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Author Profile: Rebecca Coleman
Chick Lit Authors

Author Profile: Rebecca Coleman

Author Name: Rebecca Coleman
Website: http://www.rebeccacoleman.net/
Bio: A New Yorker by birth, Rebecca Coleman grew up in the close suburbs of Washington, D.C., in an academic family. A year spent in Germany, at the age of eight, would later provide the basis for the protagonist’s background in “The Kingdom of Childhood.” She first learned about the Waldorf School movement at age 14 and quickly developed a fascination with its culture and philosophies. After studying elementary education for several years at the University of Maryland, she graduated with a degree in English, awarded with honors. She lives in suburban Maryland with her husband and their four young children.
Title: The Kingdom of Childhood

See my review of The Kingdom of Childhood
Bio retrieved from rebeccacoleman.net

March 13, 2012
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Guest Post by Rebecca Coleman
Chick Lit Authors

Guest Post by Rebecca Coleman

CONTACT: Meryl L. Moss Media Relations – 203-226-0199
Sarah Hausman/ sarah@mediamuscle.com

Before The Kingdom of Childhood

by Rebecca Coleman, author of THE KINGDOM OF CHILDHOOD

It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment when the story that would become The Kingdom of Childhood first kindled itself in my mind. Perhaps it began at the candlelight carol singing I attended at a Waldorf school when I was 14– the first time I had ever seen such a place– when the sensory beauty of the environment and my great fear of all the fire surrounding me came together in a story about both. Or it might have been on the playground of another Waldorf school 11 years later, as I watched my young son play joyfully with his classmates and realized that his teacher– this embodiment of quiet peace and thoughtful nurturing– had it in for him, because her perceptions of my wonderful son were so much at odds with mine. I lost a little of my idealism then, and even as I continued to love the Waldorf way, I never quite forgave that teacher’s ill judgment of my son.
But these impressions remained rootless until the morning when, as I folded laundry in front of the TV news, I saw an item about a teacher arrested for an affair with a young male student and decided that was a story I wanted to tell. Raise the stakes, goes the sage advice about writing fiction– always make the stakes for your characters as high as they can be. And so it didn’t take long for the notion to strike me that a Waldorf teacher would be the best– or worst– to cast in that role, because there is no other philosophy that places such a high value on the purity, even the sacredness, of childhood. The crime Judy commits in The Kingdom of Childhood is not only taboo; in her community, it’s nothing short of anathema.
What intrigued me in equal measure, though, was what it would be like to be the teenage boy playing opposite such a teacher. I knew what I didn’t want him to be– mature for his age, superficial in his thinking, experienced with girls or squabbling with his parents. All of those things would make his motivations too simple, and the joy of writing teenagers is that they are some of the most complex people in the world: so much bravado and pride, so much desire to be perceived as mature, and yet so thoroughly naive. On the news, we hear the names of the teachers involved in these scandals; we learn about their families, their awards, their reputations. Yet the boys remain a mystery, always. We tend to assume their motives are obvious: driven by their hormones, they are unfettered, willing victims. But when are human beings ever so simple?
Somewhere inside all of that complexity I found the story I wanted to tell: one about the collision of naivete and wisdom, comfort and fear. Life is lived in the contrasts, after all– but the stakes are never higher than when the line between those contrasts draws paper-thin.

October 7, 2011
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The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman
Chick Lit Review

The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman

I received an ARC for The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman, and though I agreed to read and review, I was a little worried about what my reaction would be. I do like to explore beyond the chick lit genre, and this one is definitely way out that realm. The main character is Judy McFarland, a typical suburban mom whose profession is a kindergarten teacher. She has one son, a senior named Scott, and a husband that is manic over his doctoral dissertation. Judy’s marriage has already begun to disintegrate, but she takes things to a new level when she begins an affair- with a sixteen year old student. Judy starts to mentor Zach Patterson, a high school student and friend of Scott’s, and they soon enter into a torrid affair. The time jumps around from when Judy is a young girl and key times in her childhood, to her adult life and the decisions she is making. The point of view also switches from Judy to Zach at times, which gives readers a nice insight on his thoughts and feelings on the relationship.
The beginning did start off a bit slow for me but about halfway through the novel, I was unable to put it down. You watch as Judy turns from a typical teacher, to a misguided lover, to an insane predator with just a few flips of the pages. I have seen the words “psychological thriller” being used to describe this book, and I would agree. My emotions were played with, I kept shouting out passages to my boyfriend, and I was engrossed until the end. The writing was masterful, and I thought the sub-plot of Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky was a great addition to the main story. I will say that when I was struggling through the beginning, I couldn’t tell what Coleman’s intentions were. Was she trying to say that teacher-student affairs are okay, that Judy was simply a lost woman looking for love? Was she trying to show why these affairs are common, how people can get away with it, and what happens after the relationship is discovered? I almost felt for awhile that is was the first, that readers were supposed to feel sympathetic with Judy. Her best friend has recently died of cancer, her husband was an absent a-hole and her life seemed to be coming apart at the seams. It wasn’t until the end, where the dots seemed to be connected (at least for me) that showed the disease she was suffering from. The last few chapters gave me goosebumps, but the very last section was a little confusing for me. Overall, a solid story that will make you keep thinking about the characters after you finish the book.
[Rating: 4]

October 7, 2011
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In My Mailbox: Week of September 18
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of September 18

In My Mailbox: Week of September 18

Title: High Heels and Slippers
Author: Ella Slayne
Received: From Ella Slayne via CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Meet Josie Jenkins, a Brit living in Texas, fan of indulgent body-scrubs and the odd glass of wine. She’s currently Customer Service Manager at Harpers & Green Co, home of high-end shirts and also, rather unhelpfully, Bob Green: her ex-boyfriend (who also happens to be married). She is thousands of miles away from home and her job appears to be in jeopardy – safe to say, Josie’s going through a wobbly patch. So when the rather handsome Callum Doherty, (just picture blue eyes and Irish good looks) begins flirting with Josie, she is thrilled…until she realizes she’s not the only girl at work with her eye on the office heart-throb. How can she compete against her pert-bottomed rival from the accounts department? Josie’s love-life takes another complicated and unexpected turn when out of the blue Josie receives a mysterious Facebook friend request from her high-school sweetheart, Tom Barker. Tom is keeping something from her, drawing her in and causing her to question if it’s time to reconnect the past with the present. It’s time for some soul searching. Will Josie take the emotional trip back to the UK or try her luck with the handsome Mr. Doherty? Is there heartbreak ahead in Josie’s future?

Title: Three Daves
Author: Nicki Elson
Received: From Nicki Elson
Synopsis: Jennifer Whitney was the last American virgin. At least that s what she felt like in 1986 as she began her sophomore year at Central Illinois University. She was proud of her decision to wait for the right guy, and yet she was getting restless. It seemed like everyone around her was doing it… and having fun doing it, too. She didn t want to become the campus slut or anything, but surely there was a difference between a trashy skank and a nice girl with a little experience. Perhaps it was time to stop relying on fate to guide her and instead take matters into her own hands. And with that realization, Jen decided to find the one and lose her virginity, although not necessarily in that order…
Nicki Elson has created a heroine that everyone will cheer for as she comes of age in the mid-1980s. Whether you lived through the decade and survived the bad hair and acid-wash jeans, or just heard the wild stories, readers of all ages will identify with Jen Whitney as she searches for the one, enjoying her romantic ups and downs, made even more entertaining by Nicki Elson s amusingly wry sense of humor.

Title: The Kingdom of Childhood
Author: Rebecca Coleman
Received: From Meryl L Moss Media Relations
Synopsis: THE KINGDOM OF CHILDHOOD is the story of a boy and a woman: sixteen-year-old Zach Patterson, uprooted and struggling to reconcile his knowledge of his mother’s extramarital affair, and Judy McFarland, a kindergarten teacher watching her family unravel before her eyes. Thrown together to organize a fundraiser for their failing private school and bonded by loneliness, they begin an affair that at first thrills, then corrupts, each of them. Judy sees in Zach the elements of a young man she loved when she was only a child. But what Zach does not realize is that– for Judy– their relationship is only the latest in a lifetime of disturbing secrets.

September 18, 2011
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