Brace yourself! I have news…
July 6, 2009
Dear Friends,
I have spine-tingling news to report! My new book, The Sister Diaries, is being released today in the UK. So, for those of you in the UK, you can go to your nearest bookstore to get a copy. And for those of you in the US who want to read it now but aren’t traveling to the UK this summer, click AMAZON.COM (right here!) and you can order the book from England. I’d tell you to wait until it is released in the states but that will be a while.
Let me share some juicy bits about The Sister Diaries…it is the story of three sisters who live in Tribeca (my old Manhattan neighborhood). Amanda, the oldest, is a hotshot real-estate broker whose business is in a slump (given today’s difficult market). Serena is a self-centered Manhattan momzilla with a genius son and a troubled marriage. Laura, the youngest, is an aspiring singer who spent the last six years caring for their mother, Sunny, who just died from Alzheimer’s. The book opens with the reading of Sunny’s will.
The sisters expect to divide the inheritance between them – a multi-million dollar home on Duane Park and a priceless painting. Each desperately needs her share of the estate.
Her sisters don’t know it, but Amanda used the power of attorney Sunny had given her to take out a four million dollar mortgage against the family home and (in an attempt to diversify their portfolio) invested it with Bernie Madoff! After losing everything, she fell behind on the mortgage payments borrowed from an unsavory loan shark and is now being chased by a ruthless collector. Serena and Laura have equally compelling needs for cash, so they are as anxious as Amanda to divide the estate.
When the will is read, Sunny has left everything to Serena, the least worthy of the sisters. No one can understand why except for Serena who (naturally) thinks she deserves it.
People often ask me how I come up with the plots for my books. They are always inspired by something in my own life and this book is no different. One of my husband’s friends had been promised an inheritance. At the reading of the will, he discovered that a person close to him, someone he trusted completely, had unduly influenced the woman who died, causing him to be disinherited. You can imagine the feelings of betrayal and anger. That got me thinking about how money can destroy families. I wondered how three sisters who had always loved and supported each other might (or might not) get through something like this.
As always, people I know inspired the characters. Amanda, the hotshot real estate broker, is the sister who always took care of everything, the responsible one. Doesn’t every family have one of those? I also really wanted to write a broker character. To me, there is nothing more intriguing than Manhattan real estate. Peeking inside those multi-million dollar mansions in the sky and imagining the lives led within is the source of endless fascination. I spoke to several brokers in New York who shared their most riveting real estate tales, and those provided fodder for the plot. Trust me, you can’t make this stuff up!
Serena is based on a combination of momzillas I have known. Surely you have met one yourself – a woman so impossible that she drives her child to drink (orange juice, but still).
Serena will stop at nothing to promote her son’s meteoric rise to his first Pulitzer (including plopping him on a portable potty in the aisle of first class during take-off to “move his bowels” – momzillas always use proper language). Much of Serena’s wretched behavior is based on real things I’ve seen these women do, only I had to tone her down or you’d just hate her. As it is, she’s this ridiculous, self-centered, comical woman whom you will laugh and shake your head at, and be glad she’s not your next-door-neighbor. As misguided as she is, the moms I based her on are worse.
Laura is a combination of two good friends (with a lot of imagination mixed in). She’s one part my single friend, Laura, who gave me some hysterical dating stories that I managed to weave in. She’s another part Anne, who is now a big media executive, but who used to deliver singing telegrams for a living wearing these nutty costumes. That’s a job I gave to the character of Laura. Anne went back to her roots, writing all the singing telegrams that Laura delivers in the book. She was also kind enough to share her experiences and feelings about caring for her mother, Margaret, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. The character of Sunny was inspired in part by Margaret whom I never met but grew to love through her daughter’s stories.
Each sister is the heroine of her own dramatic tale. Will Amanda make the sale she needs to ditch the loan shark and pay back the money she lost on the house before her sisters discover her secret? Will Serena’s marriage end as badly as her son’s interview at Madison Prep? Can Laura raise the money her band mate needs for a lifesaving operation in time to audition for the film soundtrack that could make her a star? Will the sisters discover why Sunny left everything to Serena? Will they find a way to make peace with each other? Besides these sizzling subplots, the book is filled with steamy romance, tearful moments, and lots of laughs.
As you can tell, I’m excited about the story and I hope you love it. It’s a real page-turner that will keep you glued to the text on a long plane ride or by the pool this summer. I hope you’ll let me know what you think after you read it! If you’d like to order a copy right now, just click AMAZON.COM (right here) to get your copy.
Happy reading,
Karen Quinn
P.S. The story about Laura applying for the hostess job for a billionaire on his private jet is absolutely true! It happened to a friend of mine. You don’t know what I’m talking about right now but you will when you read the book and you will be SHOCKED! I was.