In My Mailbox: Week of April 10
Title: Breaking Even
Author: Kathleen Kole
Received: From Kathleen Kole for Blog Tour
Synopsis: Meet Penelope Whittaker, an accountant. A sensible, do things the right way, soon-to-be-married accountant. Penelope is engaged to the wonderful, kind and caring Ben Miller … a man she has known forever.
Enter Single Dad.
While on a school run, Penelope accidentally locks her keys in her car. A seemingly boring event, until she is offered aid by a very handsome (hubba, hubba) and personable Single Dad. Shaken by the encounter, or, more to the point, shaken by her reaction to the encounter, Penelope tries to put it where it belongs: on a shelf marked “Chance Encounters”.
Life has different plans.
Just when Penelope thinks she has blown the whole encounter out of proportion, and made much out of nothing, she is thrown together by chance (or fate?) with Single Dad. Suddenly, he’s a part of her life and, even though Penelope knows it can only cause trouble, she is helpless to stop it. Besides, she doesn’t want to. At least, not until she finds out the unsettling truth about Single Dad.
Penelope is confused. Her family, friends and, most importantly, her fiance, Ben, even more so. Will she be able to find her footing and go back to where she used to be, safe in her carefully structured world? Or, will she take the path of redefining herself, possibly leaving Ben behind?
Title: Beneath a Starlet Sky
Author: Amanda Goldberg & Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper
Received: From Ann-Marie Nieves @ Get Red PR
Synopsis: Lola Santisi—CEO of a struggling fashion line, reformed Actorholic and daughter of Hollywood Royalty—is now not only bicoastal, she’s Bi-Lolar: That is the condition which causes her to swing like a pendulum between the opposing poles of the fashion world in New York and the real world with her Doctor Boyfriend in Los Angeles. She hardly knows which shoe fits her anymore: the Louboutin stiletto or the Croc. As Lola tries to launch Julian Tennant’s new dress line, it looks like they’re about to get their next big break: his wedding dresses have been chosen to feature in the top film at the Cannes Film Festival. And suddenly Lola is staging a full-blown couture show on a yacht – in the middle of the Med. Think those super models had trouble walking down the catwalks at Fashion Week? With an unexpected finale twist, this time it’s Lola who’s tumbling off the runway.
Having recently endured a disastrous break-up with Lola’s brother Christopher, Kate Woods, Lola’s BFF and CAA’s rising star agent, is newly single, and focused 24-7 on her clients. The only thing worse than thinking it was a good idea for Kate to date Lola’s brother, is thinking it was a good idea for Kate to put one of her most loose-cannon clients, Nic Knight, in Lola’s father’s movie. Among Kate’s other mega star clients is Saffron Sykes whose appearance on the cover of Vain magazine in Julian Tennant could be the difference between Julian Tennant, Inc. weathering the economy or going bust.
As Lola fights to survive the Cannes Film Festival, will she get swept into the French Riviera’s riptide of glamour and superficiality? Are real love and couture mutually exclusive? Or can Lola have it all – the good doctor and her Louboutins. With her father and brother vying for the same prize, her mother starring in her new reality show, and one heartbroken girlfriend about to declare motherhood, it’s all on Lola to come up with the answers. And it’s going to take more than one of her mother’s prosperity chants to save the day.
Title: Click: An Online Love Story
Author: Lisa Becker
Received: From Lisa Becker
Synopsis: Fast approaching her 30th birthday and finding herself not married, not dating, and without even a prospect or a house full of cats, the novel’s heroine reluctantly joins her best guy pal in a journey of online dating. The story unfolds through a series of emails between Renee and her best friends (anal-compulsive Mark, the overly-judgmental Ashley and the over-sexed Shelley) as well as the gentlemen suitors she meets online.
“The book is loosely based on my real-life online dating experiences,” said Becker, who met her husband on a popular online dating site in June 2000. They now live in Manhattan Beach and have two daughters – ages 6 and 4. “While some of my experiences did inspire the novel, they are exaggerated here for comedic affect. But I think there’s a story here that many people can identify with,” she added.
From the guy who starts every story with “My buddies and I were out drinking one night,” to the egotistical “B” celebrity looking for someone to stroke his ego, Renee endures her share of hilarious and heinous cyber dates. Fraught with BCC’s, FWD’s and inadvertent Reply to All’s, readers will root for Renee to “click” with the right man.
