Book Your Lunch with Patti Callahan Henry December 15, 2010

Celebrate the holiday season with New York Times bestselling Southern author Patti Callahan Henry and her new book, The Perfect Love Song: A Holiday Story (Vanguard Press, hardcover, $15.95), which Pat Conroy calls a “lyrical and heartwarming tale of love and forgiveness.”

Jimmy Sullivan has been living on the road with his brother, Jack, and his band, The Unknown Souls. Without a place to call home, Jimmy and Jack lead a nomadic life filled with music and anonymous cities. When they return to a place Jimmy never wants to see again–their old hometown of Seaboro, South Carolina–he falls in love with Charlotte Carrington.

With his soul now filled with hope, Jimmy writes his first love song. When he performs it at a holiday concert to a standing ovation, the lyrics are dubbed the “Perfect Love Song”, so much so that Jimmy finds himself going on tour with famous country music stars, catapulted into a world where the trappings of fame and fortune reign supreme.

All too soon, the hope that had once inspired Jimmy to write such beautiful, genuine lyrics is overshadowed by what the song can do for him and his career. In his thirst for recognition, he agrees to miss Jack’s wedding in Ireland to sing at a Christmas Eve concert. And his ties to Charlotte seem to be ever so quickly slipping away.

Alone in New York City on Christmas Eve, Jimmy finally sees–with the help of a Christmas miracle or two–that his material gains are nothing compared to love, that he is losing all that really matters in his life. Is it too late to find his way to Ireland, to his brother, and to love?

About the author:
Patti Callahan Henry is the New York Times bestselling author of six previous novels: Losing the Moon, Where the River Runs, When Light Breaks, Between the Tides, The Art of Keeping Secrets, and Driftwood Summer.

Patti is hailed as a fresh new voice in Southern fiction. She has been shortlisted for the Townsend Prize for Fiction and has twice been nominated for the Southeastern Independent Booksellers Fiction Novel of the Year. She is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs, and women’s groups, where she discusses the importance of storytelling and anything else they want to talk about.

Patti grew up as a minister’s daughter, learning early how storytelling affects our lives. She spent many summers on Cape Cod where she began her love affair with the beach, ocean, tides, and nature of the coast. Moving south at the tender age of twelve, she met a southern boy who later proposed on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, next to a historic lighthouse overlooking the Sound.

After earning her Master’s degree in Child Health, Patti worked as a Clinical Nurse Specialist until her first child was born. Patti is a full time writer, wife, and mother, living with her husband and three children outside Atlanta on the Chattahoochee River where she is working on her next novel.

Official Website: http://www.bookyourlunch.com