It’s funny … you go to a big fancy party where, going in, you only know about half a dozen people and you find there are no name tags. You stumble around eating caviar and drinking top shelf liquor (cry for me; yes, cry for my pain) and only once you get home to do you somehow find out who the hell was also at the party. For folks, there is one thing that is true about the book game: even the most famous names do not necessarily have famous faces. Stephen King, had he been there, I would have recognized. On the other hand, had I run into JK Rowling, I might have given her a drink order. It’s sort of like that.
So the list of luminaries at the Bertelsmann party (and this will be my last post about it lest you think I only leave my house once or twice a year … wait a minute; I do…) included Nelson DeMille (“The General’s Daughter”), Luanne Rice (“Blue Moon”), Dennis Lahane (“Mystic River”), Paullina Simons (“Tatiana and Alexander”), Ariana Huffington (“Fanatics and Fools”), Joe Kanon (“The Good German”), Gay Talese (“Honor Thy Father”), Harlan Coben (“Tell No One” — by the way, he’s a big ol’ Jersey boy), as well as the previously mentioned (in this blog), Higgins Clark ladies from down here on the Jersey Shore.
I also made a New Best Friend, another Jersey author and fellow Madison Park Press stablemate, Linda A. Rentschler (“Mother“).
Linda and I spent some quality time discussing all things Madison Park. Ours is a very small fraternity — I’m tempted to say “exclusive”, but I don’t wish to overstate things. She’s great, so BUY HER BOOK (like all us Madison Parkers, available exclusively through the major Book Clubs).
