4 Women * 4 Books * 4 Lives Changed Through Friendship
Have you ever met someone and immediately decided whether or not you like them, will get along with them, or are interested in becoming their friend? Then, months or years down the road, you find out your first assumptions about that person were absolutely wrong?
This is the idea that four award-winning authors came together to present in the Newport Ladies Book Club series when they wrote the four-book series (soon to be eight) about a group of women who join a book club in Newport Beach, California. Each woman joins the book club for different reasons, and each woman comes from a different religious and cultural background, yet they find fulfilling friendships in the book club, after putting their differences aside.
Each author has taken a character from the book club and written that character’s book. Some of the scenes interconnect as the characters interact, yet they are written from a different point of view depending on which book you read.
Where the Idea Came From
Josi Kilpack explains, “When I read Twelve Sisters by Leslie Beaton Hedley it changed my life. The book is about twelve women who live in the same LDS ward. They cover the spectrum of college student to a woman, literally, in her final hours. Each chapter is dedicated to one of these women and involves a sacrament meeting. In “Her” chapter, the woman “sees” the other women, but we get to see her in a way that no one else in that room ever will. We see their struggles, their heartbreaks, their purpose, their goals. We share in their frustrations, we understand why they do the things they do.
In the next chapter, we see another woman, often passing judgment on someone else we just “met” a chapter or two earlier. I had never read anything like itI still haven’tand when I finished the book I felt as though my world had opened up a little wider. That woman I’m critical in my mind for being too perfect, or too sloppy, or too lazy, or too heavy, has a story that I don’t know and yet I think I DO know.
Over and over again we pass judgment on one another and are somehow confident of that perspective even though that person we’ve judged is essentially a stranger to us. It’s so easy to do, it comes naturally for some of us to critique and measure everyone we meet. Twelve sisters, however, showed just how much truth is missed when we do this to one another, and how we can compound the hard road someone is traveling by being so flippant with our determinations.”
The thoughts of writing a book like the Twelve Sisters, that had affected Josi so much, stayed with her for many years. But there never seemed to be a time or a place for it, and she didn’t want to directly copy the idea.
Josi continues, “Then, in 2009, Julie Wright and I went on a book tour. At some point, I started telling her about my idea but as I said the words, a light went on in the closet where the idea had been gathering dust for years. What if the reason I couldn’t figure out how to write it was because I wasn’t supposed to? As the words tumbled out, Julie helped me process them and within a short time the idea for Newport Ladies’ Book Club was born. We wouldn’t write one book, we’d write four books by four authors but with the same goal I felt Twelve Sisters had achievedshowing how we misinterpret other people, and just how much of an impact we can have on them.
After bringing Annette Lyon and Heather Moore up to speed, we all set out to do something we’d never seen done beforea parallel novel series about four different women who meet up in a book club. The goal was to show these women’s lives in detail, while the other members of this book club only saw bits and pieces.”
Just as the women in the book club come to understand and accept each other’s differences, so did the co-authors of the series. Annette Lyon says, “I am more and more grateful for three special women who are true friends. Each [co-author] has walked a different path with me, shared things unique to them and our friendships. Yet the four of us as a group are close in a way that almost defies logic. These women lift me. They encourage me. If I’m having an off day, they don’t get offended. Instead, they come to see what they can do to help. They offer support and love and understanding. Often, as a group. They’re never more than a phone call or an e-mail (or a text or a tweet) away. They provide listening ears. They give needed hugs. They make me smile and laugh. Sometimes, just hanging out and laughing together is enough to lighten my load, because of who they are and what they represent: True Friends. Because the truth is, they know me (frighteningly well), and that means they’re starkly aware of all those warts that often turn others away. But they love me anyway.
What the authors hope readers will find in the Newport Ladies Book Club series: Julie Wright says, “There is a glory in womanhood, a rightness that can’t be found anywhere else. You hear about cat fights and mean girls, and we all know about judgment. We’ve all done it. We’ve all received it. But our capacity for good is so intense if we’re brave enough to act on it. I was asked a couple weeks ago what I hoped people would find in the Newport series. I hope they find compassion, for each other, for themselves. Life is not easy. Be kinder than necessary, for you have no idea but that your one smile may make all the difference to one who’d already decided to give up.”
About the books: Heather Moore says, “Yes, you can truly read the books in any order. You can even read just one of them. But only with reading all four books will you get the full experience of the story and delve into the many layers of these women’s lives. The first four books cover the journeys of Olivia (41, married, four children, do-it-all homemaker who has lost her identity in serving everyone else but herself), Daisy (46, works full-time, in her 3rd marriage, is about to finally enjoy the empty nest when her life is turned upside down), Paige (25, divorced with 2 kids, looking for a new start in life and love), and Athena (32, single, workaholic, is afraid to open her heart to love and friendship).