Tag Archives: Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club

Making An Impact

12 Mar

I recently attended an event for Impact Palm Beaches. It’s group of dynamic, philanthropic women devoted to creating change through strategic grant making. The luncheon, held at the Kravis Center for Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida, featured author Diane Bergner.

Eileen Berman, a Palm Beach philanthropist and former financial advisor for UBS, interviewed Bergner about her former role as the vice president of philanthropy at the Kravis Center, and they discussed her book the Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club. Bergner shared her philanthropy acumen. She also highlighted her debut novel where the protagonist is a fund raiser for a performing arts center. Many in the audience wanted to know if her novel was based on real people. Bergner will leave it to the readers of the Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club to decide. Bergner also confesses “Fiction is a work of art where the imagination can go wild.”

President Lisa LaFrance of Impact Palm Beaches addressed the group, which is based on Impact100 founded by Wendy Steele. Members donate $1,000 annually and for every 100 women, the group gives a $100,000 donation to a local nonprofit.

Diane Bergner (left) is interviewed by Eileen Berman.

Diane Bergner flanks Karen Ruben, author of Ruff Riders, and myself at the Impact Palm Beaches event.

The Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club

1 Apr

It’s a lunch club like no other. Author Diane Bergner describes her prosecco guzzling friends in this metaphor. Think Sex in the City meets the Devil Wears Prada sprinkled with Crazy Rich Asians. And please substitute Palm Beachers for Asians. I’m talking about the fictionalized ladies who lunch in her debut novel The Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club.

Yes, they can be crazy, rich, scandalous and oh, so much more. The protagonist, Julia Wild, is an attorney who became a fundraiser for a Performing Arts Center in Royal Coconut Beach. By the way, the author is an attorney, and currently the vice president of development for the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida. Hmm. . . Perhaps this lady writes what she knows.

Bergner’s descriptions of the powerful and wealthy sparkle alongside the Jimmy Choo stilettos. I’m not sure why she left out the Lily Pulitzer prints, but she managed to mention the Stubbs and Wootton shoes.

Oh, did I mention that everyone is having an affair? Well, not exactly everyone. The protagonist only dreams of one with an Argentinian billionaire who she meets clandestinely on the bridge. Remember, Royal Coconut Beach, like Palm Beach, is an island.

She confides in her lunch buddies about work, pleasure and daily living. Can raising dollars for nonprofits really be a back-stabbing, challenging business? Does Bergner blur the lines of reality in this roman a clef?

Read it for yourself, because I know you will enjoy it. The short, witty chapters fly by. And, by the way, pass the prosecco please.

rachelmankowitz

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