"Fourth Sunday"

A group of six, well-educated women turned two years of monthly book club meetings into newfound friendship and a book of their own:  "Fourth Sunday: The Journey of a Book Club." The book is authored by the "fictitious" B.W Read, for "Because We Read."
"We hadn't seen anything about women like us, professional women," one of the authors of the B.W. Read group, Allita Irby, of Lake of the Woods, pointed out.  
 "Fourth Sunday" takes the fictionalized lives of seven female characters: Gwen, Natalie, Allana, Brianna, Camille, Destiny and Adriane, and shows the reader the journeys and real-life problems experienced by everyday women. 
"We wanted to tell our story; we wanted people to see examples of professional women just like themselves who deal with everyday issues, and we wanted them to see a positive spin," Irby said. 
The real book club originally started meeting in 1995 every fourth Sunday of the month and the members began writing their manuscript in 1997 and continued through 2002. 
"Each person made up their own character, then we all got together and worked on the story to have a beginning, a middle and an end," Irby said.  "We wanted to make it seem like one voice.  Each character has a chapter, so it makes it easier for the reader going through the book, but all of us worked on the storyline together to keep the storyline flowing through," Irby added. 
While writing the book, the original six members would meet and turn a tedious editing session into a fun outing with friends.  "We would coach each other and we would edit.  We had fun doing it because we put on our creative hats and wrote what we wanted to write.  Editing was the hard part because we had to listen to the critiques," Irby said.
Each author, in order to make the story fiction, took real problems from their own lives and from the other authors' lives and combined them to make the story line for their own characters.  
"We took some things from our own personalities, our own lives, and we embellished on them," Irby explained, adding, "the reason we did that was to share with women everyday issues."
In order to further relate to women readers, the characters in the book are all in their 20s, 30s and 40s.  The authors' website, bwread.com, calls the novel "cosmopolitan literature," saying "the novel incorporates intellect and riveting facts about medical, political and small business state of affairs while balancing playfulness and sensuality."  "We are calling it a Fourth Sunday Movement.  Take time for yourself.   We just happen to be in a reading group, we found it very beneficial over the years," Irby explained. 
The book club's bond has grown since discovering the movement.  "It is a personal relationship.  We were asked on a radio show, "When does friendship become family?'   You can pick your friends but you can't pick your family, and you love your family even though you may not love everything they do," Irby pointed out, and added, "We respect each other first and we really do help each other and know each other's families."
The women of the original book club meet when possible, but now spend most of their time promoting their book.  Even though the B.W. Read authors cannot meet as often as they used to, the meetings still continue every fourth Sunday with a total of 13 members  who dedicate themselves to reading and taking time to relax as part of the "Fourth Sunday Movement." 
 "Now we are in the process of our second printing, and we are promoting our book and marketing," Irby stated. 
The novel is making appearances on Facebook, as well as on radio shows, Barnes and Nobles, and various art galleries and libraries.  There will also be a chance to make advance reservations for brunch and a book signing with the authors of B.W. Read at the Lake of the Woods clubhouse Sunday, Aug. 21 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.  Books will be sold at the LOW event as well as anywhere books are sold.