The Costco Connection - September 2015

By Rachel Stafler

A LOVE STORY about an unemployed girl and a man paralyzed in a freak accident doesn’t sound like it would be much of a hit, let alone an international best-seller. Yet from the time it was published in 2012, Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes, has been snapped off the shelves by eager readers who then passed it on to friends, and insisted they read it. Three years later, the book has sold more than 5 million copies around the world.

Moyes still gets tweets and Facebook messages daily from readers, thanking her for the great read and asking what happens to the characters next.

“Me Before You was based on a real-life story,” Moyes tells The Connection from her farm in Essex, England, which she shares with her tech-journalist husband, Charles Arthur, three children, three horses, two cats and a dog. “I was driving and heard a story on the radio about a sportsman who was left quadriplegic. I couldn’t get [his] story out of my head. But, like all stories, the more I read into it, the more I realized these things aren’t cut-and-dried.”

Me Before You wasn’t Moyes’ first book, although it is her most successful. After graduating from university in 1992, she worked for 10 years as a newspaper journalist. She started writing books while on the night shift in an effort to keep busy during the

Signed book gıveaway

COSTCO HAS 50 copies of Jojo Moyes’

After You with signed book plates, to give away. To enter, go to: costcoconnectionbook giveaway.com.

NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES. Purchase will not improve odds of winning. Sweepstakes is sponsored by Penguin, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014.

Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received before the October issue is available online, which will happen around September 25,

2015. Winners will be randomly selected and noti;ed by mail on or before November 1, 2015. The value of the prize is

$26.95. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received.

Employees of Costco or Penguin Random House and their families are not eligible.

Pennie Clark Ianniciello,

Costco book buyer Pennie’s pick

THIS MONTH’S BOOK
buyer’s pick, Me Before
You, by Jojo Moyes, is
the kind of book that
you want to hand to
someone and say,
“Please read this, and
then let’s talk about it
when you’re done.”
All I’m willing to say
is that when Louisa takes
a job working with a man
who is wheelchair bound,
her ordinary life becomes
considerably less plain.
This novel will leave you
thinking about Lou and
whether your response to
what she faces would be
the same.

And for anyone who’s already read, recommended and discussed Me Before You (Item #861284, 9/1), you’ll be happy to know that the sequel, After You (Item #1000918), will be available on September 29.

For more book picks,
see page 79.
day when friends were at work. Although it started
as a personal challenge, it soon became much more
than that. She ended up writing three books, all of
which were rejected by publishers.

“I knew the first book wouldn’t get
published, but it was an exercise in seeing
if I could do it,” says Moyes, 45. “An agent
told me it wasn’t publishable but that I
had a voice and should keep trying. It was
harder when the second book was turned
down. When the third was rejected I went
to bed for three days. I once heard that if
you’re a writer then you can’t not write.
Three months after the last rejection, I
sent three chapters to an agent and it
ended up becoming my first published
book, Sheltering Rain.”
A string of books followed, each selling tens of
thousands of copies. Then Me Before You was pub-
lished in the UK and the U.S., and Moyes’ career
skyrocketed. A rave review in January 2013 in The
New York Times resulted in 12 studios contacting
Moyes for the movie rights. She ended up writing
the screenplay for MGM, and the film is scheduled
to be released next spring. Emilia Clarke from Game
of Thrones and Sam Claflin from the Hunger Games
films will star.

Moyes was on the set for much of the filming, often receiving early-morning calls to write or change a few lines in that day’s scene. She enjoyed the experience so much that she adapted her next book, One Plus One, for the movies, and is now working on a third screenplay.

At the end of this month, After You, the much-awaited sequel to Me Before You, will be released. Writing a follow-up, though, wasn’t something she had seriously considered, until one day she sat up in bed at 5: 30 a.m., thinking, “I know what happens.”

“It was the most frightening book I have ever written,” says Moyes about After You. “I felt expectations like never before. I had to make it good enough to be a stand-alone book, while still injecting enough about the characters to keep existing readers interested. Lou [the main character] is such a dear character to me, and it’s been lovely to go back to her. If there’s a message in these books, it’s to be kind. I’m a great believer in kindness, and … most of my characters work out that that’s the only way to be.” C