Less Than A Week Until Our Party

Do You Have Your Ticket Yet?

Well CapRadio Readers, have you signed up to be one of the lucky 100 with a reserved seat for the May 7th Launch Party for John Lescroart's new book The Ophelia Cut?  Don't wait a moment longer, since we are almost sold out for this great opportunity.  Wonderful wines from our friends at C. G. Diarie, fantastic appetizers and the chance to hear John Lescroart and Donna Apidone, the host of Morning Edition in conversation.  Join us at the Odd Fellows Hall in Davis just by SIGNING UP HERE.
Thanks to those of you who have sent notes and comments this week.  From some of the notes I received I have a few book titles to recommend.  One of our regulars at our Face To Face meetings finished and loved Kate Atkinson's new book Life After Life, remarking on her experimentation with the structure of the novel.  I just finished a Jeffrey Archer book in preparation for his newest, Best Kept Secrets, which came out yesterday and now I am truly immersed in the newest from Edward Rutherford, Paris. 
And now, back to the man of the hour, or at least of the next week, John Lescroart and the final question and answer from my interview with him.  I hope to see all of you on May 7th in Davis.

V.L.:  Authors are often asked which of their books is their favorite, and also often respond that it's the current book.  I know The Ophelia Cut is my favorite, is it yours, and why or why not?

J.L.: The Lucky Seven Reasons why The Ophelia Cut is the favorite among my own books:

1. It was fun and easy to write, and at the same time had a powerful and compelling theme.

2. It came in at over 500 pages, which for some reason is always a cool thing and an indication that I was throwing the whole "kitchen sink" at the book and a lot of it was sticking. After writing several of my past books about one or more of my characters, this time I gathered up characters from everywhere and all of them found a place in the narrative. Abe, Diz, Frannie, The Beck, Moses, Susan (Moses's wife), Brittany (Moses's daughter), Gina Roake, Wyatt Hunt . . . in short, just about everybody. I was almost tempted to bring David Freeman back from the dead.

3. I handed it in on time. (Even though I have handed every one of my books in on time, the thrill never goes away.)

4. I really, really put a lot of my folks into serious jeopardy in many different ways. The hearkening back to The First Law brought so much depth to the anguish people were going through. The drama just seemed never to give up.

5. The courtroom stuff was not just strategic, but entertaining as all get-out. And the final courtroom turnaround was just so beautifully unexpected and riveting that I almost couldn't believe when it showed up. I probably whooped aloud when it occurred to me.

6. I got to keep my own title!!! And I firmly believe that it is the perfect one.

7. I love the prologue, which I originally wrote as a stand-alone short story and then became an integral part of this book's fabric -- first time anything like that has ever happened.

In short, this was a book that simply started running on all cylinders quite early in the process, and whose many disparate parts all fell together rather perfectly. I think readers will truly love this book as a reading experience, and that is a wonderful feeling for an author to have.