Not yet on any lists, but reported by many independents nationwide as one of their top fiction sellers is Lorna Landvik's Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons. The reference is to a group of Midwestern women—friends for some four decades—who form a book club that becomes their life. It's book #5 for Landvik, who's been a hand-selling favorite since the publication of her first novel, Patty Jane's House of Curl, in 1996. Her years as a professional comic in San Francisco and L.A. have made her an extremely popular guest at many bookstores. Ballantine reports that she was named favorite female author in last year's Minnesota People's Choice Awards, sponsored by the Minnesota Center for the Book. Angry Housewives began to take root back in 1996, when the author, promoting her first novel, spoke at a Minneapolis book club. Indeed, she credits book clubs for teaching her how to create real flesh-and-blood characters. "Most often," she says, "I hear how the characters struck chords with the readers, how the characters reminded them of their parents or somebody they knew." Landvik will be touring through mid-April. The Ballantine Reader's Circle featured the book in its current e-newsletter, offering book clubs the opportunity to invite the author to attend their meetings via a phone chat. The response has been excellent, and Landvik will continue to do these throughout the spring and summer. On March 26, she'll participate in an iVillage online chat and will be featured in the Readers & Writers e-newsletter. The book has 35,000 copies in print after three trips to press.