For Reading Groups
I visit book clubs for free. No fee, no minimum number of copies.
By Zoom anywhere in the country, or in person if you are within driving distance (150 miles) of Gainesville, Florida.
Click here to reserve a date for your book club discussion
Two women. Lives they didn’t choose. A friendship that dares them to want more.
In Learning to Breathe Again, a chance encounter at the Chicago World's Fair brings two women together. When circumstances relocate them both to the sugarcane fields of Depression-era Florida, an unlikely friendship becomes the one thing they can't afford to lose. In a time when women are expected to endure in silence, Mary and Elena must decide: keep performing the lives they're supposed to live, or risk it all for the women they might still become.
It is set in a Florida most readers have never heard of before. Describing a history that might surprise people.
For readers of Fiona Davis, Kristina McMorris, Marie Benedict, and Lisa Wingate.
Twenty-nine questions grouped by theme, a shortlist of six questions if your evening is short, a page of historical background, and questions specifically focused on the epilogue. Free, and no email address required.
Pick whichever suits your group.
Thirty to forty-five minutes, anywhere in the country, whatever evening works for you (but it must be scheduled at least 2 weeks in advance). Some clubs want a straight question and answer session, some want me to listen to the discussion and come in at the end, some want twenty minutes and then wine. All of these work.
If you are within 150 miles of Gainesville, I will come to you. This needs to be scheduled at least 30 days in advance. Fourteen people in a living room is a good night as far as I am concerned.
Download it and use it. Free and no email address required.
I am also glad to mail signed bookplates to any club that is reading the book. Send me an address and tell me how many.
“Dramatically engaging and evocative of time and place.”
“A touching tale of love, loss, friendship, and the painful search for new beginnings.”
“Just a brilliant work from a brilliant writer. Don’t pass it by.”
Learning to Breathe Again is the first book of The Work of Becoming, a trilogy following Mary and Elena from 1933 to 1945. It stands completely on its own, but really comes to life as a trilogy.
1933 to 1935. Miami, the Chicago World’s Fair, and the sugarcane fields of Clewiston, Florida.
1939 to 1941. New York, Philadelphia, and Peoria, Illinois.
1942 to 1945. Peoria, Illinois.
This book is also available in German as Die Arbeit des Werdens and in French as L’Œuvre du Devenir. I am happy to join a German or French book club group by Zoom, though I will have to speak in English.
Use the contact form and check “Schedule a book club Zoom or in person meetup,” or email me directly at tonya.camaratta@gmail.com.
It helps to know roughly how many people are in your group, which month you are reading it, and whether you would prefer Zoom or in person. I can't wait to share Mary and Elena with you!
Go to the contact formI am a third-generation Floridian and I have been teaching middle school science in Alachua County for nineteen years. I started writing this trilogy after a conversation with my father near the end of his life, about growing up and about the brother he never got to meet. Everything in these stories grew out of that.
I would love to meet your group.