Grand Magazine - September/October 2008 - (Page 49)

to have sleepovers. We’ll have dinner and they like to help with that. In the summer they like to take a walk around the garden. I have an indoor pool, so they get some swimming in. And then we have a ritual. We have to have movies and snacks—not just popcorn—all the movie snacks. Then, of course, they can stay up as late as they want!” Nora says she’s determined to finish the renovation of the Boone Hotel before the new year. “We’re now hoping to open it around Christmas. There are six guest rooms. The seventh is a penthouse suite. The other six are all themed toward a literary couple with a happy ending.” The suites will celebrate literary lovers: Elizabeth and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice; Jane and Rochester from Jane Eyre; Marguerite and Percy from The Scarlet Pimpernel; Titania and Oberon from A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Nick and Nora from The Thin Man, and Eve and Roarke from Nora’s own In Death series. Starting over is nothing new for Nora. Born into an Irish family in Silver Spring, Maryland, the only girl and youngest of five children, Eleanor Marie Robertson developed her discipline and grit from years of a Catholic school education. She began writing only after failing at other jobs. “I was the worst legal secretary in history. I would have fired me.” Nora knew she loved to make up stories, but she didn’t know it could be a career. “I thought everybody made up stories. I always read; I come from a family of readers. Books and stories were essential” [she met Bruce, her second husband, when she hired him to build bookshelves], “but I never considered writing a book.” Then, in 1979, isolated for days with her two small sons during a snowstorm, “I started writing an actual book—in a notebook with a pencil. I fell in love. A year and a half later, I sold my first book, Irish Thoroughbred. That was really the moment. I thought, ‘Why haven’t I done this before? Oh, this is so cool.’” As we sit and chat in the town pizzeria, owned by Roberts’ son Dan, her fans—who have been gathering since 6:30 a.m. for an afternoon book signing—visit Kayla and Logan’s lemonade stand to get some relief from the hot summer sun. For Nora, time with her family—including her extended family of readers—never gets old. Of the women who make up her legion of loyal fans, Nora says, “They love me and I love them. They’re fun and they’re well informed. They know better than I do what’s in my books. They’ve been coming for 12 years. We’ve made a lot of great friendships over those years.” The nurturing of family, fans and community is Nora’s wellspring as she maintains an eighthour-a-day writing schedule. Her newest book, Pagan Stone, is due out around Thanksgiving. (It’s set in a small town in Maryland where three boys share a birthday—July 7, 1977. On the eve of their 10th birthday, the three boys meet in the woods, where they perform a blood-brother ritual cementing their friendship forever.) This is her third book in the Sign of Seven trilogy (the first two were Blood Brothers and The Hollow). Every new book means starting over again. “It’s tiring, but it’s still a joy. Writing is tremendously hard work, but it’s the best job in the world. Sometimes the writing flows wonderfully and everything goes well, and then certain days are just hell.” But then…there’s the community, the family— and the grandchildren. “My husband talks about it all the time. He’ll stop by Dan and Stacie’s house on the way home to drop something off, and the children’s faces light up and it’s like they say, ‘Oh Grandpa, you’re the most wonderful person in the world. We’re so glad to see you.’ “It’s amazing someone is that happy that you merely exist.” More to the story: page 68. Nora’s romantically themed Boone Hotel will open in time for Christmas. SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2008 GRAND 49

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Grand Magazine - September/October 2008

Grand Magazine- September/October 2008 Grand View:�Priceless Contents Isn't it Grand?: Picture Perfect Winners!: GRANDparent of the Year Grand Central Toddler Town:�Grand-proofing Ask Grand:�Two Tired Tips on Teens: The Bar Mitzvah Trips Just So We Know:�BPA Not Our BFF Full House-Full Heart-Full Time:�Confessions of a Backyard Grand Grandbloggers: It Takes a Village Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Family + Food = Fun On the Cover: Nora Roberts A Fine Romance Everything Was Fine Until You Showed Up Happy Big Sister Day Looking Grand:�Elementary, My Dear All in the Family:�Pasta, Present and Future Reunions:�Doubleheader Inspirations:�Grandpa's Violin Grand Bazaar More to the Story Grand Finale:�Long Ago Under the Sun

Grand Magazine - September/October 2008

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