Just in Time for Mother’s Day: The Diary

Who’s your mother? Beyond her name and the roles you’ve seen her play throughout your life—like mom and wife and brownie baker—who is she? What was she like as a child? What would she want you to know about her? What were her hopes and dreams, her disappointments?

Those are all questions Emily and Sarah Marshall never got around to asking their mother while growing up. Then she suffered a massive stroke and they could still ask but she could no longer answer. Eileen Goudge’s latest novel, The Diary (Vanguard Press, April 2009 trade paperback and gift hardcover) tells the unforgettable story of these two grown daughters and the questions that haunt them after discovering their mother’s diary in her attic. The entries from her youth introduce them to a passionate woman with one true love . . . a man who wasn’t their dad.

But is everything as it seems? That’s the mystery they must unravel as their mother lies mute and near death in a nursing home; the pages in her diary the only clues to her past.

New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs described The Diary as “. . . the ultimate indulgence—dramatic, involving and ringing with emotional truth . . . a top-drawer author at the top of her game.” Perhaps this book makes such an impact because it’s based on the lives of Goudge’s parents. “Their love story didn’t become fully known to me and my five siblings until later in our lives,” the New York Times bestselling author of Domestic Affairs and Woman in Red, said. It was through a secret cache of old photos and stories from friends and relatives that the younger Goudges finally learned about their mother and father as real people and about their parents’ undying passion for each other.

The Diary, published one month before Mother’s Day, is sure to make you wonder who your mother really is as a woman. To assist with your journey in discovering more about her, Goudge and Vanguard Press have launched www.BetsDiary.com, where readers can find a special Mom’s Day luncheon plan, gift ideas, lovely e-postcards you can send your mother, and questions that can help you generate a discussion with her about her youth. In a contest to promote The Diary, one reader will win home-baked goodies from Goudge similar to those baked by her mom, and a personal call from the author to the winner and her mother. To learn more about this author and all of her popular books visit www.EileenGoudge.com.