Melissa Senate

I've been getting many emails asking where oh where is the second Abby Foote mystery. It does say, right there in print at the end of the LOVE YOU TO DEATH that a second book about Abby is coming. But, way back when, when I started to think about a sequel for Abby and her hot detective, another set of characters kept intruding, a pair of twin sisters. At first, I thought I could connect the two–the framework that I set for Abby in LOVE YOU TO DEATH with these new characters that wouldn't leave me alone. But I got so excited about the sisters and their own stories that I decided to write their story and put Abby and LOVE YOU TO DEATH 2 on the back burner.

 

So, there isn't another Abby book, but there is QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING, which is tied (in a three-way) for my personal favorite. (Other two: SEE JANE DATE and THE SOLOMON SISTERS WISE UP. Is it strange that I have favorites?)  QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRYING is about Ruby Miller, a Maine school teacher who is having twinges of doubt about marrying her comfy fiance, despite having most of the 15 questions in a "Questions Couples Should Ask Before Marrying" checklist covered. In sweeps her semi-estranged twin sister, Stella, who announces she's pregnant by a one-night-stand whose name she isn't sure of, but is sure, almost, that he lives in Las Vegas, and will Ruby help her track him down. And so Ruby and Stella, who are keeping a few secrets from each other, hop in a car and drive 3,000 miles to Vegas . . . 

 

Up next for me is the novel I am writing this very minute, THE LOVE BUS (a tentative title), again about sisters. A New Yorker discovers she has a half-sister she never knew existed, a woman who operates weekend singles tour excursions via mini-bus in Maine. Off she goes. THE LOVE BUS will be published late next year by Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books. 

 

Right now, I just so happen to be reading a wonderful novel about sisters, The Smart One And The Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik. Then cannot WAIT to read Valerie Frankel's memoir, Thin Is The New Happy. I've long been a huge fan of Valerie Frankel's non-fiction, and this subject is very close to my heart. 

 

Off to watch Tina Fey as Palin on SNL via You Tube. Is it just me, or does Amy Poehler have the best comedic face and smile ever? 

 

Melissa