Article by Marilyn Baron

What are the odds that an author in
Roswell, Georgia, would leave a review on Goodreads saying she enjoyed the novel
Coincidence and was looking forward to discussing it with her neighborhood book
club, and that the author, J. W. Ironmonger (John) who lives in Shropshire, England,
would offer to Skype with the book club?

With
the explosion of technology and social media, everyone reading books in different
formats, after all is said and done, it’s still all about the book. One reader liked
a book, commented on the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations
and the author, all the way in England,
saw the message, was generous enough to respond and give up his time to talk to
a neighborhood book club in Roswell,
Georgia, about his
book. Despite all the advances we’ve made it’s still, thankfully, all about the
book. Technology is just bringing readers closer to authors.

Our book club met at one of the members’
homes. We enjoyed a beautiful assortment of hors’ d’oeuvres and we made the call.
The connection was so perfect it felt like John was in our living room when he was
actually at his son’s apartment in London
at 2 a.m. The picture faded out a couple of times or froze when he was in the middle
of talking but we found it amazing that through the wonders of technology, we were
conversing with an author across the ocean on a computer about a book.

Everyone in the book club loved Coincidence.
We asked questions and John was delightful. We learned about his background and
the fact that he grew up in Kenya
and when he was 16 he visited a mission school very much like the one he wrote about
in the book. Before he finished the novel he and his son went back to Uganda in 2011 and
retraced the journey the main character made to get to the mission, visiting various
locations mentioned in the book.

“Africa
has changed a lot but it hasn’t,” says Ironmonger. “When you get out of
the city you still see mud huts. There’s still a lot of poverty, but it’s a beautiful
country.”

Ironmonger combined two ideas into
one book. He had always wanted to set a story in north Uganda and he also
wanted to write a story about coincidences. His main character, Thomas, who studied
coincidences, meets a woman, Azalea, to whom coincidences happen and who is convinced
she will die on a predetermined date. The novel explores what would transpire if
they got together and had a relationship. And there are so many plot twists that
the book will hold your interest from start to finish.

In the book, Ironmonger weaves in
arguments about predestination vs. randomness, free will or the idea that somebody
is “messing with our lives.”

“It’s easy for us to see patterns
where they don’t exist,” notes Ironmonger. “The truth lies somewhere between
the two.”

Ironmonger admits he does not believe
in coincidences although he did when he was younger.

“Sometimes we overanalyze things
that do happen,” he says. “We can’t explain everything and it’s foolish
to try. The message of the book is you can spend all your life trying to solve the
mysteries and none of us ever will.”

In the end, Thomas receives advice
from a colleague: “Why don’t you just listen to Azalea and support her and
see what the next surprise is?” Thomas has to overcome his inertia and decide
if he wants to follow Azalea to Africa or lose
her forever.

Ironmonger also discussed the few
differences between the UK and
U.S.
versions of the book, which was published by HarperCollins in this country in February.
The book got a new cover and an extra paragraph at the end to give us a happy ending,
but it is pretty much the same as when it was published in England. This is
the first publication of the book in the U.S.

Ironmonger’s new book, Not Forgetting
the Whale, will be out next spring. It’s set in a village at the toe of England, accessible
only by one long road in and out. The townspeople, convinced that civilization is
about to collapse, want to seal off the road and the village from the outside world,
and then they save a whale.

What determines the course of our lives? Chance…or destiny?

On Midsummer’s Day, 1982, three-year-old Azalea Ives is found
alone at a seaside fairground.

One year later, her mother’s body washes up on a beach—her link
to Azalea unnoticed.

On Midsummer’s Day, 1992, her adoptive parents are killed in
a Ugandan rebel uprising; Azalea is narrowly rescued by a figure from her past.

Terrified that she, too, will meet her fate on Midsummer’s Day,
Azalea approaches Thomas Post, an expert in debunking coincidences. Azalea’s past,
he insists, is random—but as Midsummer’s Day approaches, he worries that she may
bring fate upon herself.

Coincidence is available on Amazon at http://amzn.com/0062309897 To learn more about
John and his books, visit http://www.amazon.com/J.-W.-Ironmonger/e/B009AKEYIU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Marilyn Baron is a public
relations consultant in Atlanta.
She’s a member of Marketing for Romance Writers, Romance Writers of America and
Georgia Romance Writers (GRW) and the recipient of the GRW 2009 Chapter Service
Award. She writes humorous women’s fiction, romantic thrillers/suspense, historicals
and paranormal. She has won writing awards in Single Title, Suspense Romance and
Paranormal/Fantasy Romance. Marilyn blogs at Petit Fours and Hot Tamales at www.petitfoursandhotamales.com

She and her sister, Sharon Goldman, just released a play about
Alzheimer’s called Memory Lane.
You can find out more about Marilyn’s books and short stories and listen to a medley
of the music from Memory Lane
on her Web site at www.marilynbaron.com
or view it on YouTube at http://youtu.be/Hgi_mIdt5MA.

Website www.marilynbaron.com

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