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Vicki Lewis Thompson | How I killed off the "Reading With Ripa Book Club"
Romance / September 14, 2007

It’s not my fault. I swear, I wasn’t the one who killed Kelly Ripa’s book club. Sure, I know it looks suspicious. In 2002 she was rockin’ along with her anti-Oprah picks, six of them, and didn’t we love it? Books with happy endings were getting on a TV talk show! Carly Phillips made it! Romance writers had a shot! More important – it was all about me – I had a shot. I figured Nerd in Shining Armor might make the grade with Kelly. Then she went on maternity leave and Reading with Ripa took a short break. But the book club message boards were still up, and no one was throwing in the towel, least of all me. Time marched on, however. My book came out the end of April, 2003, and no word from the LIVE folks indicating the book club would resume. It seems Kelly was home nursing her baby. I ask you, where were her priorities? Had no one suggested that she could nurse a baby and read a romance at the same time? In May, Kelly returned from maternity leave, and I held my breath. I held my breath for a very long time,…