Bee Book Club: A writer's natural selection

See part 2: Q&A here

The first time novelist Luanne Rice and I talked – in mid-December – she was in New York City on her way to a bookstore to look for a travel guidebook. She'd celebrated an early Christmas with family members, she explained at the time, and was "going to spend my (personal) holiday going somewhere remote and being silent."

Where would that be?

"I don't know, I haven't made any reservations yet," she said. "I'm literally going to pick a spot this afternoon."

Now it was a month later. Where had Rice's sojourn for solitude taken her?

"I did end up going somewhere, but I'm holding on to that for the moment, just because it was a very silent, profound experience," she replied.

It wasn't a sensory-deprivation chamber, was it?

"Oh, no, it was just nature."

Rice, 52, is a New York Times best-selling author who has written 19 stand-alone novels and seven other books in two series – all stories known for their optimism and relationship dynamics. She will appear for The Bee Book Club at 6 p.m. Feb. 7 at Borders Books, 2339 Fair Oaks Blvd.; (916) 564-0168.

Rice's latest title is "Light of the Moon" (Bantam, $25, 400 pages). It's in keeping with her themes of loves lost and found; fresh starts; the importance of family, friends and loyalty; and "the wonders of the heart."

Passionate about nature

Rice divides her time between New York City and "an old family beach cottage my grandparents built in Connecticut," she said. She is divorced and has no children, but does have two sisters and lives with three cats.

She's a world traveler whose favorite places are Big Sur, the Beara Peninsula in Ireland (she pronounces it "Are-lin"), Paris and Nova Scotia.

Lately, she's been reading books by Gretel Ehrlich ("The Future of Ice: A Journey Into the Cold," "This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland"), and laments the fact of global warming.

She is most passionate (with undertones of etherealness) about nature and the environment, and is active in several related organizations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the New York City Audubon Society. On New Year's Day, she blogged on a Web site (www. randomhouse. com/features/ luannerice/blog): "I love nature, I always have. Tidal pools, pine woods, rivers, rolling meadows, a ridge overlooking the valley, Central Park – it doesn't matter. The connection with earth, sky and water sustains me."

As a young woman, she prided herself on her skills at French cooking, and in recent years, she has become a vegetarian ("There's plenty to cook in the world of vegetables").

How would she describe the kinds of books she writes?

"What captivates me are those moments when the big things happen to ordinary people – divorce, a new job, falling in love, illness, death," she said.

Bantam-Dell senior editor Tracy Divine has been Rice's editor since 1999.

"Luanne really does transcend genre," Divine said. "She gets readers from romance, women's fiction and general fiction. She has a gift for creating characters that people identify with in a very deep and emotional way. My eyes fill up with every novel."

Dropped out of college

The condensed version of Rice's bio goes like this: She was born in New Britain, Conn., and grew up along the shore in that state. As a child, she wrote nature-oriented poems and short stories ("I've always found meaning and solace in writing"). After a Catholic high school education, she majored in art history at Connecticut College, dropping out when her father fell ill.

Rice was determined to become a writer but figured out that she first needed to broaden her scope – she was all of 19 and her mother was her biggest fan – by "setting off to have a lot of experiences." The road took her to Newport, R.I., where she worked as a maid and a cook; to a 100-foot research vessel following migrating humpback whales; to a scallops-harvesting boat ("I wanted to go to sea"); and to the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., where she researched the potential effects of oil drilling off the Atlantic Seaboard.

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Allen Pierleoni, (916) 321-1128.