New Summer Book Gives New Meaning to Bikini Season

Summer is on its way and what better time than to check out all the new beach reading material that is coming out just in time for days of frolicking on the beach and catching those rays of sunshine!

But, what if bikini season isn´t what you have to look forward to? What if you are overweight and need to shed pounds in a hurry? What if putting on a bikini is so out of your summer plans and you cry every time you look at yourself in the mirror?

Sheila Roberts new book, Bikini Season, is the solution. It´s a hilarious read about a group of friends who decide to turn their cooking club into a diet club and the lessons they learn which are as different as the women themselves. But one lesson they all learn is that, no matter what she´s facing, a woman needs her girlfriends.

I had a chance to interview this marvelous woman who wrote the book, Bikini Season, to see if we could find out more about her and her delightful book.

Thank you for this interview, Ms. Roberts. Can you tell us why you chose to write about women on diets?

Well, I love to write about women´s friendships, and I certainly like to write about things that are important to women. And for most of us over the age of twenty, that means the dreaded diet plays a big part in our lives. I know it does in mine. In fact, I´d planned to get totally skinny and hot for when this book came out. That so didn´t happen. I look like a very big pillow with legs. But everybody loves a nice, fluffy pillow, right?

Your characters are so diverse; yet alike. Can you tell us a little about each one?

I think my characters represent a wide spectrum of the female diet experience. We´ve got Erin, my bride to be and her nightmare groom. Her wedding gown doesn´t fit, and it´s not necessarily because she´s been eating too many chips. Then there´s Angela, who is not happy with her overweight condition and figures her husband must not be, either, especially since his personal assistant is the office hottie. Megan the lawyer has been carrying around emotional issues right along with that extra weight, and Kizzy, whose problem is modeled after one of my friends who had a health scare a couple years back, simply wants to acquire a more healthy lifestyle.

In what way are they all tied together?

Food is what links these friends together. First it´s their love of it and as the story continues, it´s their desire to control it.

I think the premise is funny in itself. A group of women have a cooking club which turns into a diet club. What made them decide to do this?

Each woman has a different problem driving her, but bottom line, there comes a time for all of us when we say, "I need to get control of my life so I can live a long and healthy life."

When you first showed the premise of this book to your editor, what was his or her reaction? Did she feel it was a book that would sell? Are women´s fiction books still hot?

Actually, it was my editor who suggested the idea of writing about friends working together to tackle the diet monster, and I think it was a brilliant suggestion. I think women´s fiction is alive and well – hence the success of great authors like Susan Wiggs and Debbie Macomber. Everyone loves a good story, especially we women. We make up the largest share of the book buying market, in fact. Go, girls!

Where do you spend your bikini seasons?

Where no one can see me. Seriously, we moved to a charming little lake and I am looking forward to spending a lot of summer afternoons playing on that lake. And getting fit!

What can you tell my readers so that they will want to go out and grab a copy?

This book has great recipes! (It´s also a fun read.)

Thank you for this interview, Sheila. Can you tell us where we can find out more about your and your delightful book?

Thank you so much for having me! I hope people will visit me at my website (www.sheilasplace.com), read a sneak preview of the book and sign up for my free monthly life improvement newsletter, Super You.

Bikini Season by Sheila Roberts is published by St. Martin´s Press.