Our book club, also named “Read Between the Wines,” was treated Monday night to a Skype session with Help for the Haunted author, John Searles. John and his publisher, Harper Collins, have set up a challenge for him to meet or Skype with 50 book clubs, one in each state (#50bookclub50states). Our group was chosen as the MD contingent.

I will admit initial excitement about this opportunity and then day-of reluctance. I don’t really like Skyping, there are all the technical challenges, who knew what John Searles was going to be like, what if it just fell flat, and on and on. But I cannot gush enough about what a wonderful time we all had. John Searles is an absolute delight. And, he is a hoot too. We laughed and laughed and enjoyed every minute of it. It didn’t hurt that our host put out a lovely spread and we had delicious wine to accompany the evening.

I encourage you to get to know John Searles who used to be an editor at Cosmo and who is currently a book critic for the Today Show as well as an accomplished author. He is lots of fun.