The initial spark for the story came from my editor. She called one day and we were talking and she said, You know, Heather, there are mother-daughter book clubs all over the country. Someone should write a story about one. How about you? She knew I spent part of my childhood in Concord, Massachusetts, where Louisa May Alcott lived when she wrote Little Women, so we decided to set the book there and I was off and running. Ironically, I have two boys, so obviously I'm not in a mother-daughter book club myself. I had a world-class mother, though, and two sisters, plus I have nieces and many friends with daughters in middle school, so I had plenty of research material!Many things in the book come directly from my own life, including Becca Chadwick, who is a composite of all the queen bees who made my life miserable during those middle school years. Doesn't everyone have a Becca in their life?
When Emma gets home, she eats dinner with her family. She explains that her father does all the cooking, that her mother is a terrible cook and she can't even boil water . She also explains that her mother is a Jane Austen nut and that her mother named her and her brother after characters in her favorite novels (Emma after Emma and Darcy after Pride and Prejudice). Her mother tells her that she and a few mothers were talking and that they decided to start a mother–daughter book club. Emma asks her mother who is going to be there but she refuses to tell her. That night she goes to the local library to have her first book club meeting.
Megan texts her best friend Becca that she and her mother are in a book club and that she hates it. Her mother tells her that starting the club will look good on her application to the academy (which Megan has no interest in; she wants to be a fashion designer). She describes the future her mother wants for her and how frustrated she is that her mother does not approve of her dream.
Becca's mother scowls at Emma and Jess, being on their case since the Halloween prank. Cassidy got caught and is now grounded, but she didn't rat out Jess and Emma. Out of the blue, Becca grabs Emma's journal from her backpack and call's Zach Norton, Emma's crush, to come over and reads a poem out loud about that Emma wrote about him. Zach and Emma are both embarrassed. She rushes out of the stadium and Jess runs after her. They come back to Emma's house and they bake cookies for the book club meeting.
