February 18 @ 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm PST
About the Event
With their wildly successful series of virtual events, podcasts, and videos featuring some of the most celebrated and renowned authors in the world, internationally-renowned Friends & Fiction authors Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Patti Callahan Henry, Mary Alice Monroe, and honorary member Kristina McMorris, have given generously and selflessly to lift the spirits and touch the hearts of tens of thousands of readers at a time when we have needed it the most. And now that Valentines week is upon us, we think it’s time to show them a little love in return!
In most exciting Books & Bingo Adventure yet, we invite you to join Mary Kay, Kristin, Kristy, Patti, Mary Alice and Kristina, in conversation with Adventures by the Book® and NovelNetwork® founder Susan McBeth, as we discuss for the first time ever their much-anticipated 2021 new book releases! You won’t want to miss this FREE* event where, not only will you enjoy a fun book discussion with these six superstar authors, you can also play an interactive game of virtual book bingo, complete with fun prizes, and all you have to do is show up (and why not invite your book club friends and fellow readers to join in as well).
And for the first time ever, this virtual Adventure will be held via Zoom in meeting format (invite will be emailed to you three days prior to the event), meaning that readers will have the opportunity to interact with all the authors, ask questions, and be included in this intimate experience. But hurry; spaces are limited to 300 and event is expected to sell out!
*While this event is free, your purchase of a book(s) below provides much-deserved literary love to these authors whose book tours and events have been cancelled due to COVID-19, and will give a much-needed boost to book sales for their 2021 new releases!
Your Adventure includes a book discussion with all six authors, an interactive virtual game of Book Bingo, Q&A, prizes, and the opportunity to meet the authors via Zoom. Books may be ordered below for shipping within the U.S. and will include a signed bookplate. See below for registration information.
Event Registration
This event is free and open to the public (on a first-come, first-served basis); however, registration (below) is necessary in order to receive your Zoom invite and your virtual bingo card (bingo cards will only be available to those who register before February 17, 2021), or to purchase one or more of the author’s books. You may attend the event without playing bingo, but will still need to register to receive your Zoom invite. While the event is free, your purchase of a book(s) below offers support to these authors whose book tours and events have been cancelled. Book prices below include shipping within the U.S. and will include signed bookplates.
Please note: You will receive your Zoom invite and virtual bingo card three days prior to the event. If you do not receive it by February 15, 2021, please first check your spam file.
About the Authors
Patti Callahan Henry is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of 15 novels, including her most recent work of historical fiction, Becoming Mrs. Lewis. In addition, she is the recipient of The Christy Award—A 2019 Winner “Book of the Year.” ; The Harper Lee Distinguished Writer of the Year for 2020 and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year for 2019.
Patti is also the co-creator and co-host of the weekly web show and podcast Friends and Fiction featuring endless stories, special guests, and a way to connect readers and writers. A full-time author and mother of three children, she now resides in both Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Bluffton, South Carolina with her husband.
Her soon-to-be-released Surviving Savannah, is a breathtaking novel about the luxury steamship that sank in 1838 with Savannah’s elite on board. Called “The Titanic of the South,” the fates of the victims were forgotten, until the wreck is found and Savannah history professor Everly Winthrop is asked to guest-curate a new museum collection focusing on artifacts recovered from the steamship Pulaski. Everly can’t resist the opportunity to try to solve some of the mysteries and myths surrounding the devastating night of its sinking.
More about Surviving Savannah.
Mary Kay Andrews is the New York Times bestselling author of 27 novels (including Hello, Summer; Sunset Beach; The High Tide Club; The Weekenders; Beach Town; Save the Date; Ladies’ Night; Christmas Bliss; Spring Fever; Summer Rental; The Fixer Upper; Deep Dish; Blue Christmas; Savannah Breeze; Hissy Fit; Little Bitty Lies; and Savannah Blues), and one cookbook, The Beach House Cookbook.
She and her family divide their time between Atlanta and Tybee Island, GA, where they cook up new recipes in two restored beach homes, The Breeze Inn and Ebbtide—both named after fictional places in Mary Kay’s novels, and both available to rent through Tybee Vacation Rentals. In between cooking, spoiling her grandkids, and plotting her next novel, Mary Kay is an intrepid treasure hunter whose favorite pastime is junking and fixing up old houses.
The Queen of the Beach Reads will soon deliver her next page-turner for the summer in The Newcomer. In trouble and on the run after she discovers her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan is certain she knows who did it: Tanya’s ex; sleazy real estate entrepreneur Evan Wingfield. Even in the grip of grief and panic Letty heeds her late sister’s warnings: “If anything bad happens to me—it’s Evan. Promise me you’ll take Maya and run. Promise me.” So Letty grabs her sister’s Mercedes and hits the road . . .with a trunkful of emotional baggage. With danger closing in, it’s a race to find the truth and and right the wrongs of the past.
Kristin Harmel is the New York Times bestselling, USA Today bestselling, and #1 international bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names, The Winemaker’s Wife, and a dozen other novels that have been translated into 28 languages and sold all over the world. She is also the co-founder and co-host of the weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction
Kristin has been writing professionally since the age of 16, when she began her career as a sportswriter, covering Major League Baseball and NHL hockey for a local magazine in Florida in the late 1990s. After stints covering health and lifestyle for American Baby, Men’s Health, and Woman’s Day, she became a reporter for PEOPLE magazine while still in college and spent more than a decade working for the publication, covering everything from the Super Bowl to high-profile murders to celebrity interviews with the likes of Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, OutKast, Justin Timberlake, and Patrick Dempsey. Her favorite stories at PEOPLE, however, were the “Heroes Among Us” features—tales of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Inspired by incredible true stories of survival against staggering odds, Kristin’s upcoming summer 2021 release, The Forest of Vanishing Stars, is an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis—until a secret from her past threatens everything. After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest, but when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything.
Kristy Woodson Harvey is the USA Today bestselling author of Feels Like Falling, The Southern Side of Paradise, The Secret to Southern Charm, Slightly South of Simple, Lies & Other Acts of Love, and Dear Carolina. Kristy is the winner of numerous awards, and her work has been optioned for film. Kristy blogs with her mom Beth Woodson on Design Chic about how creating a beautiful home can be the catalyst for creating a beautiful life.
Kristy is a Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s school of journalism and holds a master’s in English from East Carolina University, with a concentration in multicultural and transnational literature. She is a proud member of the Tall Poppy Writers, serves on the board of Beaufort Historical Association, and is a member of the University of North Carolina’s Women’s Leadership Council. She is a frequent speaker at fundraisers, book conferences and private events. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and seven-year-old son.
Coming soon from “the next major voice in Southern fiction” (Elin Hilderbrand, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Under the Southern Sky is a fresh and unforgettable exploration of love, friendship, and the unbreakable ties that bind. Two childhood friends discover that love—and family—can be found in unconventional ways. Recently separated Amelia Buxton, a dedicated journalist, never expected that uncovering the biggest story of her career would become deeply personal. But when she discovers that a cluster of embryos belonging to her childhood friend Parker and his late wife Greer have been deemed “abandoned,” she’s put in the unenviable position of telling Parker—and dredging up old wounds in the process.
Mary Alice Monroe is the New York Times bestselling author of 27 books, including the Beach House series. More than 7.5 million copies of her books have been published worldwide, and she’s earned numerous accolades and awards, including the prestigious Southern Book Prize for Fiction. Her bestselling novel The Beach House is a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. She is also the co-creator and co-host of the weekly web show and podcast Friends and Fiction.
Mary Alice is an active conservationist and serves on the South Carolina Aquarium Board Emeritis, The Leatherback Trust, The Pat Conroy Literary Center Honorary Board, Friends of Coastal Carolina and Casting Carolinas Advisory Board. She is especially proud to be a twenty year plus state-certified volunteer with the Island Turtle Team, the group that first sparked her love for loggerhead sea turtles, and is the inspiration of her Beach House series.
In her soon-to-be-released book, The Summer of Lost and Found, Mary Alice returns with this tender and compassionate novel following the historic Rutledge family of Charleston, South Carolina as they face a summer of upheaval and change with perseverance, a spirit of unity, and a dose of humor. Love in the time of coronavirus proves challenging, at times humorous, and ever changing. Relationships are redefined, friendships made and broken, and marriages tested. As the weeks turn to months, and another sea turtle season comes to a close, there are more meaningful lessons learned during this summer than opportunities lost, that summer is a time of wonder, and that the exotic lives in our own back yards.