10. When Cara finds Allie drinking alone on the patio in the middle of the night, she reluctantly agrees not to tell anyone, particularly Des. How does this promise come back to haunt Cara later in the book? What would you have done? Do you think Cara should have broken her promise to keep silent after finding Allie passed out in her room?
11. When Allie chastises Nikki because she’s “starting to sound like [her] Aunt Des,” Nikki responds by telling her, “I’m going to take that as a compliment.” Describe Allie’s relationship with Des. Why does she see “sounding like Des” as worthy of disdain? Do you? Which of Des’s traits does Nikki admire? What do you think of Des?
12. Were you surprised by Cara’s discovery in the carriage house? Do you agree with Cara’s decision to keep the letters a secret? Would you have shared them with Barney and/or your sisters? Does it lead to more questions about Fritz for you? If so, what were they?
13. As Cara watches her family at the Hidden Falls Gun Club, she “felt a little tug at her heart. . . . Who would have guessed how much richer her life would be after less than a month in Hidden Falls?” How has Cara’s life been changed by her time spent in Hidden Falls? Compare Cara’s frame of mind at the end of The Last Chance Matinee with that as the book begins. What do you think will happen for Cara in the book’s sequel?
ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB
1. As Allie, Des, and Cara discuss their father, Allie reveals that one of her favorite memories was the birthday trip to New York City that she took with their father, and she tells how she “stayed for an entire week in a big suite at the Plaza because I loved Eloise when I was younger.” Are there characters from books that you read in your childhood that you loved as much as Allie loved Eloise? Discuss your favorite children’s books and characters with your book club.
2. In preparation for bluegrass night at the Hidden Falls Gun Club, the Hudson sisters listen to bluegrass music with Barney, who describes it as “sort of like country, maybe what some would consider hillbilly style.” Listen to bluegrass music with your book club. Do you like it? Or do you find the music “different,” as Cara does? Discuss your reaction to the music. If you’re already a lover of bluegrass music, share some of your favorite songs with your book club.
3. Cara grew up in Devlin’s Light, the setting for Mariah Stewart’s wildly popular Enright series. Read one of the books in this series (Devlin’s Light, Wonderful You, Moon Dance) with your book club and discuss it. What do you think of Devlin’s Light based on Cara’s descriptions of it in The Last Chance Matinee? Were you surprised by anything?
4. Practicing yoga and teaching it to others provides Cara with a sense of calm, and she “loved that she could teach others how to obtain that same sense of peace and well-being.” Try yoga with your book club. Are you able to focus and find a sense of inner peace? Talk about your experiences with your book club.
5. Make Susa’s granola recipe for your book club!
INGREDIENTS:
5 cups organic rolled oats
1 cup each of:
wheat germ
sesame seeds
sunflower seeds
chopped almonds
brown rice flour
coconut oil (heated to liquefy)
honey
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla
DIRECTIONS:
• Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
• Mix the honey and melted coconut oil together, then add to the dry mix.
• Stir the mixture until evenly dispersed.
• Spread onto two large jelly roll pans (17" x 11" or 19" x 12").
• Bake at 275°F for 20 minutes.
• Let cool for about 15 minutes, then scrape granola off the pans with a spatula and store in an airtight container. (The granola will be chunky.)
A CONVERSATION WITH MARIAH STEWART
You’ve written more than forty books throughout your career. How did the writing and publication process for The Last Chance Matinee compare?
I don’t plot things out before I start writing, so the process is always one of discovery—the characters reveal themselves and from there the story settles around them. The first hundred pages are always agonizing, because while I know the basic story, I’m not sure how it’s going to play out; I’m still getting to know the characters and hearing their voices. If I can make it through those first hundred pages, I’m probably going to make it to the end of the book. That being said, this book was a little different for me because I had more of a clear understanding of where I was going right from the start.
In the book’s preface, you write that The Last Chance Matinee is loosely based on something that happened in your family. How much of your family’s story influenced the story of the Hudson sisters? Did your family have any objections to you using your own history as source material?
When my mother was in her mid-forties, she discovered that her father had had another family in another state, and that the person she thought was her cousin was actually her half brother. He’d been adopted as a toddler by my great-aunt Bess, my grandfather’s sister, and she and her husband raised him as their own son. He died not knowing that the man he called “uncle” was actually his father. After the “cousin” passed away, my mother received a letter from his widow, who laid out the truth. My mother also discovered that she had a half sister, and that another half sister had died shortly after being born, along with the child’s mother. Since the story I wrote is far from the truth of what actually happened, I didn’t expect anyone to object. My mother and her siblings have all passed away, but I think my mother might have been amused by my version.
Many of your novels have been New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, and you’ve been the recipient of many awards, including the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award. Given the success of your earlier books, did you feel any added pressure when writing The Last Chance Matinee? If so, how did you deal with it?
There’s always pressure when I start a new book. I can’t say that writing this one was any more stressful than any other! A lot of whining and angst goes into writing every book, because it’s never easy. There’s always a moment when I ask myself why I thought this story was a good idea. The only thing you can do to get past that is to keep writing.
As an award-winning novelist, do you have any advice for aspiring writers? Is there anything that you wish you had been told at the start of your writing career?
Read. Read often. Read everything. Read thrillers and romances and literary works, fiction and nonfiction.
And write. Write every day, even when you think what you’re writing is dreck. There’s a great quote from Nora Roberts that goes something like, “You can fix a bad page, but you can’t fix a blank one.”
I wish I’d known that this is never easy, regardless of where you are in your career. Writing a book is hard work. Yes, sometimes the words come easily and the writing flows, but don’t be fooled. Sooner or later—usually just when you start thinking, Hey, this book could write itself—you’ll round the corner and come to a screeching halt, and you will have no idea where you’re going. You just have to keep banging away at it until it comes out right.
The Last Chance Matinee marks the beginning of a new series for you. Can you tell us a little about your writing process? How do you decide which story lines to leave unfinished so that you can address them in future novels within the series? Do you know how the entire series will conclude?
My writing process is always the same: I sit in front of my computer every morning and hope my characters are speaking to me that day!
Every series is different, and sometimes the story arcs overlap more than in others. The most difficult part of writing this series was deciding how much of the story to give the reader in this first book and how much to hold back. Because I have three lead characters, each having their own book, the first thing I had to decide was whose story to reveal first. Each of these women are in differen
t stages of their lives, and they each have issues to deal with. Some will be resolved earlier than others. It’s a balancing act, and I don’t mind saying that my editor has been very helpful. She has a really good feel for such things!
There are so many threads that cross each other in these books, from the first to the last—from Cara’s search to find out who her father really was, to Des’s commitment issues, to Allie’s alcoholism—but I can say I do know how the series concludes!
Have you found anything particularly rewarding about publishing The Last Chance Matinee? If so, what?
The most rewarding thing about publishing any book is connecting with the readers. This book is no different in that regard. I did enjoy putting a different spin on the story my mother was told, imagining how it might have all played out, and I came to love all five of the women—from Nikki, who turned out to be the total opposite of what I expected, to the three sisters, to Barney, who is a great character herself. And yes, I do see a bit of my great-aunt Bess in her.
You describe the community of Hidden Falls so vividly. How did you come up with it? Is it based on a real place? If so, can you tell us more about it?
Hidden Falls is a product of my imagination. The town developed in my head around the story. I knew it had to have the theater, of course, and a few restaurants, and the usual police department, pharmacy, that sort of thing. It needed to be small, and it needed to be one of those Poconos towns that never fed into the tourist thing. So I had the Hudson family carefully control how the town developed over the years so that it could stay small and maintain its character and rich history.
I should add, my mother’s brother and his family lived on one of the Poconos mountains, and we visited at least once every year when I was growing up. I remember how the roads twisted and turned, and I remember seeing the gouges in the earth left from strip-mining the coal. But I also remember the beauty of the mountains and the ponds and lakes and forests around my uncle’s home. If you’re from the area and are familiar with Cummings Pond (we called it “the lake” back then), you’ll recognize it in Compton Lake. It’s the only thing in the book that I took from memory.
Your descriptions of the Sugarhouse Theater really bring it to life. What kind of research did you conduct in order to get all the Art Deco details correct?
For many years we lived in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, a small town outside of Philadelphia, where a 1927 theater is being restored. I’d been inside it several times and remember how my jaw dropped the first time I looked up at the magnificent ceiling. I borrowed elements of this lovely building for the Sugarhouse. If you’ve seen the movie Silver Linings Playbook, you saw the outside of the theater in the scene where Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are running down the middle of a street—they run past the Lansdowne Theater and stop in front of it and argue (the memorable “He’s harassing me!” scene). You’ll find pictures of the interior of the Lansdowne Theater here: www.lansdownetheater.org and www.abandonedamerica.us/historic-lansdowne-theater.
I also studied the restoration process of other historic theaters in different parts of the country.
What would you like your readers to take away from The Last Chance Matinee?
That sometimes life tosses you a curve, and it’s how you react to the circumstances that determines the way your life—your journey—plays out. That in the end, it all comes down to the relationships you have with the people who mean the most to you. That family is where you find it. That sometimes we have to take that unexpected step to end up where we’re supposed to be, or as Cara imagined her mother, Susa, saying, “[G]reet each new day as an opportunity to bring fresh joy into your life. Look beyond today to the future and trust the universe to bring you what you truly need.” (page 5)
Fritz left his daughters a great deal of money, but it came with strings attached. For all his shortcomings as a father, he knew the only way these women would get to really know each other would be by living together and working toward a common goal, and becoming part of each other’s journey. By agreeing to go somewhere they didn’t want to be, with people they didn’t want to be with, in the end, they each found something they didn’t know they were looking for, and all their lives were so much richer for the experience.
Can you tell us about the sequel you are writing?
Right now, I’m working on The Good Bye Café, which is the second book in the series. This is Des’s book, and follows her journey in Hidden Falls and the choices she has to make along the way to establish a relationship with her sisters, her aunt, and the town. In the process, one of the things Des learns is that sometimes the last thing you want just might be the thing you need most (with apologies to the Rolling Stones).
Don’t miss book two of the Hudson Sisters series saga
THE GOOD BYE CAFÉ
By MARIAH STEWART
Available spring 2018 from Gallery Books!
NICOLE LEIGH PHOTOGRAPHY
MARIAH STEWART is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of numerous novels as well as several novellas and short stories. She lives with her husband and two rambunctious rescue dogs amid the rolling hills of Chester County, Pennsylvania, where she savors country life and tends her gardens while she works on her next novel. Follow her at Facebook.com/AuthorMariahStewart and on Instagram @mariah_stewart_books.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Mariah-Stewart
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ALSO BY MARIAH STEWART
The Chesapeake Diaries Series
Driftwood Point
That Chesapeake Summer
Brown-Eyed Girl
Priceless
Moon Dance
Wonderful You
Devlin’s Light
Carolina Mist
A Different Light
Moments in Time
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Marti Robb
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First Gallery Books trade paperback edition March 2017
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Cover design by Anna Dorfman
Cover photograph© David Litschel/Alamy (theater); Ilona Wellmann/Arcangel (woman); Johannes Kornelius/Shutterstock (shrubs); Randy R/Shutterstock (Marquee Letters); Serg64/Shutterstock (clouds)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-4490-5
ISBN 978-1-5011-4491-2 (ebook)
The Last Chance Matinee Page 37