Corday and Rowell Books Officially Out Today

Two highly-anticipated soap opera books are officially out today - Ken Corday's "The Days of our Lives: The True Story of One Family's Dream and the Untold History of Days of our Lives" and Victoria Rowell's "Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva."

"Days" is a first insider account of the history behind one of our most beloved soap operas. It is about the family who believed in it, conceived it, and sometimes seemed to live it along with millions of viewers, as they struggled to emerge from nowhere to create and produce one of the most successful and enduring television shows in history.

In 1971, I walked up to the door of an old redwood cottage in the Santa Cruz Mountains and knocked four times. A woman answered the door. She was in her late seventies, had a distinguished air about her and a twinkle in her eye. She was a psychic from the old country, Czechoslovakia or Romania, named Janice Volkmer.
She invited me in. She was tiny and spoke with a very heavy accent. Her home was furnished with old world bric-a-brac and oversized furniture. I immediately felt at ease. We small-talked for only a moment. She asked me if I was comfortable having a reading with her. I told her I was.

She sat me down across a large dining room table from her. She had a wall-to-wall mirror behind her that made the small room appear twice as large, much as she seemed twice as large once we sat down. She asked me my birth date, then she took my hands in hers, turned my palms up, and upon looking at them, gasped. She said, "You have a simeon crease in them, a line that runs straight across the middle of both of your hands, and it is extremely rare." She told me it represented my head line and was a sure sign of either a one-pointed genius or a homicidal maniac. I knew I was neither brilliant nor a killer, but she continued.

"This simeon crease means you will do only one thing well for your entire life and you will succeed if you don't fight or fear it." Then she said, "Your heart will be broken once, and you will live a long life after that, with one marriage and three children." Then her words seemed to trail off as she started reading tarot cards and spelling out their details of my near future. But the bit about the simeon crease had given me the chills.

I saidgoodbye to her after what I thought was 20 minutes later. As I walked to my car, I looked at my watch and noticed that two hours had passed since I knocked on her door. I had gone into her old cottage, time seemed to have stopped, and she had seen my future.

When she said I would do one thing my whole life, I was sure that she meant I would become the famous rock and roll drummer I dreamed of being. She was right, but I wasn't. I am Ken Corday, and these are the Days of our Lives.

"Secrets" tells the story of Calysta Jeffries, the hottest black actress in daytime and the diva of the soap opera world, known for her role as Ruby Stargazer on television's most popular soap opera, "The Rich and the Ruthless."

Early sales ranks:
Barnes & Noble: "Days" #426, "Secrets" #23,108
Amazon: "Days" #867 in Books, #5,636 in Books