Title: Blogger Girl
Author: Meredith Schorr
Received: Meredith Schorr
Synopsis: What happens when your high school nemesis becomes the shining star in a universe you pretty much saved? Book blogger Kimberly Long is about to find out.
A chick lit enthusiast since the first time she read Bridget Jones’s Diary, Kim, with her blog, “Pastel is the New Black,” has worked tirelessly by night to keep the genre alive, and help squash the claim that “chick lit is dead” once and for all. Not bad for a woman who by day ekes out a meager living as a pretty, and pretty-much-nameless, legal secretary in a Manhattan law firm.
While Kim’s day job holds no passion for her, the handsome (and shaving challenged) associate down the hall is another story. Yet another story is that Hannah Marshak, one of her most hated high school classmates, has now popped onto the chick lit scene with a hot new book that’s turning heads–and pages–across the land. And it’s also popped into Kim’s inbox–for review. With their ten-year high school reunion drawing near, Kim’s coming close to combustion over all the hype about Hannah’s book. And as everyone around her seems to be moving on and up, she begins to question whether being a “blogger girl” makes the grade in her off-line life.
Title: Frisky Business
Author: Clodagh Murphy
Received: Clodagh Murphy
Synopsis: Romy Fitzgerald’s life is firmly on track. She runs a successful business, has great friends and knows what she wants. That was until her father died. Suddenly she’s not sure about anything anymore. So when she has a one-night stand at a party with a stranger dressed as Darth Vadar, she tells him things she’s never told anyone before about herself and her father’s death. They’ll never see each other again so her secrets are safe, right? Until Romy realises that she’s pregnant with Darth Vadar’s baby and now she has to face some awkward questions about what really happened the night of Luke’s conception. Romy’s going to have to come clean, but when her ex-boyfriend Kit Masterson returns from New York and seems happy to go along with the charade of playing the part of Luke’s father, it seems like the answer to her prayers. Kit was the love her life, and maybe her secrets, and the true identity of Darth Vadar, can stay hidden forever. But Kit has his own reasons for coming home and buying into the ready-made family. And as masks slip and true identities show, Romy and Kit quickly discover that in real life secrets never stay hidden, especially when it comes to love.
Title: While We Were Watching Dowton Abbey
Author: Wendy Wax
Received: Orion Books
Synopsis: A warm and witty novel about four friends, and a shared passion that will change their lives.
When Edward, the concierge of a historic Atlanta apartment building, invites his fellow residents to join him for weekly screenings of Downton Abbey, four very different people find themselves connecting with the addictive drama, and – even more unexpectedly – with each other . . .
Join Samantha, Claire, Brooke and Edward for a season full of surprises.
Title: Rome For Beginners
Author: Fiona Coughlin
Received: Fiona Coughlin
Synopsis: The girls had read all about living in Rome. The way it worked in all those pink, glossy novels was: woman comes to Rome. Woman buys farmhouse in Tuscany. Woman’s toilet overflows. Woman has a good cry. Woman achieves self-realization.
Living in Italy was no vacation, as Lilian would say. As a fifty-something academic living in Rome, she didn’t feel any closer to self-realization, and she had bigger problems than plumbing. Her professor ex-husband had just started dating her boss (the Chair of the department), and if that weren’t enough she’s just found herself in an Italian Emergency Room, where the people around her seem “to be speaking some dialect of squirrel”. Language problems won’t hold her back, as she’s got her friends Brennan (an athlete constantly risking deportation), and Suzanne (a newly divorced, single mother) to translate.
This story follows these three unlikely friends in different stages of life over the course of a year: broken bones, dates in the Catacombs, multiple boyfriends named Massimo, spelunking into cavernous Roman ruins, killing one’s own turkey in a country that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, explaining to a nun how adorable one’s own child is after he is expelled, learning how to get some sleep when you’ve rented a room in a church directly under the church bells.
As things get ever more messy these women will discover if they can get it all sorted, with or without all the “ciao bellas”.
Rome for Beginners is skosh heavier than an average Chick Lit book, yet a smidgen lighter than normal Women’s Fiction. Readers who love quirky reading or summer fare, who like satire, who like a biting sense of humor, and who are curious about Italian life should love this book. Lovers of Rome should also love the book, as the city is a character unto itself.
Title: Two of a Kind
Author: Yona Zeldis McDonough
Received: Penguin Group
Synopsis: Christina Connelly lost her husband to a devastating fire ten years ago but has managed to work through the grief and build a lovely life for her teenage daughter and a small yet successful interior design business in Brooklyn. While attending a wedding, she is introduced to Dr. Andy Stern, a handsome widower with a troubled son. Andy’s egotistic demeanor is irritating to Christina, but she’s willing to work with him when he hires her to decorate his Upper East Side apartment. It comes as a shock to everyone when the two fall in love and decide to marry. Combining their families is certainly not without obstacles. Will they be able to overcome the difficulties and achieve their happily ever after?
