Club Calvi

James Patterson is perhaps the most popular author of our time with more than 300 million books sold worldwide. He includes Dolly Parton and Viola Davis among his co-authors, but Susan Patterson holds a special place. After nearly 30 years of marriage, James and Susan have released their new novel "The Mother-Daughter Book Club." It's about the reunion of four friends and their daughters in Italy to talk about books, life, and secrets. Susan told Mary how she and James came up with the story, and their trip to Lake Como to live the experiences in the book. James shared the motto that's been driving him for the last few years and how writing with his wife is a beautiful thing. Audiobook used with permission from James and Susan Patterson and Hachette Audio, all rights reserved.

Sadeqa Johnson's historical fiction novels have shared the emotional stories of Black women navigating love and motherhood in the 1950s with the book "The House of Eve," and the story of an enslaved young woman trapped in a notorious jail in Richmond, Virginia in the 1800s in "Yellow Wife." Mary Calvi talked to Johnson about her latest book "Keeper of Lost Children," which is based on the woman who found homes for abandoned mixed-race children of Black American GIs and German women during World War II. Johnson and Mary discussed the reasons why these children were left in orphanages, and why Johnson believes their story found her. Copyright © 2026 by Sadeqa Johnson. Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from the audiobook KEEPER OF LOST CHILDREN, read by Ariel Blake, Karen Chilton, Adam Lazarre-White, and Sadeqa Johnson, published by Simon & Schuster Audio, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Wade Rouse is known to readers for the 13 books he wrote under his pen name Viola Shipman, which honors the legacy of his grandmother. "That's What Friends Are For" is his first novel under his own name, and he told Mary it's his most personal novel yet. The book, based on the classic TV show "The Golden Girls," is about four gay men of a certain age who share Zsa Zsa Gabor's mansion in Palm Springs, but not all their secrets. Wade told Mary that the history of these men, and others over the age of 60, is relevant today.

After 20 years of the bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series, J.R. Ward is taking a detour from vampires falling in love and fighting evil in upstate New York with her first romantasy. "Crown of War and Shadow" became an instant New York Times bestseller. Ward told Mary that she came up with the idea for the book, as a backup for the Black Dagger Brotherhood, two decades ago. She dives into her process, which she doesn't call writing, her commitment to her readers, and how the hero of "Crown of War and Shadow" appeared to her in a vision, big, brooding, and ready for battle.