Goddesses Launch First Book

More than fifty people attended the launch of the Goddess Bedtime Stories, 21 Tales to Keep You Up All Night, a book signing at the Athena’s Home Novelties warehouse Saturday evening.

, one of the country’s premier adult novelty companies with over 800 active Goddesses operating in 32 states across the country, is headquartered right here in Woonsocket and celebrated the release of its first publication by introducing more than 20 new products.

Thirteen of the twenty co-authors, or Goddesses and Adoni, attended the event along with a few local businesses, including Green Imaging Photography and Videography and The Cakery.

In addition to the book signing the event included free tarot card readings, massage, boudoir photo shoots, and raffle drawings for Athena’s gift baskets filled with sensual home novelty products. 

“It’s a nice Woonsocket thing here,” Jennifer Jolicoeur, founder, president and owner of Athena’s Home Novelties, said of the local vendors who volunteered their time at the event.

Jolicoeur founded Athena’s in 1998 with the goal of empowering women through sexual education in a safe and comfortable environment.

Born and raised in Woonsocket, Jolicoeur had always dreamt of becoming an author.  Though she started her education in video photography, she chose to stop pursuing the career to work on her writing.

“I felt like I could do more than work for someone else,” Jolicoeur said.  “My dream came true at a young age,” she said of becoming a published author.

Her fourth-grade teacher, Albert Menard, inspired her to fulfill her dream.  Jolicoeur said she still remembers comments Menard would leave on her report cards saying that she would one day become a famous writer.

Goddess Bedtime Stories, her first publication, was a collaboration with twenty authors, given the Greek titles of Goddesses and Adoni for selling Athena's products. The goddesses hailed from New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and more.

“It’s a fabulous collaboration [of stories] of all the different goddesses,” Jamie Winchester, one of the book’s authors and a goddess from New York, said.

“It was important to capture all different scenarios,” Jolicoeur said of the tales chosen for the book.  The objective, she explained, is to cover just about anything one could fantasize.

Goddess Bedtime Stories is made up of twenty-one stories for adult-literate reading to spice up romantic fantasies, including one from Jolicoeur herself.

“The whole idea is to get people to think of other fantasies than what they had,” as well as to keep the relationship fresh said Curtis Jolicoeur, Jennifer’s husband.

The goal of the company is “to enhance your relationship, not to replace your relationship.”

“I’m surprise how well the book is selling,” said Ed Boucher, Athena’s warehouse manager. About 20 percent of the book sales have been on direct site purchases.

Last night, they sold about 60 books within two hours.

The group is currently doing a fundraiser called Athena’s Cup, a national campaign aimed at collecting donated bras, along with a five dollar donation, as an effort to raise breast cancer awareness and help raise money for the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Rhode Island for breast cancer research. 

The campaign, aimed at making the Guiness Book of World Records, involves collecting gently worn and new bras. The current record holder is an Australian organization that created a mile-long string of bras, held together only by their hooks.

They have already collected a little more than 50,000 bras and need 169,000 in order to beat the record. 

Saturday's event ended with each author reading a small paragraph from their entry in the book.

“It takes a lot of courage to write an erotic story,” Jolicoeur said.

Many of the Jolicoeur's fans loved the event.

“I thought it was very good and very tasteful,” one reader, Cyndi Silverman said. 

Jolicoeur also has her own radio show on WOON (1240) called the “Goddess Power Hour” and can be heard every Friday from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.