With spring in the air, Bay Books has turned its attention to love, romance and complicated relationships. On March 27, Author Venita Ellick’s will be there to discuss and sign copies of “The Reluctant First Lady.”
In it an independent woman is asked to give up a career she loves when her husband is elected President of the United States. She refuses.
“It’s a simple story,” Ellick said. Ashley Butler campaigned for her husband, but once he’s elected she realizes she doesn’t want to give up her museum job to become “first hostess,” as she calls the role of first lady.
A media frenzy swirls around her and she becomes founder for cable news pundits and the late-night comedians.
While the book is about politics, it’s not a political book. “It’s about relationship and the sacrifices women make for the men they love,” Ellick said.
It also mirrors Ellick’s own struggles with career and marriage.
Both she and her husband were school principals. There were things that the spouse of a principal was expected to do and that she often reluctantly did, even leaving a school she loved in Washington state so her husband could take a position in southern California.
“For 40 years I would say I’m not doing that and then I would do that,” she said.
Something her heroine’s husband expects her to do as well.
She and her husband are not alone. Many professional couples struggle with keeping a balance,” Ellick said. The book resonates with many career women.
Ellick wrote “The Reluctant First Lady” in 2001-2002 after she quit her job as an elementary school principal to focus on writing.
It sat on the self while she wrote three more, Finally her husband asked what she was planning to do with them.
“I like to write, but I’m not crazy about the [publishing] business,” she said.
“Well you better start liking the business, because I think these are really good,” he replied.
The book has been well received. The Midwest review called it “an elegantly crafted book.”
Because some issues remain unresolved, fans are clamoring for a sequel. Though she hasn’t committed to writing one, Ellick dose have an outline.
“The Reluctant First Lady” raises “questions that we as a country are going to have to come to grips in a world where wives of politicians have careers of their own: “What does the wife of the president owe the country? How much should she or any career woman, give up for the man she loves? More importantly would a man be willing to do it for his wife?
Ellick thinks that fiction may soon become fact and that these questions will no longer be hypothetical.
For now the book stands as a conversation starter. People are invited to join Ellick in “what should make for an interesting Q&A session,” said Erna Lockhart event coordinator at Bay Books.
Copies of the book will be on sale at the shop located at 1029 Orange Avenue. The event starts at 5pm on Thursday, March 27.
