FOR YOUR READING LIST

If you're like me -- always looking for a great new read -- here are a few novels I consider sure-fire! 

From the 10th Savannah Book Festival. On Saturday, 2/18, from 9:00 to 5:00, I heard talented authors speak in some of our historic city's most beautiful churches, museums and theaters. Dorothea Benton Frank delighted. Tess Gerritsen fascinated. Tama Janowitz endeared. Gerald Marzorati inspired. (So what if 60 isn't the new 40! It's a great time to find a new passion, work hard and improve!) Paulette Jiles made my fingers itch for my Kindle to finish News of the World. But far and away, the day belonged to Yaa Gyasi, who quietly held her audience in the palm of her hand. Like Colson Whitehead, who spoke Friday night, she spoke of the importance of history that is not manipulated but true, and how it should inform our lives and hearts today. 

From Nancy Brandon. Nancy is a member of my writing group, the Savannah Scribes, and I had the pleasure of reading her novel as it was written. Set in Vidalia, Georgia in the early 1930s, Show Me a Kindness is rich in colorful, period details. As gentle, confused Marthanne Hendrix and Oma, her feisty second personality(!), lead a chorus of great characters through the story, you'll find it sings from start to finish. Show yourself a kindness and order this one today.  

A New Favorite.  My "Top Ten of All Time" list is always in flux, and Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton caused the latest shift. More? Here's my review. 

From 2016.  Belatedly, here are my hands-down favorites from last year. They include:  Novels I thought I would love and did: Fates and Furies; The Goldfinch. Those that surprised and captivated me: Big Little Lies, The Mating Life. Novels that took my breath away: The Yellow Birds; Everything I Never Told You. Something charming: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Something chilling: In Wilderness (on my Kindle, so not pictured). My choice for the year's best: Commonwealth.

if you have recommendations, I'd love to hear from you. Comment here or Connect with me by clicking on the tab above.  Happy Reading!

-- Judy

January Musings

Early on January 1, I sat beside my Christmas Book Tree with a good cup of coffee and my seldom used journal. For many hours and pages my consciousness streamed with gratitude, peace and optimism, out of which -- damnit! -- resolutions arose. Far too many. I knew as I wrote them that I'd need a spreadsheet to keep them straight, and worse, that I'd create one. (I did.) A week later, I wondered if I should have set intentions instead, for human-being instead of human-doing. Two weeks later, I longed for mini-goals, so easy to achieve (floss one tooth daily!) that you can't help exceeding them (lowers and uppers too!). Now, 24 days into 2017, I'm relaxing my white-knuckled grip on the new year's steering wheel. I'm pondering "Advice from some Old People". I'm setting an intention to be kind (my favorite thing to be). Daily, I'm going to ask the question Martin Luther King, Jr. called life's most urgent one: What am I doing for others? And I'm going to remind myself that each day is another first serve, as in tennis, and another opportunity, as Buddha taught us, to be born again and do what matters most. 

APPEARANCES 2017

January - 

Friday, 1/27/2017, Women's Tennis Weekend, Kiawah Island Golf and Tennis Resort, Kiawah Island, South Carolina. 4:00-5:00 pm, Sip and Shop; 6:30-8:30, Reception, The Sanctuary Hotel.

February -

Thursday, 2/9/2017, Meet the Author Series, Sun City Hilton Head, Bluffton, South Carolina. Pinckney Hall, 7:00-8:30 p.m.   

February/March - ONLINE BOOK TOUR - 2/16/2017-3/24/2017 - 15 Tour Stops on Book Blogs and Writing Blogs. All will feature Breaking and Holding through book reviews, author interviews and Q&As, or guest blog posts.  See the detailed schedule from TLC Book Tours and come along! 

March -

Saturday, 3/25/2017, Dahlonega Literary Festival, Dahlonega, Georgia. 9:00 am - 4:30 pm, Historic Downtown Dahlonega.

Monday, 3/21/2017, Book Signing. Nevermore Books, 702 Craven Street, Beaufort, South Carolina. Time tba. 

BOOK CLUB APPEARANCES

The Landings on Skidaway Island, Savannah, Georgia

Renegade Readers, Savannah, Georgia 

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

Rodgers and Hammerstein weren't writing Christmas songs in 1959, but "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music has flown like "wild geese with the moon on their wings" to a high place in the holiday repertoire. Listening to several renditions--nearly 100 artists have recorded it--has inspired this list of favorite Christmas things. I hope you'll find something here to create, enjoy or give this season.  

FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE. 

Christmas with Dino is a classic, right down to the white socks and loafers. My favorite song? "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Songs of Angels offers 29 traditional carols, all sung a capella, with the late Robert Shaw conducting his chamber singers.  

HOOSIER PIE. 

It's delicious and easy. (You can't mess it up!) I bake as many as six for the Fogarty Christmas gathering. A few brothers-in-law and nephews like to take an entire pie home! Pecans and chocolate chips, obviously. Secret ingredient? 2 tablespoons of bourbon! Recipe.

A BOOKWORM'S CHRISTMAS TREE. 

I'm hardly an artsy/craftsy type, but this project was great fun. My first attempt looked like the misshapen mountain in Close Encounter of the Third Kind, but I persevered and think I did okay. All of my family's favorites books are in there......... somewhere.

BOOKS ABOUT GIVING.  

I'd love to see Congratulations, by the Way - Some Thoughts on Kindness as required reading for the human race. I've read this gem by George Saunders countless times and never without tears. It's just that moving. Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree? Perfect for children and grown-ups too. And O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi is available in many gorgeous illustrated editions, like this one by Lisbeth Zwerger. My copy was a long ago gift from Mike's mom, but it's still in print. (I checked to be sure.) 

And don't forget BREAKING AND HOLDING, my 1970s love story sure to warm a heart. (Or a winter night!)

TRUE FAVORITES. 

You won't find these under a tree or in brown paper packages tied up with string, but love, joy, peace, friends and family are the favorites I love best. 

Sincere Wishes for a Wonderful Holiday Season from our home to yours.

With my son Colin, daughter Sara Jane, and husband Mike.

PAPERBACK, AUDIO BOOK, E-BOOK -- ORDER BREAKING AND HOLDING TODAY.

REMARKS FROM THE LADIES DAY LUNCHEON AT THE WINSTON-SALEM OPEN (Or thoughts on Tennis, Writing, and Life)

On Thursday, August 25th, I spoke to a group of 125 women at the Ladies Day Luncheon of the Winston-Salem Open professional tennis tournament. Afterward, I was pleased to sign copies of Breaking and Holding and to get to know them. I hope you'll enjoy my remarks. 

A THANK-yOU FOR MY FIRST READERS

More than just the right word or a stunning plot twist, what every writer wants most is a reader. Especially as a first-time novelist, I'm grateful for every one of you who has read Breaking and Holding since its publication on August 2nd. I also appreciate those who have taken the time to rank or review the novel on Amazon or Goodreads. (If you haven't yet, please do.)

I hope you've enjoyed Breaking and Holding and would love to hear from you. Just use the connect tab on my website, visit my Facebook page, or tweet me at @judyfogarty.com.  I promise to respond. I'd love to speak to your book club too—in person or by Skype.  

Meanwhile, here a few of my favorites lines from reviews of Breaking and Holding.

Extreme book hangover. I couldn't get this book out of my head for days!!!

A smart summer read. A swift page-turner.

This book grabbed me from the first sentence...It's the perfect beach read.

As heartbreaking as it is soulful. 

Five stars for an excellent book and "chewing my nails up to the end" kind of love story.

Be prepared to have your heart bumped and torn and pieced together along the way. It's just that good. 

 

PRESS RELEASE:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Brianne Halverson, brianne@orangeprm.com, 646.283.5817

Against the backdrop of the 1970s and the golden age of tennis, a stunning debut novel explores the folly of the human heart.

Breaking and Holding

By Judy Fogarty
On Sale: August 2, 2016

Patricia Curren’s search for independence begins in the summer of 1978, when she finds an unfamiliar black pearl button in the bed she shares with her controlling husband, Jack. When the chance arises for her to escape to Kiawah Island in the South Carolina Lowcountry for the season, she settles in for solitude and self-discovery. But an impulsive decision to take a tennis lesson from Terry Sloan, a collegiate player trying to turn pro, sends her summer top-spinning toward danger.

Patricia and Terry are an unlikely pairing. She is quiet and scholarly, buried in beloved books. He is competitive, sometimes brash, and severely dyslexic. But they find in each other the courage to overcome the crippling insecurities that have plagued them since childhood, and their summer fling begins a slow burn to obsession and love that can’t let go. When their affair is discovered by single, career-minded Lynn Hewitt, Jack’s assistant and Patricia’s closest confidant, it takes every bit of strategy and strength Lynn possesses to hold things together, as she struggles to protect them all from impending disaster come Labor Day—when Jack expects Patricia to return to their life together in New York City.

In Breaking and Holding as long-held secrets are finally revealed, advantages shift from one player to another and new alliances are formed in a match that holds you breathless until the very end.

***                                                      

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The idea for Judy Fogarty’s debut novel, Breaking and Holding, took root many years ago, when Judy’s love for the game of tennis first blossomed during those heady days of rivalry between Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. With tennis, she fell hard not only for the athleticism and competition but also for the language of the sport—love, fault, double fault, break, hold—words that lent themselves ideally to a story of obsession, betrayal and, ultimately, triumph.

The dramatic arc of tennis mirrored the passionate play of classical music that Judy studied at the University of Illinois, where she earned a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance and Literature. It led her to work as a marketing director for private golf and tennis communities, including The Landings on Skidaway Island in her native Savannah, Georgia, and Berkeley Hall and Callawassie Island in the Hilton Head, South Carolina area. A devoted—some might say, “rowdy,”—tennis fan, she lives, writes, reads and runs on the historic Isle of Hope in Savannah. She is happily at work on her second novel and enjoys the invaluable support of her husband, Mike, and children, Colin and Sara Jane.

***
Author website: www.judyfogarty.com
Twitter: @judyfogarty

On Sale: August 2, 2016

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Available in: Paperback, $10.55;
ISBN-13: 978-1503936713
ISBN-10: 150393671
###

Breaking and Holding Meets Special Pops Tennis

How do you introduce your debut novel to over 1,000 ideal readers while raising $1000 for a worthy nonprofit organization? On June 13th and 14th, I found a way.  

On those dates, The USTA Georgia Tennis League State Championship (age groups 55 & Over and 65 & Over) was held in Savannah at several venues. At The Franklin Creek Tennis Center at The Landings Club, I orchestrated a raffle and donated all proceeds to Special Pops. The raffle prize, with a retail value of $600, featured tennis wear, gear, and an Advance Reading Copy of Breaking and Holding. 

Special Pops (Special Populations) Tennis is dedicated to enriching the lives and well-being of individuals with intellectual challenges through active participation in tennis exercise drills, instructional clinics, tournament play, and accompanying social interaction. Special Pops originated in Atlanta in the early 1990s and was expanded to Savannah in 2010, where it became affiliated with the Savannah Area Tennis Association (SATA). Anyone interested in supporting Special Pops should note the contacts listed below.

For the raffle, I sold over 600 tickets, including the winning one to Marceline Preston of the Preston-SATA team, which plays out of Bacon Park. I also gave each of the 600 purchasers a Breaking and Holding bookmark. Hopefully it will remind them that my novel, set against a backdrop of the 1970s and the Golden Age of Tennis, is available for pre-order now and scheduled for publication on August 2nd. 

I'm proud to have raised $1000 for Special Pops, and I'm excited about the pre-orders rolling in. Thanks to all donors -- and to my future readers. 

To support Special Pops, please contact: Doug Smith, dougsmith0512@gmail.com; or Ralph Ferrone @RKFerrone@gmail.com.

The many Layers of Breaking and Holding: Enjoy it as You Choose

                                                                                                                                    "Golden Galaxy" by Varun Aditya

Preorder Breaking and Holding for August 2nd delivery and enjoy the novel in one or many ways.

Read it as a page-turner—for the pleasure of plot twists and unpredictable responses. Or read it for style and the way the story is told.  

Enjoy its light remembrance of the 1970s—of history, song, fashion, pop culture, and women's issues in the era. Read it as a story of two women—one struggling for career success in a New York advertising agency, the other for the courage to leave her desolate marriage. (More? The domineering boss of the first is the controlling husband of the second!) 

Love tennis? Read Breaking and Holding to relive the first Golden Age—when wooden rackets were still around, along with short white shorts; when Borg played with icy calm and stoicism while Connors and McEnroe, with their "bad boy" antics, took the sport to new levels of entertainment and popularity.

Read the novel for its Gatsbyesque strain—for the 1970s instead of the 20s; the Me Decade instead of the Jazz Age; and for Lynn Hewitt as Nick Carraway, caught in the middle of an illicit triangle, trying to prevent its implosion.

Or read it as my writing group suggests, tongue in cheek: The Great Gatsby meets Mad Men. Or: Love, sex, and tennis—what more could a woman want?  

Most of all, read Breaking and Holding as the story of a love too big, rich and obsessive to ever let go.  

Preorder it now! Open it August 2nd!

Musician, Marketer, Novelist. What Gives?

If you wonder about the connection between those three professions, it's the thing I love: language. 

As a soprano in graduate school, I loved the texts of art songs as much as their melodies and harmonies, the poetry of Goethe and Heine as much as the music of Schubert and Schumann. When I began my marketing career—no jobs for classical singers in Savannah at the time—I learned to develop strategic plans and analyze results, but crafting brochure and advertising copy was the work I did best and enjoyed most. Writing enticing descriptions and stories of life in the coastal South brought other stories to mind. Some I'd written long ago—like the serialized Nancy Drew mystery that I passed around chapter by chapter to the other girls in my fourth grade class; or the rambling pages that were boxed and yellowing in my attic at that time and could have been loosely called a novel.  After many years, those pages became the story I had to write—Breaking and Holding. 

How I came to love tennis is another story—a good one, but for another day. How tennis became the conceit of my novel is, once again, language. Love, fault, double fault, break, hold—those words form a sturdy foundation for a tale of deception, betrayal and love that won't let go.  

Breaking and Holding is now available. ORDER TODAY.

Breaking and Holding is available in paperback, Kindle and audiobook format. Click to order.