The Writer in the Garden

Sara Beth and Rachel have been wishing on stars for as long as they've been friends. Sara Beth dreams of her own antique shop, with lace curtains hanging in the windows. For Rachel, a little beach cottage will do, where sea breezes and salt water might inspire her sketches. From sharing wishes to cups of coffee at a cherished cafe, they've stitched pieces of their lives together like a patchwork quilt - a soft quilt of friendship they thought they'd hold close forever.

But while celebrating their birthdays in Manhattan, one makes a decision that will alter the course of their friendship. At a midtown lunch, Sara Beth excuses herself to use the Ladies' Room, and never returns. Instead she slips the waiter a note to pass along to her dear friend, asking Rachel to cover for her disappearance.

Sara Beth's escape begins a summer of change, one that eventually brings her antique shop to life, with a price. Though her decision pulls at her marriage and children, the strongest effect is on Rachel. For her, Sara Beth's disappearance brings a solitary Mounted Police Officer into her life, one who gladly shows Rachel that it isn't always stars that deliver wishes.

Winding from the hidden gems of Manhattan, to a weathered cottage at Anchor Beach, to an opulent New England carriage house, Whole Latte Life promises that redemption is a tender road worth taking, that secrets and ice cream are worth sharing, that true friendship has the same sweet magic as stardust.

-Awarded First Place in the 2012 Discovery Awards.
-Named a Critics' Pick by Kirkus Reviews.

Also by Joanne DeMaio:
Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans

In 1957, when a young Midwestern woman landed a job at The New Yorker, she didn’t expect to stay long at the reception desk. But stay she did, and for twenty-one years she had the best seat in the house. In addition to taking messages, she ran interference for jealous wives checking on adulterous husbands, drank with famous writers at famous watering holes throughout bohemian Greenwich Village, and was seduced, two-timed, and proposed to by a few of the magazine’s eccentric luminaries. This memoir of a particular time and place is an enchanting tale of a woman in search of herself.