa or different people over the years. I've done the magazine, so it's nice to be with all of you. Beautifully dressed. Thank you.

[Steph]

Hi. I want to say thank you. You really are extraordinary. And you landed in my neighborhood with a giant pop. I live in Santa Monica, and Zibby's store is completely fabulous and cozy, and it's just a wonder. That's all I can say. And so are you. This is all really hard work, and people don't realize that it actually is really hard work. Some of it's really fun, and some of it is not so fun. That's all I can say. I have a new book called Unseasonably Cold. It published last week. It's set in 1939. An heiress in New York City who writes a column for the Delineator disappears. And when Jane disappears, she had been with her best friend. And the story starts to be told by her best friend, although it's told by a number of other people, too. There are secrets, there are betrayals, there's lack of trust, there's suspects. It's a love story. It's historical fiction. It's a mystery, and I hope you like it. That's all I can say.

[Kate Durgie]

Thank you, Steph.

[Sarah Bliss]

Thank you.

[Steph]

One other thing, which is what happened that was very odd to me is the background of 1939 suddenly became much more like today, where we all have a kind of calm exterior, but underneath it, there's the kind of turmoil of wondering what's going on today, particularly once again. And I think the same thing is true of the plot of the novel, because everyone's holding onto a kind of grief that they're putting out a placid exterior. I didn't quite do it on purpose. The book ends the day before London was bombed. Wow. Thank you.

[Zibby Owens]

By the way Amy and Brenda contributed

[Kate Durgie]

to my anthology I'm Being Jewish now.

[Zibby Owens]

Just saying.

[Kate Durgie]

Everyone. So I'll talk about two of our recent books. 40 Love is actually Coming out tomorrow. It's by Jean Costello, who's a best selling author in the UK right now. It's about Jules, who is facing an empty nest. Her she's recently widowed. Her daughter's going on a gap year before going to college. She doesn't love her job, so she's facing this big question like what is next for me? So she gazes out her window and looks at the local tennis club next door that she's lived next door to her entire life. Her friends have cajoled her. Come on, just come out in the court. She hasn't wanted to do it. Finally she agrees and her life transforms. She meets this wonderful group of friends, but even more important, she runs into her old crush, Stamina, who's got a wicked forehand. And what Jules does every day as she wins matches, she lose matches. She just starts to find herself again and she really discovers what's next for her. So this is a story of a woman in midlife trying to decide the next big questions who she meant to be, what's next for her. Life is not over and she just wants to have some fun. So it's a really great story and we love it so much. And Start at the End by Emma Gray this came out last month. This is our third book published by Emma. She also wrote the Last Love, no Interest of you. And Emma's known for her signature emotional, sweeping romances and this one's no different. It's about Audrey and Fraser who have this epic, epic love. They fall madly for each other. Their lives are seemingly endless to be together and then tragedy strikes and their world completely implodes. And what happens next I can't really share because it's a bit of a spoiler, but let's just say they both go down paths unimagined but end up finding themselves at the center of it all over again. It's about creativity and ambition and a lot of what many people were saying here about coming back and finding yourself after all those years. It's a beautiful story. You will see that I have some things I like.

[Zibby Owens]

A lot of the themes pervade some of these books. I also have my own book coming out in September that I'm really excited about.

[Kate Durgie]

So that is my seventh book since 2021.

[Sarah Bliss]

Thanks to all of you.

[Zibby Owens]

Because without the podcast I couldn't sell anything and it's a collection of essays about a decade of my life of extreme change, from the moment when I told my girlfriends that I was getting a divorce all the way up until now. And it includes moments of loss, a lot of funny stories of all the mistakes I made with my kids. It's about female friendships, loss, divorce, pain, finding love again, reinvention, and making the most of the time that we have. But it's hopefully funny and it's a really quick read and I hope that people will read it in between all

[Sarah Bliss]

of your amazing books.

[Zibby Owens]

Thank you all so much for coming today and I hope you will have some lunch and get to know each other. And congratulations on all your grades. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby for Formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram ibbyoens and Spread the Word. Thanks so much. Oh and buy the books.

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[Sarah Bliss]

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