by Ellen Baker

Random House / Random House, Inc.
Fiction/First Novel
Hardcover, $24.95
ISBN-13 978-1-4000-6635-3, ISBN-10 0-4000-6635-2

In Paperback July 2008
Trade Paperback, $$15.00
ISBN 978-0-8129-774-4

MBA Bookseller Information
Please read this unforgettable debut novel as soon as you can. We know you’ll love it as much as we do! It quickly will become one of your hand-sell favorites and top book club recommendations. It’s a great choice for summer reading, too.

Send us your comments and reviews about KEEPING THE HOUSE. We’re eager to share your endorsements with your fellow MBA booksellers and with your customers. Earn up to $75 in rebates for promoting this book. See the marketing information and rebate form below.

Ellen Baker was born in Grand Rapids, MN, and holds degrees from Lawrence University and the University of Minnesota. She lives in Superior, WI, and is a bookseller at MBA member bookstore J.W. Beecroft Books & Coffee in Superior. The book is set in primarily in Wisconsin. Visit her website for more information.

Please note:  MIDWEST CONNECTIONS rebates are not available for the paperback reprint of this 2007 MC Pick.

Downloads

• Random House Sell Sheet and Initial Order Information (PDF)
• Midwest Connections Marketing Info & Rebate Form (PDF)
• Ellen Baker and the Story Behind the Book (PDF)
• Full-Color Sign/Flyer (PDF)
• Print Ad (PDF)
• Book Photo (JPG)
• Author Photos: 1, 2, 3 (JPGs)
• Midwest Connections Generic Display Materials

About the Book

“I defy you not to love Dolly Magnuson, the newlywed 1950s Midwestern housewife at the heart of *Ellen Baker’s KEEPING THE HOUSE. Struggling with the challenges of creating a perfect home and fitting in with the Pine Rapids Ladies Aid, she soon becomes enthralled with discovering the secrets of the grand abandoned Mickelson house, all the while baking Salmon Puff and wearing a pressed housedress. A great family saga set against the first fifty years of the twentieth century unfolds, replete with war-time heroism, forbidden love and lost ideals. As you follow three generations of wonderful characters and savor page-turning passages, you will race to finish reading this book, only to discover that you really miss Dolly when you are through.
(* Ellen is one of our staff members here at J.W. Beecroft, and of course we are extremely proud of her. I also I thoroughly enjoyed KEEPING THE HOUSE, and I can’t wait to handsell it this summer!)”
- Carrie Sutherland, J.W. Beecroft Books & Coffee, Superior, WI

“KEEPING THE HOUSE is one of those ‘impossible to put down’ books that I want to continue living inside, long after the words on the pages end. The characters have strength of purpose.”
- Anna Haverty, The Book Clinic, Nebraska City, NE

“Ellen Baker’s first novel is a wonder! KEEPING THE HOUSE is a great big juicy family saga; a romantic page-turner with genuine characters written with a perfect sense of history, time and place. Her portrayal of the American housewife is hilarious and heartbreaking.”
- Fannie Flagg, author of Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven

“Ellen Baker’s first novel is a quilt that grids a small Midwestern town in the middle of the last century. Under this writer’s deft hands, each square is a story, a mystery, an indiscretion, a tale of the great house and grand family who once ruled there. Even more, it captures the roles of women then, living embodiments of demure ideals, and those who couldn’t fit the pattern.”
- Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean

For newlywed Dolly Magnuson, being a housewife in 1950s Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, is not as easy as Good Housekeeping and Ladies’ Home Journal make it look. As she adapts to her new life – keeping the house, supporting her husband’s career, fretting over dinner menus, and quilting with the Ladies Aid – her loneliness and restless imagination are seized by an abandoned house set high on the hill overlooking the town.

Dolly quickly learns that her dream house belongs to the once-prominent Mickelson family. In flashbacks to 1896 and World Wars I and II, their family’s fascinating story of cursed love, loss, sacrifice, and betrayal plays out until it intersects with Dolly’s own life, bringing emotional upheaval to all of them.