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Page Modified: February 13, 2008

 

 

Susan Waggoner

Better Than Chocolate

· Description:
Food writer Annie Wilkins is about to step on the express elevator up to wealth and fame. Her husband, Tom, a research scientist, has done the impossible. He's invented the ultimate indulgence: fat-free, carb-free, calorie-free chocolate that tastes like the real thing ... only better! When Tom's company proposes using Annie and Tom as the product's spokespeople, Annie thinks she's hit the jackpot. Suddenly, she's getting the life most people can only dream of! Goodbye to writing walleye-on-a-stick articles for Minnesota Menus! Hello to showcase houses and a (mini)celebrity lifestyle rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi. Make room for new furniture, pots of melting chocolate, glossy pictures of America's new fabulous couple -- and a gorgeous remade Annie.

As Annie soon learns, fame does have its price. She's under corporate orders to lose twenty pounds ... make that twenty-five (the cameras!). And her hair? All wrong. Then there's her official workspace -- a kitchen set. And a lovable husband who has become, overnight, America's Sexiest Scientist. Not to mention her suddenly worldly children, an amorous French chef, a P.R. staffer in permanent overdrive, and a whole new milieu requiring her to spend, spend, spend. Annie's wickedly funny and all-too-believable flirtation with life at the top proves that just when she thinks What could possibly go wrong?, something certainly does! Now she has to find a way to save her sanity, her marriage, and her life. A funny, contemporary fairy tale that is as entertaining as it is enlightening, Better Than Chocolate is a charming, dead-on story that reminds us of what's truly valuable.

· Review Quotes/Appeal Factors:
"Highly amusing and finely written, this work is better than most light novels. Recommended for all fiction collections." -- Library Journal, May 15, 2005 Ron Berthel will include Better Than Chocolate in New Books by First-Time Novelists sections for his Associated Press column (upcoming; date TBA).

· What is it about this book that would appeal to a reader?
People who have read it so far love Annie's voice -- she's smart and funny and thinks and feels the things so many of us do. I love the fact that her close encounter with wealth and fame could "really almost" happen to any of us.

· What other books are like it?
Better Than Chocolate would appeal to readers who enjoy books by Jennifer Weiner, Susan Isaacs, Marian Keyes, and others in that vein. Because the heroine is a working mom, Alison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It rings a bell as well. I see that readers who are buying my book are also fans of Sophie Kinsella and Helen Fielding -- a nice compliment, as I love the Shopaholic books and, of course, Bridget J.

· What does this work have in common with other works in the same genre?
It's one of those books you slide right into. Annie, the narrator, is the kind woman you identify with immediately. You enjoy spending time with her as she negotiates her way through a screwball world (a screwball world very much like the one the rest of us really live in).

· How is this work different from other works in the same genre?
I love chick lit but too often the books end at the altar, at the point where life gets really interesting. Finding Mr. Right is just the beginning of all sorts of adventures and romantic yearnings -- from the "perfect" life to the gorgeous house you dream of blowing a fortune on to the joys and complications of motherhood, screwball neighbors, workplace woes, and wondering if your relationship is the rock solid thing you thought it was back when he slipped the rock on your finger in the first place. I wanted to write about this part of life -- about all the things that could happen after you say "I do."

· What would you like readers to know about you/your work?
Many readers may recognize my name from my nonfiction titles -- It's a Wonderful Christmas!, Vintage Cocktails, Little Cakes, I Do! I Do! and others. I have written all sorts of things, from purse books on up. I would like to tell readers who want to be writers themselves that you can support yourself as a writer long before the inspiration and opportunity to write a novel comes along -- I am living proof.

· What's next, what can readers look forward to in the future?
There will be a profile of me in the July/August issue of Pages magazine. My web site, susanwaggoner.com, will be up and running soon -- I hope by sometime in June, if not before. I have three books under contract with my wonderful non-fiction publisher, Stewart, Tabori & Chang -- a sequel to my Vintage Cocktails book, a book on vodka and vodka drinks, and a book of classic household hints, all of which will be illustrated with fabulous old art from vintage magazines. After this, there will probably be a sequel of some sort to It's a Wonderful Christmas!, which blew the doors off last Christmas. Besides this, I have a plot outline finished and hope to be working on a second novel soon. So far, it involves home re-do shows, the glamour of country living, and hand-made goat cheese.

· Suggested reading (viewing, listening) - what have you liked, disliked recently?
Hmm, thats a hard one as my reading is all over the board. I try to find time to read at least a hundred pages a day. (If I didn't have to earn a living, I would do nothing but read all day.) I read Emily Griffin's Something Borrowed recently and enjoyed it. While I was writing the last chapters of Better Than Chocolate I became exhausted and dithered for about a month without making any progress. I picked up Suzanne Finnamore's Otherwise Engaged -- the humorous, quirky voice in that broke the logjam and put me back on track with my own writing. On the serious side, my favorite reads so far this year have been Rupa Bajwa's The Sari Shop and Jeff Talarigo's The Pearl Diver. I am a terrible person to ask about movies, as I don't see anything until it comes on cable. In Manhattan, where I live, it costs more than $10 to go to the movies. Why send the money to Hollywood? They've got loads! I'd rather spend it on books and help other writers make a living.

· Links - author or publisher website, etc.
For Better Than Chocolate: harpercollins.com or harpercollins.ca
For nonfiction books: abramsbooks.com
Coming soon: susanwaggoner.com

· Anything you'd like to ask readers?
Not at present, although when my website is up I hope to have a Q & A page where we can communicate.

· Bibliographic citation:

· Author: Susan Waggoner
· Title: Better Than Chocolate
· Publisher: William Morrow
· Publication Date:  May, 2005
· ISBN: 0060539771
· $ 24.95
· # pages: 320
·Genre:Social satire/women's fiction

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