caribousmom Rotating Header Image

TLC Book Tour – Cathy Holton

holton Cathy Holton is the author of two previous novels: Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes AND Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes.

Holton’s third novel, Beach Trip, was released in May through Ballantine Books. I thoroughly enjoyed this Southern women’s novel set in the Outer Banks of North Carolina (read my review).

To read more about Holton and her work, visit the author’s website.

Read the author’s blog: Surly Wench Journal.

I was thrilled when Cathy agreed to write a guest post about women’s friendships for this tour. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did!

**********************

Guest Post by Author Cathy Holton

I’m always fascinated by the relationships between women.  We speak a very complicated language, subtle yet telling; often what we don’t say is as important as what we do.  I’ve found that as I grow older my relationships with other women have grown deeper, richer, more meaningful on so many levels. We’re bonded by our experiences; we’ve raised families, lost or gained husbands, started new careers, overcome illness, tragedy and the occasional run of bad luck.  We’ve learned to speak our minds openly, no longer avoiding conflict for the sake of ‘being nice.’

I knew that Beach Trip would be the story of four well educated, but very different, women; suite mates in college who, had they met later in life, might not have been friends at all.  I was curious to see whether their shared experiences as young women, and the lives they had led since then, the choices they had made, would sustain a twenty-seven year friendship.

I knew the novel would have an element of dark humor, and I knew there would be a surprising revelation at the end, something that threatened the tenuous bond the women had shared over the years, and yet helped to explain that bond, too.

I recently received an email from a woman who has spent the last seventy-three years getting together annually with five friends from kindergarten.  Imagine that!  Seventy-three years of friendship….I like to think that Mel, Sara, Annie and Lola will be similarly blessed.

***********************

beach-trip
Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books (May 12, 2009)
ISBN 10: 0345505999
ISBN 13: 9780345505996
tlclogo
Blog Widget by LinkWithin

7 Comments

  1. Gina says:

    Just a quick comment to tell you that Gwendolyn B. at Sea of Books has nominated me for my first award and I’m passing it on to you! Come to my blog to grab the graphic and to see who else I picked :)

  2. Tara says:

    I enjoyed this book too, and will be on the tour next week. I hope you liked it, and enjoyed Cathy’s post here!

  3. Tara says:

    I hope you liked it? What am I saying. I’m glad you liked it. Duh.

  4. Lisamm says:

    I really like this guest post and what Cathy says about women’s friendships is so true. I find that with my book club- these aren’t lifelong friendships like in the book (hopefully they will become that!) but we’ve been together for 2 1/2 years, and we’ve already been through some things that have strengthened our bond beyond simply discussing books.

  5. Caribousmom says:

    Gina: THANK YOU! I’ll be by to check it out :)

    Tara: I will be looking forward to your review! *laughing* No need to write “Duh” – I make mistakes like that ALL the time!!

    Lisa: I agree – women’s friendships can be very special – I wish I had a face to face book club like yours!

  6. Thank you for this wonderful guest post. I have female friends but none whom I share such a strong bond with as these women with each other in the book, but I have experienced the uniqueness of friendships developed in school that somehow manage to hold on over the years in some form despite the different directions our lives have taken. Friendships that probably would not have been formed had we not met when we did.

  7. Caribousmom says:

    WendyCat: You are quite welcome :) Women’s friendships can be such a treasure…I have a couple (mostly those I’ve made as an adult) which mean so much to me.

Leave a Reply