Today's guest: Catherine McKenzie Why we love her: She writes hilarious and smart novels that make us think.

The scoop on it: Emma Tupper is a dedicated lawyer with a bright future. But when she takes a month-long leave of absence to go on an African vacation, she ends up facing unexpected consequences. After she falls ill and spends six months trapped in a remote village thanks to a devastating earthquake, Emma returns home to discover that her friends, boyfriend, and colleagues thought she was dead—and that her life has moved on without her.

As she struggles to re-create her old life, throwing herself into solving a big case for a client and trying to reclaim her beloved apartment from the handsome photographer who assumed her lease, everyone around her thinks she should take the opportunity to change. But is she willing to sacrifice her job, her relationships, and everything else she worked so hard to build?

In Forgotten, Catherine McKenzie tweaks a classic tale of discovering who we really are when everything that brings meaning to our lives is lost.

Our thoughts: From the time we read the premise, we were intrigued. Forgotten turned out to be even better than it sounded. It's now one of our favorite Catherine McKenzie novels!

Giveaway: FIVE copies. Just leave a comment and be entered to win. We'll select the winners after 3pm on Sunday, October 28th.

Fun fact: Catherine is also a lawyer!

Where you can read more about Catherine: Facebook, Twitter and her website.

CHICK LIT IS NOT DEAD PRESENTS...CATHERINE MCKENZIE'S 5 BEST EVERS

If you’ve read High Fidelity—and if you haven’t how come? It’s awesome—you’ll understand when I say that being asked to choose my favorite anything makes me feel like Rob Gordon trying to pick his top five songs of all time. I love so many songs, books, movies etc. that it’s hard to pick just one. So, with that being said, here are …

CATHERINE MCKENZIE’S TOP FIVE BOOKS, SONGS, MOVIES, LIFE MOMENTS AND ADVICE, WHICH MAY NOT BE HER TOP FIVE TOMORROW.

1. Favorite Book—Jeez. This is really hard. But I’ve said Pride and Prejudice before, so I’ll stick to that. I came to this book relatively late in life—I was one of those Jane-Austen-What’s-All-the-Fuss people. Then I saw Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle in the BBC version of the book (2nd runner up in favorite movie category), and I fell in love. After having read the book, it became clear that it was one of those perfect book-to-movie adaptations (as is High Fidelity—see, this is hard!), and that I had long misjudged Ms. Austen. I went on to read all her books, including the unfinished ones, and I read them about once a year.

2. Favorite Song—Oh boy. This one is even harder. Seriously. I can’t choose. So here is some of my favorite music to write by: Bob Dylan’s Biograph, Sarah Harmer’s You Were Here, MoZella’s Belle Isle, Eric Hutchison’s Sounds Like This, Matt Nathanson’s Live at the Point (awesome and hilarious). I tend to queue up one of these albums, or sometimes just one song, and play it over and over while I write. It helps me create a rhythm.

3. Favorite Movie—Did I mention this was hard? I think I’ll pick Bull Durham. I can pretty much quote it from beginning to end, and it makes excellent Movie Night viewing.

4. Life Moment—mmm, personal. But a pretty good one was when I got the call about getting my first book deal. And the funny thing? I couldn’t get anyone on the phone to tell them, which is exactly what happens to the main character in Arranged, a scene I wrote before I got my book deal. Do I have magical powers?

5. Piece of Advice—This one’s easy: Make time for the things you love. People always ask me how I have time to practice law and write books. It’s complicated, but simple really: you make time for the things you love. Don’t you? If not, please start doing so immediately.

Thanks, Catherine!

xoxo,

Liz & Lisa