"Mothers, Daughters, Braces" - paperback

Mothers, Daughters, Braces has been available in paperback — a big, fat, beautiful 635 page paperback! — on Lulu already, but now it is also available in paperback at Amazon (and all the international Amazons) and should be available through all book retailers now or soon. It's a big (and expensive) book, but I really think the paperback version is the one to have.

Of course I know most of my readers prefer ebooks — and it is true that this one is easier to hold in ereader format. Maybe even if you're carrying around your laptop! (The paperback is big!) So you can always get it on Kindle, as an iBook, or an ePub.

I think you'll enjoy it no matter what format you read it in..

"Mothers, Daughters, Braces" on iBook

I know a lot of you like to read on your iPad and iPhone so it's great to see that Mothers, Daughters, Braces is now available as an iBook, right? (But if you prefer Kindle — no problem! And it is also available in print....)

My empty-nest book

Mothers, Daughters,Braces is definitely my empty-nest book. It started out as something completely different – even with a different title – but I was quickly and inexorably pulled towards this story. It just shaped itself into this, almost without my doing. That’s how it seemed, anyway.

It also became much more than I had originally expected. But there was so much to say! (Isn’t there always, when it comes to braces?) And I really think it works – I think the length is justified. I hope a lot of readers enjoy losing themselves in this story for so long.

This was so much fun to write – even if it also made me feel nostalgic. It still feels so personal, even though it isn’t at all my story, or the story of my girls – yes, I had braces as a kid, and I had two braced daughters, but we certainly didn’t have the Dr.Wrighting-experience and our treatment and experiences weren’t really like a lot that happens in Mothers, Daughters, Braces. But I think that’s also why the novel works – because so many people, especially mothers and daughters, can relate to the characters and what they go through, even if it’s very different from what they went (or are going…!) through, the same way I could relate to everything as I was writing it.

I hope readers enjoy it as much – and get as much out of it! – as I did writing it!.

"Mothers, Daughters, Braces"

Mothers, Daughters, Braces

What is it?
The latest Dr.Samantha Wrighting novel from Intraoral Press.

What is it about?

It’s about mothers and daughters.
There’s Rachel and Alexis – the mother who refused to get braces when she was a girl, and the daughter who now needs them but doesn’t want them either.
There’s Dr.Wrighting and Natalie – the strict orthodontist and the devoted daughter, who can’t imagine life without braces.

It’s about braces.
The conflicted feelings about getting them and having them. The burdens and joys, the embarrassments and satisfactions, the highs and the lows.

It’s about growing up – and growing up with braces.
It’s about being a parent – and being the parent of a teen in braces.
It’s about friendship.
It’s about family.
It’s about the bonds that are strengthened by braces.

It’s a simple story – but like any honest story about having braces, there’s so much more to it. How can Rachel and her husband Andrew convince Alexis to get braces? What does Rachel learn about herself as she struggles to find a way to get Alexis to do the right and necessary thing? What surprising decision does Rachel make along the way? What kind of friendships and bonds develop when Rachel and Alexis enter Dr.Wrighting’s orthodontic world? And just how hard is it to face the world in braces? Mothers, Daughters, Braces is full of memorable characters and events as Rachel and Alexis travel on this twisted orthodontic journey.

How long is it?
Long! Epic! A quarter of a million words. 635 pages of braced reading pleasure.

Where can I get it?
In print: from Lulu
As an ePub: from Lulu
On Kindle: at all the Amazons – US, UK, Germany and all the rest

(And it will be available in print from your local retailer and Amazon and Barnes & Noble soon, as well as as an iBook.)


Why doesn’t my local library have a copy yet?
Well, it did just come out. But ask them – they should definitely get copies!

It's here !

It's here!

It's: the new Dr.Samantha Wrighting novel!
It's: epic!
It's: a quarter of a million words long (635 pages!)

It's...:

It's: available — in print and as an ePub from Lulu, and from all the Amazons on Kindle (also UK, Germany, Netherlands, etc.) 

Mothers, Daughters, Braces — the orthodontic epic of our times.

Headgear video

This is fun and really well done! I hope Green Eyed Jen will do more episodes — and maybe she won't even hate the headgear (that much...) anymore...

Five Questions!

There's a new blog called Braces Memories and they just posted an Interview with Intraoral Press' Catherine Aimes! That's me! I hope you find it interesting — and I reveal the title of the new book! (It is still very much in the works. And it is HUGE. I want to get it out in time that readers can have a great braces summer read, but it is a lot of work.)

Mother's Day

I wish I had my book finished because it would be a perfect Mother's Day book, but there's still too much to do with it! But I hope it's ready in time so you can have it as one of your big summer reads. It is definitely going to be big....

Even though I already got to celebrate Mother's Day — here in England they do it at the end of March (aka Mothering Day!) — my husband makes sure the girls remember how it's done in the US. Of course it's tougher now that they're not nearby, but at least they and he make a very nice effort.

Even though I haven't had a new book out in a while, I'm really pleased to see new readers continue to find the other ones. And it's neat that more people have been buying the paperbacks! The print versions seem more real to me too — even after I've "e-published" the book, it's never really real to me until I have the printed book in my hands.

But no matter how you read them, I hope you're enjoying them!

Alyson Gerber’s "Braced"

One of the reasons I started writing orthodontic fiction is because there is so little about what it's like to have braces. There are really few books which are about having braces — so I was excited to hear about Alyson Gerber’s Braced. It's NOT about orthodontic braces but it's about a girl who has to wear a back brace because she has scoliosis (her back is getting more and more curved, and the brace prevents it from getting more deformed), and it turns out the experience, and the feelings about the experience, are a lot the same.

Gerber does a really good job of describing the difficulties of being braced, from the discomfort and pain, to the embarrassment and humiliation, and trying to react normally to how people react to it. And all of it is exactly like having orthodontic braces is like!

She really gets and explains it, summing it up in an author's note, where she admits:

Over time my brace became easier to manage physically, but emotionally I never adjusted. During the two years and four months I spent in a brace, I didn’t open up to anyone about how alone and insecure I felt. I held my pain inside. It took all of my strength to go to school acting like nothing had changed, while at the same time feeling uncomfortable and exposed. I used my brace as a shield, because I didn’t want anyone to see me the way I saw myself—as different. As an adult, I can see that was a mistake. I never stopped hating my brace, and it was such a big part of who I was every day that it had a negative effect on my self-image.

That is so exactly how I feel about braces — and I think a lot of other kids and adults who have been through it do too. And of course that's also what I try to do in a lot of my books. To work through that, and try to help others work through that.

So the one thing that was really disappointing about this book — in which Rachel, the girl with the braces, is in seventh grade! — was that NO ONE has braces. None of her friends or classmates. Maybe Gerber thinks braces are like so widespread and 'normal' that it isn't even noticeable or worth mentioning. But I think the kids with braces on their teeth are feeling a lot like Rachel is, and it would have been neat to see some of them, and their pain, acknowledged here too.

I posted my review of the book at Goodreads. And despite there not being any orthodontically braced characters, I can still recommend it a lot.

Progress report

I can report progress! Easter week was good, and the holiday on Monday too, and I continue to manage to find time to write. Yes this was a good weekend too.

At least I am focusing on just one project now. It's going really well, but it's also really big.... At least you have a lot to look forward to! Lots of pages anyway! (And I hope a good story too)