An Excerpt from "Christmas at the Women's Hotel"

Christmas at the Women’s Hotel is coming out in about a week. My author copies arrived the other day, and as usual I have far more than I know what to do with. If you happen to live in the Bay Area and would like a free copy, please send me an email and I’ll be happy to arrange a drop-off. I like the way they’ve turned out; very trim and pink, like a carton of Virginia Slims, or a run of underfed salmon.

I’m also working on finalizing the edits for my third novel, Meeting New People, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Women’s Hotel and should be coming out from HarperCollins sometime later in 2026. They were due last week, as it happens, and as I’m a bit behind I thought I’d share two excerpts from Christmas at the Women’s Hotel to buy myself some time.

Readers of Women’s Hotel will remember the book ends with a prediction that Lucianne will marry, move out of the Biedermeier, divorce, then later move back in; the sequel introduces that short-lived marriage. I wanted to give her a version of Tom Ripley¹ to call her very own:

Now it was the third week of December, and Lucianne had called up one of her friends, Frank Newcomb, who worked at the New York State Conservationist. Frank had been a member of the dinner party on the night she met Tom. He had declared himself too old and too unsociable for her Guide Escort Service when asked, but he was dependable and smart, and she almost always listened to his advice, although she took it no more often than she took anyone else’s.

“Frank, I want to get up a little dinner for Tom’s birthday next week,” she said, after they had passed a few minutes in friendly, inconsequential chat. “Only I don’t know many of his friends, so I thought I’d ask you for a few names, since you both went to Duke.”

“That’s a nice idea, honey,” Frank said. But he said nothing else.

“I think it’s a nice idea, too,” Lucianne said, laughing. “That’s why I came up with it. Care to help me out a little?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Frank said uneasily.

“Well, there were a lot of Duke men there that night, weren’t there?” Lucianne said. “Will Nichols, Rick Prentiss, Hack . . . I know it’ll be close to Christmas, but don’t you think a few people will still be in town?”

“They might be. It’s hard to say.”

“Would you like to tell me whatever it is you’re not telling me?”