What if you could take a vacation on your marriage and for six months, pursue a lifetime dream your husband doesn’t share? And he could do the same. That’s the premise for Lian Dolan’s latest book, The Marriage Sabbatical.

Hi, I’m your host, Jenny Wheeler and today Lian, the author of the popular The Sweeney Sisters and Lost And Found In Paris is quick to make clear that the central premise of the marriage sabbatical does not come from personal experience. She jokes her life is ‘just not that interesting.’

But on today’s Binge Reading show, she talks about how she came to write a fascinating tale of marriage veterans of 23 years who take holidays apart for the first time in their lives because of their wildly clashing personal interests, and discover new things about themselves and their love for each other.

Book Giveaways

But before we get to Lian, be assured. We’ve got our usual free book giveaways this week. It’s open season on freebie thrillers.

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These mystery, thriller, and suspense writers have teamed up to bring you these FREE books!

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And we also have a promo on Kobo. If you’re a Kobo follower, there’s a free download of the Of Gold & Blood Book Bundle Two, Books #1 and #4, and lots of other great authors to choose from in a ‘free first in series’ promo in all genres….

Romance – Space Opera – Mysteries & Thrillers- Sci Fi * Fantasy – Young Adult – Urban Fantasy

kobo free first in series – all genres

THIS IS AN INTERNATIONAL OFFERING – If you live in a country that isn’t included in this promotion, you may have trouble accessing the sale link. If this happens, change the flag at the top of the Kobo homepage to one of the included countries to see the sale link properly.

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And a reminder. You can help defray the costs of the show by buying me a cup of coffee on buymeacoffee.com/jennywheelx.

If you enjoy the show, do leave us a review, so others will find us. Word of mouth is still the best way for others to discover the show, and great books. they will love to read.

Links to things discussed in the show

Ali Macgraw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_MacGraw

Love Story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Story_(1970_film)

ALS: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20354022

Dervla McTiernan: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16918766.Dervla_McTiernan

Maeve Binchy: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3532.Maeve_Binchy

Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44890081-my-dark-vanessa

Donna Tartt The Secret History: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29044.The_Secret_History

The Satellite Sisters: https://satellitesisters.com/podcast/

The Sweeney Sisters, Lian Dolan: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49978226-the-sweeney-sisters

Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8882001-helen-of-pasadena

Where to find Lian Dolan online

Website: liandolan.com

Facebook: @liandolan

Satellite Sisters podcast: https://satellitesisters.com/podcast/

Introducing author Lian Dolan

Lian Dolan – women’s fiction with humor and heart

But now here is Lian. Hello there, Lian, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us.

Lian Dolan: Thank you so much. I’m really excited to be here and do this conversation with you. I’ve loved listening to a lot of your podcasts and I’m pleased to see so many of my friends on your shows. That was fun to discover them.

Jenny Wheeler: That’s wonderful. The Marriage Sabbatical, which is your latest book is what we are discussing today. It’s quite newly published, isn’t it?

Lian Dolan: Yes, just out. I’m excited to have it out. The writing process is a long one and the development process was long and then it’s a year in production, I’m excited to be out and about with it, because I feel like I’ve been talking about it for years, but really it’s just out.

Jenny Wheeler: And as the title indicates it’s about a couple who spend some time apart, happily married in a marriage that’s very much settled into a routine. You like to make it really clear in the acknowledgements for the book that it’s not a personal story. Tell us about that.

Lian Dolan: I think one of the big myths of writing is when people who are non-writers say, ‘oh, write about what you know.’

A Gen X couple on a different journey

And honestly, I’m out material by book six. This is my sixth book. My life is not that interesting. I need to make stuff up. The book is the story of a couple that’s a Gen X couple.

They’re approaching 50 or just over 50. They’ve been married for 23 years. They’ve just been through the Pandemic. They have a couple of college aged kids that are going off to their study abroad program and he, the husband, has the opportunity to take a sabbatical. His work is giving him a year off, and they decide to do this adventure trip through Patagonia.

And then the wife decides ‘that is your dream. But it is not my dream.’ And so long story short, they come up with a compromise position. And that’s okay. we’re going to go our separate ways for eight months.

You can do anything you want with anyone, no questions asked So it’s a breaking of their marriage vows and it’s a different journey that they didn’t expect to be on.

That of course is very different than my own marriage. We’ve been married 31 years, no sabbaticals, no agreements. It’s hard to write about what is ostensibly a pretty good marriage? It’s not that fascinating a topic. So ooh, we ran errands on Saturday and then we had chicken for dinner.

I had to fish around for something to happen, to kinda shake ’em both up and that was it.

Learning the art of compromise

Jenny Wheeler: At the beginning, Nicole is really reluctant to admit to her husband that she doesn’t want to go because they’ve got a long way up the track with him just assuming she was going to love everything he loved

That scene where she finds the courage to tell him she doesn’t want to come and then sticks to her guns, that’s one a lot of women can identify with, I’m sure.

Lian Dolan: Yes I think we get dragged into our partner’s interests whether we want to or not. And sometimes it’s benign.

Like when I married my husband, all of a sudden I had to watch Formula One races at four in the morning, because he was a lifelong fan. And he had to learn how to ski. He had not grown up as a skier. We had those are fairly low stakes entries.

But I think when you start to talk about like adventure travel or let’s sell everything we have and drive around in an RV, then you’re ask yourself do I really want to do that? And for Nicole… She is really banking on the fact that as the book takes place, at the very edge of the pandemic, people are just starting to travel again.

For us here in the United States, we had so many opportunities where we thought the pandemic was over and then it was back and it was over and it was back. I think she’s hoping the whole time it’s going to get canceled.

Learning to see things from the other side

Like that was how I envisioned Nicole. Oh, this is never gonna happen. There’s gonna be another surge. I won’t have to go to Patagonia and ride around on a motorcycle in a windy, country. So two countries. So that’s what she’s banking on and it does not work out. She actually looks like she has to go.

Jenny Wheeler: Now in terms of the research, because as you say, you haven’t had a sabbatical yourself, in the acknowledgements again you credited a pal with sending you gobs of reading material that helped you to get some of the research. And I wondered what was the hardest part about thinking yourself into this book?

Lian Dolan: It was definitely a point of discomfort for me as a person. I don’t really think having a relationship with someone outside your marriage is a great idea. I’ll just say it. It’s not something I really go for. As you write more and more books and the older you get, and I would look around at other people’s marriages and I’d think something’s happening over there.

Like they have some sort of an agreement. And I think I had to peel back my personal judgment. That was the hardest part of writing a book about something that, you know, morally. It was a gray area, but it was not a gray area for me. It was black and white.

So my friend that you referred to, Daniela is a marriage and family counselor. And I wanted to be able to have a background and ask about women who make this choice, or how do couples, survive this? What do open relationships look like and do those actually work or do those all implode?

Important we like the main characters

She sent me tons of books on that. But it was important to me that you buy into this couple, Jason and Nicole, that you like them and that you’re like onboard with this choice, even if it’s a choice you wouldn’t make.

And so I really worked hard. With any book you do a bunch of research, but then you have to put it aside and you have to focus in on the character journey.

I really worked hard on the first a hundred pages before they separate and go on their separate sabbaticals to make the characters likable. I want readers to be  invested in both of them. You’re rooting for both of them. There’s not a bad guy or a good guy. There’s just a couple that’s struggling to find themselves again after 25 years of marriage.

Jenny Wheeler: Jason does go off to Patagonia and follows his adventure dream, which is partly actually related to a very good friend of his, Charlie, who’s died. It’s not necessarily even Jason’s personal dream. It’s more of a kind of pact that he had with a friend who’s now dead. So that’s an added complication.

But Nicole, she decides that she would love to just go to somewhere like Santa Fe and do an art course and work in jewelry or something like that, something totally different.

And you take her to Santa Fe and she meets a whole cast of interesting new friends, including Cleo Jones. Now tell us a bit about the inspiration for the Cleo character in this story.

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Ali McGraw and Santa Fe magic

Lian Dolan: I did a research trip to Santa Fe. I had been there decades ago when I was in college and hadn’t been since. It’s a spectacular spot in America. It’s in New Mexico. It’s 7,500 feet, so it’s very high. Thin air, exquisite architecture. It’s the second biggest art market in the United States, outside of New York, in terms of fine art.

They’ve got fantastic food. It’s just a great mix of cultures. It’s almost like it’s its own separate place and it has this real spiritual vibe and that comes from the natural beauty. And in the middle of that lives Ali MacGraw. Okay. Perfect. Ali MacGraw, Love Story Ali MacGraw.

We were there, my husband and I, and we were waiting to go into the Georgia O’Keefe Museum and we just ducked into a coffee shop. I looked up and there is Ali MacGraw coming through the door. And can I tell you, she is still magnificent. She was full Ali. Oh my gosh. She had the long braids and the big silver statement jewelry and a white linen shirt and jeans.

And she had Birkenstocks on, like white Birkenstocks and her toenails were painted blue. And big silver cuffs. I couldn’t speak. And there’s my husband just making chitchat with a pretty old lady, like about the coffee and when she left. I was like. Do you know who that was?

And he says no.

I say that’s Ali MacGraw. And there was a blank look of course. And I was like, Steve McQueen. She was with Steve McQueen and all of a sudden it came back to him.

Cleo Jones – an Ali inspired character

But I just thought she represented so much about the city that’s fascinating. But also, I just love writing older female characters who have a past that is pretty hot.

Ali had a hot past. She was the actress, she was with interesting men. She did the first yoga tape that revolutionized it.

And she’s been in Santa Fe for 30 years where she is beloved. She’s a great patron of the arts and many other causes there. And she just was so inspiring to me that I said Nicole has to meet someone like Ali.

So I created the character of Cleo Jones and they become friends and eventually business partners. But it was all because of that coffee shop.

She’s still Ali. She’s unbelievable. What a role model.

Jenny Wheeler: That’s gorgeous. And the Patagonia part of it? Now, you weren’t going to go and research that on a motorcycle, so how did you get the inside story on Jason’s part of the adventure?

Lian Dolan: I have two older sisters, Liz and Julie, that enjoy many things I don’t. One of which is adventure travel, the other’s hiking, and the other is wind. Windy countries. And they went on a hiking trip in Patagonia four years ago and they came back and they told me all about it, and I’m like, that sounds like my worst nightmare.

Not made for motorbikes in Patagonia

In a million years, I would never want to go on a trip like that. I’m sure it was gorgeous. I love looking at their photos and hearing their stories. But no thanks. And that stuck in my head. And then I had another friend whose husband did a very similar motorcycle trip when he turned 60.

He drove from America all the way down, had his motorcycle, did his thing, was gone for months. I had to think of what’s the least likely trip that Nicole would want to do? And I had to make the story work, I had to get Jason out of Europe, because that’s too easy to reach. He needed to be out of cell phone distance.

That was part of the thing, that they weren’t going to call each other a lot. There was a cutoff of communication. And so Patagonia worked on all those levels. So that’s why I thought this is a trip I would never want to do. So yes, Nicole is me on that one.

Jenny Wheeler: Now you mentioned the sisters and sisters have played a huge role in your life. Not only is one of the more recent books, I think the one before this was one called The Sweeney Sisters, but you’ve had a long running podcast with two of your other sisters. Tell us a little bit about that podcast.

23 years? You must have been a baby when you started it!

Pioneering the Satellite Sisters show

Lian Dolan: I am the baby of the family, which I often remind them. That makes me the youngest. We started Satellite Sisters as a radio show, actually pre podcast in 2000. And it was all five Dolan girls at the time. Five real sisters who lived all over the world, did a show about the things going on in our lives and the things going on in the news and what we were reading and talking about.

And at one point the show was on live here in America six days a week for three hours a day. We just talked and talked. We talk about anything. Anything, Jenny, anything. And in 2008 we turned the show into a podcast and we’re one of the first podcasts out there. We won a Podcast Pioneer Award a couple of years ago.

Our show was really focused on the lives of women and the things that are important to women. The things that don’t necessarily make the front news. American radio is filled with people just yelling and screaming about politics or sports, and you have to have an immediate opinion on every small, tiny detail that takes place in the political sphere or the sports sphere or blue versus red.

And we just thought women, they don’t live their lives like that. They live their lives talking to each other. They can have differences, be different party affiliations and still hav, funny conversations that are meaningful and informative. And so that was always our goal and we’ve loved doing the show.

It’s been an extraordinary experience. Social media has meant that our reach has extended beyond the United States, and we’re able to communicate with people and create a real global sisterhood that we just did not anticipate in 1999 when we pitched the show idea.

A sisterhood novel – The Sweeney Sisters

Jenny Wheeler: We will have a link in the show notes, this episode of them, so people can pick up on those podcast episodes going right back. If they want to, they’re still live aren’t they?

Lian Dolan: Oh yeah, we have thousands. Literally. We ended production of new stuff essentially in December of 23 after 23 years. But we’re even still reposting and re-editing and doing all kinds of things. But our whole back catalog is up on most podcast platforms.

Jenny Wheeler: The book, The Sweeney Sisters is three sisters who have of unexpected revelations when. Dad who’s a – I think he’s a Nobel Prize winning author, isn’t he? In the book? He’s certainly a very high status literary author – and he dies. Tell us about that. And it really comes through, I think, that you have sisters yourself in that book.

There’s a real feeling for sisterhood there. Tell us about it.

Lian Dolan: You know what? You nailed it. That’s what I was going for. That was my fourth novel, and I hadn’t really written about sisters in the first three, because you know what? I’m sick of my sisters sometimes. I thought up till then, I’m going to write a book. It’s not going to be about them. I say that with love. They can write their own books.

But I did feel like after the first three, I was ready to write a book with a trio of female leads. There’s actually a fourth one that shows up. And what I was trying to go for was the idea that not all sister relationships (are the way they are portrayed.)

In a lot of media pop culture books, they’re either super saccharin, like huggy kissy all the time, super supportive, or they’re just warring, they have nothing in common and they’re bitter enemies.

The disruption done by DNA tests

And I think about 90% of sister relationships live in the middle of that. Sometimes you’re supportive, sometimes you’re warring, but if you have a common sense of humor, I think that can really get you through a lot of that. So that was my idea, was to write a book about sisterhood.

The sisters in the book are younger than my sisters, they don’t line up, they’re not my actual sisters. Again, that’s not how books work. But I did try to capture that feeling of sisterhood that we’ve had. Even if you don’t talk to your sister for six months, you’re still there for her.

And when things get bad, they’re there for you and you can have very different lives, but there’s this common connection. And so that’s what I was trying to capture with The Sweeney Sisters. It’s also said in my hometown in Connecticut. So that was fun too. I had never done that before.

Jenny Wheeler: It taps into the zeitgeist, as you say, in one of the blurbs, of 23 and me and ancestry.com, and as people can probably guess, one of the unexpected surprises is revealed by a DNA test.

You raise the question of what makes a family, and it did occur to me. Have you had a DNA test yourself? Do you have any personal experience of DNA in your family?

Lian Dolan: I think I’m the only one that actually has had a DNA test. But I have had plenty of friends have this experience and when I cooked up the idea for the book, it was right when they were starting to market those Ancestry and 23 and Me tests like fun family holiday gifts,

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