The Skipper, The Orgeat, and A Very Plain Young Man

Launch Numero Uno of A Very Plain Young Man is history. (Stay tuned for Launch Numero Due at University Book Store Bellevue on Saturday, June 28, at 5:00 p.m.)

A special thank-you, as ever, to Ms. Margo Engberg, proprietor of the Engberg Assembly Rooms, as well as of the scrumdillyumptious Pinkabella Cupcakes, of which these below made a representative appearance:

Yes, they taste as good as they look.

FAQ

Q: Is A Very Plain Young Man available on Kindle and Nook?
A: Yup. Click here for Kindle or here for Nook. Tell them the Bone sent you. (Inside joke for fellow Mariners fans--the few, the proud.)

Q. Can I get the recipe for orgeat lemonade?
A: You've come to the right place. Here is my proprietary recipe, gleaned and massaged from other internet research:

Orgeat Lemonade (serves many and can be doubled)
Behold the ingredients:

Syrup ingredients:
1 box unsweetened almond milk
14 ozs sugar
1/2 tsp (generous) almond extract
1/4 tsp orange extract
19.5 ozs lemon juice

Bottle of club soda, chilled
ice

Combine syrup ingredients in a large pitcher, stirring to dissolve the truckload of sugar. To make a serving, put a few ice cubes in a cup. Measure out approximately 2.7-3 ozs of the syrup mixture and pour over the ice. Fill the cup the rest of the way with club soda.

You'll notice in VPYM that Elfrida is found at various times partaking of lemonade or orgeat. Now you can sip right alongside her!

Q: What was the name of the dance we learned?
A: That would be Auretti's Dutch Skipper. As mentioned in previous posts, look for it on YouTube or in the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma at 1 hour, 18 minutes in.

My not-exactly-period '60s maxidress that I got for $16!

Second corner, two-hand turn!

Leading up the middle

  

Gettin' jiggy wit it

1st couples leading down

Well done, Dutch skippers. As I mentioned to one of you, if you watch the YouTube videos, it's pretty easy to see folks messing up left and right, so I think we were doing pretty well! Now, if we only had a gif of Katie doing the "set" step...

Waiting for Mr. Right in a borrowed dress

Debating whether to bring Danelle again, since she always wins the prize drawing

Linda shouting dance tips from the sidelines

No dripping candle wax here

Thank you again for coming and for reading! If you enjoy the adventures of Frederick and Elfrida, be sure to leave a review and pass it along to a friend!

Frannie and the Great World

Just some of the famous readers

Thanks to all ladies who turned out for The Beresfords' first launch party! It was a lovely afternoon together--good food and good fun--all in the beautiful setting of Margo's house. Speaking of Margo, take a good look at her on the far right of the picture so you can say, "I knew her when. I ate her cupcakes. I sat on her chairs. Yeah, we go way back"--because the last guests right before us book-launchers happened to be a television crew, there to film a possible reality-tv show pilot. Uh-huh. Will it fly? We'll see, but you've been warned. In the pic you might also recognize (1) a germ-fighting nurse; (2) a kickbox instructor; (3) a champion sailor and First-to-Finish winner of last year's Vic-Maui race. And then--wait a second--I think I spot noted debut YA author Delaney Berggren, whose tale Breakers just landed on Planet Earth a short while ago!

My fabulous checkers-in

Book launches are team efforts, and I deeply appreciate all who helped make it a go--hosts, checkers-in, food-providers, heavy-lifters, and of course my faithful readers. Thank you so much. Getting together with you all--at parties, at book clubs, online--is really the best part of writing. That, and watching characters come to life because other eyes than mine are seeing them.

Me, having issues--check out the patented pen-grip

Despite my ergonomic pen-grip, I wrote some oddball things in your books. For one thing, I didn't seem to be able to form exclamation points. They all came out as almost-question-marks. As in, "Thank you for your friendship?" and "Thank you for reading?" and "Happy summer reading?" No wonder Suzanne Collins resorted to a signature stamp when my 12YO went to her Hunger Games book "signing"! With her gabillion copies to "sign," that would have been a lot of "May the odds be ever in your favor?"

Two church "librarians" I haven't yet alienated

Since I seem to have Young Adult books on the brain, I'm happy to report that The Beresfords is probably the most YA- and church-library-acceptable book I've written to date. Frannie does witness one--ahem!--interaction of an R-rated nature, but it's light on the details. You never know, though--there was one church librarian who objected to the scene in Mourning Becomes Cassandra where Daniel's adventures interrupt Cass's scrubbing routine, so, again, be warned. But I can assure you, there is not one single ghost (as in Everliving) or one single F-bomb (as in Mourning and The Littlest Doubts). There are, however, several references to high-calorie foods (as in Mia and the Magic Cupcakes).

Reading Chapter One and thinking I really shouldn't have used the word "detritus"

Now that I've given you all the caveats, I do hope you enjoy the book. And don't worry if you missed the party--there will be others this summer, and, if you miss all those, too, there's always my next book!