It's Finally Here! 🥂🎂
"I am delighted to introduce you to the Donohue family."
Dear Friends,
You know that feeling when something you’ve always cared and wondered about ends up in a story. Yeah, that feeling? Well, it happened to me when I wrote this novel – my fascination with memory and how it defines us has shown up in a few of my novels, but in this one, it takes center stage. This time, my curiosity stole the show.
Life is made up of thousands of memories, if not millions. The smell of a favorite childhood landscape. The touch of a loved one’s hand. The sound of a lover’s whisper. The sight of a baby’s smile. The ache of loss and heartbreak.
Do such memories define us? They often seem to, and yet – what is a memory?
Amorphous connections inside the brain? Electrochemical signals? Synapses connecting with the patterns of things that have happened to us? These are – of course – questions that don’t have a fully satisfactory answer.
Well, sometimes story seems to be the only answer I can find. So please meet the Donohue family as they struggle with not only the memories they want to forget but also and more importantly, the ones they want to keep.
There are so many exciting things in this newsletter that I am pleased to share with you, including a new video we just made about the beautiful landscape where I tell my stories, plus a book club kit. Scroll on down!
Happy Reading.
All Love, 💜
—Patti Callahan Henry
The Favorite Daughter
The New York Times bestselling Southern author Patti Callahan Henry, returns to the Lowcountry, with her fifteenth novel —THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER, a lush, heart-wrenching novel about the power of memory, the meaning of family, and learning to forgive.
"If you want to keep a memory pristine, you must not call upon it too often."—Sally Mann, Hold Still
The Story Behind the Story
Summary
The New York Times bestselling Southern author returns to the Lowcountry, with her fifteenth novel —THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER, a lush, heart-wrenching novel about the power of memory, the meaning of family, and learning to forgive.
Ten years ago, Lena Donohue experienced a wedding-day betrayal so painful that she fled the small town of Watersend, South Carolina, and reinvented herself in New York City.
Though now a freelance travel writer, the one place she rarely goes is home—until she learns of her dad’s failing health.
Returning to Watersend means seeing the sister she has avoided for a decade and the brother who runs the family’s Irish pub and has borne the burden of his sisters’ rift. While Alzheimer’s slowly steals their father’s memories, the siblings rush to preserve his life in stories and in photographs.
As his secret past brings Lena’s own childhood into focus, it sends her on a journey to discover the true meaning of home.
Pub Date; June 4, 2019
Publisher: Berkley 368 pages
Formats: Paperback & e-book
ISBN-10: 0399583130
ISBN-13: 978-0399583131
ASIN: B07H735HPT
Praise
THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER
"One of 10 Southern books for your summer reading list."
—Atlanta-Journal Constitution
"2019 Summer Reading List"
30 of the latest beach reads, mysteries, Southern fiction and more to read as temperatures rise.
—Deep South Magazine
"[I]n Henry’s satisfying latest novel . . . . readers will be immersed in this moving tale, hungry to learn whether love and family will overcome betrayal, secrets, and heartache."
—Publishers Weekly
“[H]enry’s latest (after Becoming Mrs. Lewis, 2018) packs an emotional wallop, delving into the bonds and tragedies that make a family. . . . Readers of thoughtful family dramas will be drawn to the travails of the Donohue clan.”
—Booklist
"Patti Callahan Henry is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Her latest, THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER, is a story of reflection, forgiveness, and surprising twists."
— Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author
“In exquisitely-wrought prose, Patti Henry lyrically examines the meaning of forgiveness and the inexorable tug of home.”
—Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of The High Tide Club
“The Favorite Daughter is both heartfelt and heartbreakingly honest in its portrayal of a family once divided by scandal and brought together through the power of memories....Moving, intelligent, full of twists and turns, I loved it! Patti Callahan Henry shines at family dramas and The Favorite Daughter is her best!"
—Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Guests
“A layered, spellbinding novel about families and lovers and the meaning of home. Above all, it’s about memory, how it shapes us, fools us, and warms our hearts. This is one truly beautiful book.”
—Nancy Thayer, New York Times bestselling author of A Nantucket Wedding
Check out The Favorite Daughter Web Page
Book Club Kit
Download The Book Club Kit
A Conversation with Patti
THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER
With Atlanta Magazine “Scribes of Summer”
Patti Callahan Henry, The New York Times best-selling author has written 15 novels, including last year’s historical novel, Becoming Mrs. Lewis.
TITLE
The Favorite Daughter
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
How a fractured family comes to heal through memories that were both lost and found.
CENTRAL CHARACTERS
Colleen Donahue. She’s in her 30s. She has had a terrible betrayal by the two people closest to her, sister and her fiancé, and she has spent her life protecting herself from that pain.
THEMES
It’s about how memory defines who we are.
WHO WOULD STAR IN THE
MOVIE VERSION?
Amy Adams
EAGER TO READ
Everybody in this article. I’m not kidding.
FAVORITE BOOK OF 2018
The Lost Queen by Signe Pike
FAVORITE CHILDHOOD BOOK
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
BEST THING ABOUT BEING A
WRITER
The tribe. The readers and the other writers
HARDEST THING
The middle of the book. It’s the time you think you can’t do it this time. It’s always the time you think you’re wasting your life and your time.
CURE FOR WRITER’S BLOCK
For me, because a long time ago I read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, I’ve redefined writer’s block. I call it resistance.
When I’m stuck, I try to find ways to break through or get around it by filling back up the well, whether it’s by taking a walk in nature or reading somebody else’s beautiful work. Sometimes, I’ll read poetry.
WRITING ADVICE
I think it’s really good for new writers to know our books don’t come out the way they see them. They don’t see all the work, the edits, the dead ends.
By: Suzanne Van Atten
Atlanta Magazine
Click "Scribes of Summer" below, to view the PDF original article.
Video: "Why I write stories about the Lowcountry"
Through the fifteen years that I’ve been writing stories set in its mystical lands, I’ve answered that question in so many ways. But here I try again because that is the best we can do — try.
My talented daughter and son-in-law Moon & Rock filmed this and put my words to the screen. Through my sentiments combined with the images they shot, I see the answer to the questions unfold before my eyes.
VIEW Newsletter & Share
Updated 📚 Book Tour
THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER
Join me on ✈ Tour!
There are many exciting events and appearances planned for THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER! From coffee, mimosas, to visiting a winery, pub, farmstead, plus gourmet delights, delicious luncheons, and dinners, to historic homes —plus plenty of interesting literary conversations with fellow authors, Mary Alice Monroe, Mary Kay Andrews, Jane Green, and more. Let's not forget the fantastic bookseller sponsors and the scenic venue hosts— from historical to the coastal areas. There will be ample book signings, friends, and fellow book lovers. It's going to be a fun time and hope; you will join me in a city near you!
Patti Partners with
Women's Alzheimer's Movement
Brain Health Facts & Tips in Every Copy of The Favorite Daughter
"I want to tell you about a person and a place doing so much good in the world. This is of course what we need. And now I’ve partnered with them to share their story, which is also ours in so many ways."—Patti Callahan Henry
THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER centers around a family that must either come together or fall apart (or both) over an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Not often does an author’s past and a story’s future come together as it does in this book.
My past life (not that kind) was as a pediatric nurse, and my graduate thesis centered on brain injuries. I have long been fascinated by the role memory plays in our lives and as a definition of self.
💜 When @teresamumu introduced me to the work of WAM (Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement) with @mariashriver Maria Shriver, I knew I had found a kindred spirit in facing these questions head-on with action. Real action and research. Check out their brain healthy tips and subscribe to their newsletter. Information is coming in at a rapid pace and they are keeping up! @womensalzmovement. View Blog Post.
About the Author
Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times best-selling author of fourteen novels, including the historical fiction, BECOMING MRS. LEWIS—The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis. Her fifteenth novel, THE FAVORITE DAUGHTER, (Southern Contemporary Fiction) will be published June 4, 2019.
A full-time author and mother of three children, she now resides in both Mountain Brook, Alabama and Bluffton, South Carolina with her husband. Read More
Let's Connect
"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real."
—Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
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View Summer Newsletter June 3, 2019