Category: Titles

2 How I Got the Idea for Since You Went Away

April 12, 2017
by Nan McCarthy
· Blog · Books · Family · fiction · Military life · Publishing · Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) · Titles · Writing

A lot of people ask writers where we get our ideas. Here’s how I came to write my latest novel, Since You Went Away.

Nan McCarthy

In 2008, my husband was on a year-long deployment to Iraq. Staying home on a Friday night, I happened upon a 1944 film on Turner Classic Movies called Since You Went Away. Produced by David O. Selznick and starring Claudette Colbert, it’s about a mom and two daughters fending for themselves on the homefront while the dad is off serving in World War II. The film is at once poignant, lighthearted, and somber. I immediately fell in love with the story.

Further research led me to the 1943 novel (of the same name) by Margaret Buell Wilder, on which the movie is based. Discovering Wilder had written the book in epistolary form (one of my favorite genres), I couldn’t help but fall even more in love with the story.

My first thought was, why has no one updated this story for modern times? Since You Went Away is an unusual kind of war movie in that it focuses completely on what’s happening with the family back at home. You could say it’s a war story without the war. I loved the idea of creating a modern-day story that gives readers an intimate glimpse of contemporary military family life in a way that’s accessible and—above all—entertaining. That’s what I set about doing when I started writing the book in 2012. I hope you like Part One.

Click CreateSpace to order Nan McCarthy’s Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) in paperback.

Click one of these to order Nan McCarthy’s Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) in ebook.

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3 Since You Went Away, Part One: Winter

April 6, 2017
by Nan McCarthy
· Books · Family · fiction · Military life · Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) · Titles

Since You Went Away, Part One: Winter
Nan McCarthy
(Rainwater Press, 2017) 172 pages
F I C T I O N

Set against the backdrop of the Iraq war in the year 2008, Since You Went Away portrays in intimate detail the effects of a distant war on the families and returning veterans at home. With an undercurrent of suspense, it is a fly-on-the-wall account of the innermost workings of a military family—their fears and hopes, their struggles and disappointments, their unexpected moments of joy and comfort and laughter.

When her husband Liam leaves on a year-long deployment, Emilie Mahoney strives to be a source of strength for Liam and their two sons. Yet she doesn’t always succeed. Holding down a full-time job, raising two teenage boys, and running a household with a menagerie of pets—all while hosting an Iraqi combat interpreter who comes to live with them as he acclimates to life in the U.S.—Emilie frequently finds herself retreating to her bedroom with a Party Size bag of Lay’s to watch back-to-back episodes of Snapped.

Featuring a deeply human cast of characters ranging from Wade Miller, a charming, charismatic retired Marine officer who watches over the family in Liam’s absence as he struggles with secrets of his own, and the amiable, enigmatic combat interpreter Fakhir al-Azzawi who worries about the safety of his family back in Baghdad as he comes to terms with trauma from his past, to the wacky and bothersome neighbor Agnes Hawkins who always manages to say the wrong thing and whose favorite pastime is watching the goings-on at the Mahoney house from her living-room window, Since You Went Away is at once darkly funny, poignant, and un-put-downable.

This is Part One of a novel that will be released in four parts.

C O M I N G S O O N: Part Two: Spring.

about the author:

Nan McCarthy is the author of Chat, Connect, and Crash, Live ‘Til I Die, and Quark Design. The Chat, Connect & Crash series, originally self-published, was released in trade paperback by Simon & Schuster in 1998 and has been widely translated. Nan regained the rights to the series and published new editions in 2014. A former magazine editor & technology writer, Nan founded Rainwater Press in 1992 and began selling her books online in 1995. Nan and her husband, a veteran who served 29 years in the Marine Corps, are the proud parents of two adult sons. Nan wrote Since You Went Away after taking a ten-year break from full-time writing to care for the family during her husband’s frequent military travels.

Cover design by David J. High, highdzn.com.

Cover art by Larry Jacobsen, Canstock Photo / DesignWest.

Click CreateSpace to order the paperback.

Click one of these to order the ebook.

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3 Chat: book one

March 25, 2014
by Nan McCarthy
· Books · Chat: book one · fiction · Titles

Chat: book one
Nan McCarthy
(Rainwater Press, 2014) 132 pages

In the days before Facebook, Skype, and Twitter…

Two strangers begin a conversation online. It’s 1995, and the Internet is new and uncharted territory. No status updates, no photos, no tweets, no video chats. All they have to share with one another are their words.

Max, a restless advertising copywriter who’s new to the online world, boldly strikes up an email conversation with Bev, a tough-minded book editor who’s been online since the ’80s. With charm, wit, and persistence, Max chips away at Bev’s reluctant façade until the two are sharing secrets they wouldn’t dream of telling anyone in “real life.”

Hailed as “Silicon Valley’s Story of O,” the story of Bev and Max’s relationship gradually becomes more intense, unfolding entirely through their online messages. Since Chat’s first publication in 1995, readers have found themselves unable to resist the temptation to “eavesdrop” on Bev and Max’s increasingly intimate correspondence as she slowly opens up to him and he becomes more fascinated by her.

This newest edition of the acclaimed Chat, Connect, and Crash series offers a snapshot of the emerging technology and online culture of the 1990s, but the story of Bev and Max is—above all else—entertaining, compelling, and timeless.

critical praise for the original chat, connect, crash series:

“This is Chekhov for the ’90s: lust, romance, and adultery, cyber-style.” — Mademoiselle

“Silicon Valley’s Story of O. From the first page, we’re hooked.” — House Organ: A Magazine of the Arts

“Draws you from page to page. Sequels are on the way, and I can hardly wait.” — The New York Times

“You won’t need a modem to appreciate the charm of this virtual romance.” — Glamour

“[Bev and Max’s] mingling is electric.” — Washington Post Book World

“A hip look at the Internet cyberculture and how it has changed the dynamic of present-day relationships.” — The Review Zone

“Fully drawn, believable characters. There’s a very warm body at the end of each cold computer connection.” — The Orange County Register

“A lively, free-flowing, spontaneous outburst of curiosity, anxiety and hope.” — Syracuse Herald-American

“A love story that is completely modern, full of passion, wit and fun.” — Central PA Magazine

“[McCarthy] gives the headstrong-girl-meets-self-sufficient-boy story a refreshing twist.” — Publishers Weekly

“So authentic—down to the convoluted stumbling that takes place in cyber-relationships—that it’s unexpectedly entertaining.” — St. Louis Post Dispatch

“McCarthy has brought 18th-century epistolary novels into modern times.” — Atlanta Journal Constitution

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1 Connect: book two

March 25, 2014
by Nan McCarthy
· Books · Connect: book two · fiction · Titles

Connect: book two
Nan McCarthy
(Rainwater Press, 2014) 132 pages

The story of Bev and Max continues…

In the second novel of her acclaimed series, author Nan McCarthy continues the wild ride that began in Chat. It’s now 1996, and Bev and Max, two strangers who met online, find their lives unexpectedly intertwined. As their words and actions propel them into unexplored territory, Bev and Max’s relationship grows more intense—and complex—than they ever imagined.

Praised as “a lively, free-flowing, spontaneous outburst of curiosity, anxiety and hope,” the story of Bev and Max unfolds entirely through their online messages. Readers once again find themselves unable to resist the temptation to “eavesdrop” on the pair’s sexually charged, humorous, and thought-provoking exchanges. In a time before Facebook, Skype, and Twitter, when there were no status updates, no photos, no tweets, no video chats, all Bev and Max have to share with one another are their words—or so it may seem.

In this newest edition of her Chat, Connect, and Crash series, McCarthy offers up a snapshot of the mid-1990s Internet culture and its changing dynamic of human interaction. As Bev and Max gradually reveal themselves by what they choose to say—and leave unsaid—their seductive, addicting, and all-too-human adventures will draw you from first page to last.