'Twelve Times Blessed'

Popular author Jacquelyn Mitchard stopped by The Saturday Early Show to discuss her new best-seller, "Twelve Times Blessed," a novel about a 43-year-old widow who falls for a younger man, causing a scandal in her Cape Cod village and a rebellion by her son.

Jacquelyn Mitchard has a fascinating story of her own. She was a newspaper columnist and mother, raising four children alone after her husband died of cancer. Shortly after his death, she adopted a fifth child. She was writing everything she could, from columns to speeches, and struggling to make ends meet. Then, in 1996, her professional life took the kind of turn that no one could have predicted.

Oprah launched her book club with Mitchard's first novel, "The Deep End of the Ocean." The book became an instant best-seller and was made into a movie starring Michelle Pheiffer. Two more best-sellers followed: "The Most Wanted" and "A Theory of Relativity," which is in development as a film. Mitchard also published "The Rest of Us," a collection of her columns which focus on family matters and current events -- everything from gun laws to garage sales and fear of gardening.

A native of Chicago, Mitchard became a newspaper reporter after graduating from college, writing for the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, and then the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. She has said that her nationally syndicated column, "The Rest of Us," was the one constant in her sometimes chaotic life. She never stopped writing it.

Her newly-released novel, "Twelve Times Blessed" is already a best-seller. It follows one year in the life of True Dickinson, a widow and entrepreneur who marries a man ten years her junior. While not directly drawn from Mitchard's own experience, the plot certainly mirrors parts of her life.

Mitchard, 49, is now married to a man who is 12 years younger. They met when he did some carpentry work in her home, just as the lawyer in her earlier novel,"The Most Wanted" fell in love with a young carpenter who worked on her house. Mitchard wrote that book before she met her new husband.

They have been married for five years now and live in Madison, Wisconsin. Their six children range in age from four to 27. The eldest is Mitchard's stepdaughter, and all but one of the younger children were adopted.

Since Mitchard obviously knows a thing or two about kids, she has written her first children's books, which are soon to be published by Harper-Collins.

As if she's not busy enough, she has another venture in the works. The title, "Twelve Times Blessed," is the name of the baby-gift Internet business that the main character, True Dickinson, runs but it is also the name of a business that Mitchard and a few friends plan to launch this year.

Read an excerpt from Mitchard's "Twelve Times Blessed"

True throws herself out of bed, and runs outside, spilling coffee on her T-shirt.

Correction: on Hank's T-shirt.

"Sit down," Hank instructs her, guiding her to an Adirondack chair.

Guy warns, "This isn't girl stuff, Mom."

"I'm ready," True says.

"It's not going to be me first," Guy says, patting her arm. "It's going to be Dad. It's going to be Hank, I mean."

"Okay," True says. She and Hank exchange raised eyebrows, secret smiles. Neither of them would dare comment on the slipup. But True must bite her tongue, otherwise she'll cry out with joy. Though Hank is wiry, his T-shirt is so filled with his rack of muscle True cannot help but hope neighbors are watching. He begins by spinning on the verge of the driveway, doing wheelies with only the strength of his shoulders, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. He is showing off for his girl, and impressing his son. Who could, who ever could have imagined, only a few short weeks ago, that from the wildly scattered deck she, True, would draw a royal flush, all hearts?

She relaxes into the warmth of the chair's back. The sky is a stainless-steel blue, a breeze with no threat and no wet in it, and True's commitment is pure. To hell, she thinks, with numbers. Numbers don't add up to this.

Suddenly, here comes Hank, barreling up the street at an impossible speed, helmetless, high on the pedals, steering straight for the middle of the wooden platform. True begins to rise from her chair, but there is no time for caution; he is in flight, suddenly, sailing, landing without even a wobble on the grass, coasting to a stop. Guy runs to the landing mark with a roll of string, Brendan stepping on the other end (this evidently having been planned in advance) and the three of them use a metal tape measure to calibrate the length.

"Twenty-two feet," Brendan cries out. "It's a miracle. He has a gift!"

True then watches the battle in her son, as he first lifts his foot to stomp off into the house, then realizes what a spoiled baby that would make him seem. Not for nothing do they call it acting, she sees, as Guy bodily masters himself and restores apparent geniality to his face.

But when he puts on his helmet and makes his own approach for his jump, True abruptly and with a sting of adrenaline realizes how angry her son still is, and how determined to prove himself a man. Guy comes pedaling at a furious pace, wobbling, extending himself to the full length of his short legs, and he does clear the jump and sail, far, at least ten feet, but when he lands, he does not get up. And then he screams.

Hank reaches Guy first. "He's all right, True, he's all right," he calls to True, who is standing on the porch, who must consciously pull her hand down from her heart, lest she look like Scarlet O'Hara.

She looks at Kathleen's cottage and sees that her mother is standing, rigid, outside her own front door.

Excerpted from the book "Twelve Times Blessed." Copyright © 2003 by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Published this month by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Reprinted by permission.