NOVEMBER
November Recent Reviews
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DREAM THEMES
Need a change? Then try one of these books about a character making a life swap.
INTERVIEWS
Carol Mason's debut novel, The Secrets of Married Women (published by Hodder), is out on December 13. Find out how her persistence earnt her a publishing deal.
NEW RELEASES
Lucy in the Sky - Paige Toon
Lucy is heading back to Sydney for the wedding of her best friend Molly and Sam, a guy Lucy has always had a crush on. As Lucy gets on a flight from Heathrow, she's gets a text message, supposedly from another woman claiming she's slept with Lucy's boyfriend James. After an excruciatingly long flight, James' excuses just don't add up - after all he's a lawyer who has a habit of stretching the truth. Enjoying herself back in her hometown, Lucy finds herself drawn to Sam's younger brother, Nathan, a laidback surfer. A first-class read with lots of humour.7/10
AUSTRALIAN MADE
You Had Me at Halo - Amanda Ashby
Holly Evans has just been watching her own funeral (and she certainly wouldn't have wanted to have been caught dead in that particular polyester dress). The 22-year-old drowned in her bathtub on the night her boyfriend Todd was going to propose. Unable to keep her mouth shut in heaven and with much mortal baggage still to deal with, Holly's spiritual realigner decides to send her back to earth in the body of another recently departed. As luck would have it, one of Holly's work colleagues, IT geek Vince Murphy, shows signs of dying and she is put into his six-foot body. But Vince had only fainted and wakes up to discover he has to share his body with someone with only two days to sort out her life. As Holly embarks on a mission to prove she didn't kill herself, she discovers that not everyone in her life was who they seemed. An engaging, comic read that keeps you turning the pages to find out if Holly will resolve her issues and find out why she died in time. And Holly just seems made for the big screen.7/10
Want to know more about Amanda Ashby? Head to our interview.
AUTHOR NEWS
Anastasia Royal has released her debut novel, Undoing I Do, this month. Published by Thomas Dunne Books, it's the story of free-spirited Claire McCloud, who battles through a marriage gone wrong with German artist Tobin while protecting her children from the divorce fallout and learning to live her life on her own terms. Royal said she wrote this novel because “it was the book I wanted to read while I was going through my divorce - not the clinical self-help books or the sappy, tell-all weepies, but the authentic, full-range-of-emotions novel that readers can relate to. Also, I wanted to help people see that divorce is ultimately about love and its loss - that's the real tragedy - not who did what to whom or who is right or wrong.” Royal, who has since remarried, is also an artist, composer and voice-over actor from Chicago.
HOLIDAY READ
For those of us in the southern hemisphere, it's nearly summertime which means you'll be looking for lots of beach reads. Here's a new release from popular author Jenny Colgan all about taking a trip to an exotic holiday location. (For those cozing up for winter, maybe it can transport you for a few hours to a warm locale.) Look out for more holiday reads over the next few months . . .
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Operation Sunshine - Jenny ColganEvie needs a good holiday. Not just because she's been working all hours as a receptionist for two high-powered plastic surgeons - but also because every holiday she has ever been on in her life has involved sunburn, arguments and projectile vomiting. Why can't she have a normal holiday - some sun, sand, sea and (hopefully) sex? Then her employers invite her to attend a medical conference in the south of France. It certainly offers the holiday of a lifetime - but not quite in the way Evie imagined! |
INTERVIEWS
Catch up with Kate Harrison, author of The Self-Preservation Society, as she reveals her biggest fears and why she's allowed to shop in the name of research.
'TIS THE SEASON (PART II)
This Christmas story is the third book in the author's Southern series.
Blue Christmas - Mary Kay Andrews
Antiques dealer Eloise “Weezie” Foley returns, this time determined that her shop will win the Christmas decorating contest. But then things start to go missing from her display, and there seems to be a mysterious midnight visitor to her shop. And while she hopes for an engagement ring from her chef boyfriend, Daniel - always moody at the holidays - seems more distant than usual.
Did you know? That best-selling author Louise Bagshawe is the Conservative Party's candidate for Corby and East Northamptonshire in the UK's next general election. Bagshawe, whose books include Career Girls, Monday's Child and Sparkles, has a new novel, Glitz, out next year. Her sister, Tilly, also has a book out next year - it's called Do Not Disturb.
AUTHOR NEWS
The hardback cover and book synopsis of Marian Keyes' new book, This Charming Man, has just been revealed. Published by Michael Joseph, it's due out in May and is about: “Four women. One man. And a secret that binds them all.”Lola Daly has just found out that her boyfriend, the charming and powerful politician Paddy de Courcy, is getting married - to someone else. Heartbroken, she flees Dublin to a cottage in the countryside. Can a new set of friends help her to get over him? Journalist Grace Gildee wants the inside story on Paddy's engagement but Lola's not talking. Grace's twin sister Marnie Hunter seems to have it all - a loving husband and two daughters. But she's haunted by memories that began with her first love - Paddy. And Paddy's wife-to-be Alicia Thornton is determined to be the perfect wife. But does she know the real Paddy?
Keyes warned her fans a few months ago that it was going to be a long book - and it is, coming in at 704 pages.
SNEAK PEEK
Spa Wars - Chris Manby
Emily Brown can't believe her luck when reality TV star Carina Lees makes a surprise visit to her Essex beauty salon. But soon things start to go mysteriously wrong, and it becomes clear that someone's got it in for the salon. For under all the make-up and manicures, Carina is not who she seems, and although confronting the past can be more painful than a bikini wax, Emily eventually has to stare the truth in the face and realise it's what's inside that really counts. Out in February.
NEW RELEASES
Odd Mom Out - Jane Porter
Advertising executive Marta Zinsser has moved from New York to Seattle to start a new agency and be nearer her mother who has Alzheimers disease. Her nine-year-old daughter Eva, who she conceived through donor sperm, really wants to fit in with the popular crowd in their affluent suburb (where people will behave better at breakfast if the Gates are nearby). Eva believes it would help if Marta was a bit more like the other immaculately groomed mums who are so involved in their children's school. Marta, who feels more comfortable in jeans and combat boots, joins in some of the PTA activities but struggles to keep up as well as run her agency, Z Design. Marta also believes she doesn't need a man but she soon runs into the irresistible Luke Flynn on her morning jog. A very convincing story about a working mother's relationship with her daughter, the pitfalls in the pursuit of popularity and why you should be leader of your own pack. The sequel Alpha Mom is out in May.
7/10
INTERVIEWS
Read about Camy Tang's Sushi series and what she's learnt about herself through writing a book.
'TIS THE SEASON (PART I)
It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas. And to get you in the festive spirit, here are three books from Carly Alexander (aka Roz Bailey) . . . Yule love 'em! |
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| The Secret Life of Mrs Claus is about three women who share the same costume after being hired by a department store to play Santa's wife. They find that Christmas is a time for miracles, love and changing lives. | In The Eggnog Chronicles, three women are on the verge of disaster at Christmas time - Jane is facing a serious illness, while her sister Ricki is thinking about ending her relationship with a married man and best friend Emma is wondering who the father of her baby is. | In Ghosts of Boyfriends Past, first she wanted naughty . . . Madison's first post-college Christmas is more Sex and the City than It's a Wonderful Life. Then she wanted nice . . . Five years later, she's looking forward to the gift of a marriage proposal. Now in her 30s, all she wants for Christmas is the real thing. |
TOP TEN
What is it about the name Luke? Take a look at our favourite heroes in the Books of Luke.
SNEAK PEEK
Big Boned - Meg Cabot
The third instalment in the Heather Wells mysteries, also known as Size Doesn't Matter, is out this month. Heather's job as assistant director of a New York College dorm is improving. Her new boss, especially appointed to improve Fischer Hall's image as the Death Dorm, seems to know what he's doing. But then Dr Owen Veatch is murdered and the president of the student union - the boyfriend of her assistant Sarah - becomes the main suspect. Heather can't help wondering if she really knew her boring boss as well as she thought she did - especially when a pretty Fischer Hall resident who has Heather's big-boned build claims she knows who his real murderer is. Meanwhile, Heather's rebound boyfriend, Tad, has got a question he wants to ask her - one Heather's not so sure she knows the answer to just yet . . .
Did you know? It's the last week to win the opportunity to have your name used for one of the characters in Kerry Katona's next book, Rough Justice, the sequel to Tough Love. Head to www.randomhouse.co.uk to enter. (UK and Ireland residents only).
SCREEN SCENE
Australian viewers have three new TV shows to look forward to.Channel 9 has added The Secret Diary of a Call Girl, starring Billie Piper (Rose in Doctor Who) to its 2008 schedule. The eight-part British series is based on the award-winning blog about a high-class sex worker using the nom de plume Belle de Jour.
The book, The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, was released in 2005, followed by The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl in 2006.Gossip Girl, based on the teen-lit books by Cecily von Ziegesar, is starting on Fox8 on December 4. The series from the creators of The OC centres on the lives of a group of privileged teenagers living on Manhattan's Upper East Side, as told from the perspective of a mysterious blogger called Gossip Girl (voiced by Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars fame).
And The Starter Wife, based on the novel by Gigi Levangie and starring Debra Messing, has been picked up by Channel 10 and is due to start in December. See Made for TV for more details.
TAKE TWO
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Something Borrowed & Something Blue - Emily GiffinThis series is possibly the one that I recommend the most to readers who have just begun experimenting with chick lit novels - I've yet to find anyone that doesn't like them. It seems unforgivable that after a night celebrating her 30th birthday, Rachel White ends up in bed with her best friend's fiancé, Dex. But there's always two sides to every story and it seems that the best friend, Darcy, has been stealing Rachel's thunder for years. In the sequel, we get to find out more about Darcy as her charmed life is left in tatters. |
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For more sequels and series, click on the Take Two link.
DREAM THEMES
It's hooray for Hollywood as we take a look at books set in the entertainment industry.
SHOW SOME FAITH
Looking for some inspirational lit - stories of women with Christian values. Here's some of the latest releases: |
Camy Tang's Sushi for One? is about Asian-American volleyball coach Lex Sakai whose grandmother threatens to cut off her team's funding if she doesn't have a date in time for her cousin's wedding. Lex comes up with a stringent list of requirements from her Ephesians Bible study in her search for the perfect man. Then her brother introduces her to non-Christian, non-athletic Aiden. This is the first book in the Sushi series about four single cousins. The next, Only Uni, is out in February. |
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Miss Invisible, by Laura Jensen Walker, tells the story of professional baker Freddie Heinz who thinks her plus-size relegates her to wallflower status. With the help of a new friend, she finally learns to be comfortable in her own skin. |
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In Diva NashVegas, the second in a series by pastor's wife Rachel Hauck, queen of country Aubrey James has to tell her story after being betrayed by a former band member who sells an exclusive to a tabloid. But Aubrey's private world is rocked when the interviewer is someone from her past - someone she'd hoped to forget. |
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The Book of Jane - Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt: In a retelling of the Book of Job, New York publicist Jane Williams' faith is tested when she loses everything she holds dear - her boyfriend, her apartment, her job - over the course of a bizarre day. |
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In For Better or For Worse, by Diann Hunt, organisationally challenged Wendy Hartline has her hands full running a wedding chapel, dealing with a rebellious daughter, a lovestruck son and a father who's moved in with her. Then one man steals her heart. She does weddings. He does divorces. Now they're in love . . . for better or for worse. Out in January. |
NEW RELEASES
Special Delivery - Zoe Barnes (2007)
Ally Bennett is happily married to social worker Luke, with two young children. But for years she's been living in the shadow of her older sister, Miranda, a former model who is now a successful interior designer and married to wealthy property developer Gavin. But what Ally didn't realise is Miranda is missing something from her perfect life - and all the IVF attempts in the world have failed to give her a much-wanted baby. When Miranda turns to Ally to be a surrogate and carry her husband's baby, Ally isn't sure how to respond. Could she ever hand over a baby to someone else, especially Miranda? With an increasingly absent husband and an overly attentive brother-in-law, the implications of Ally's decision will be felt for much longer than nine months.
7/10
CLASSIC READ
I Don't Know How She Does It - Allison Pearson (2002)
This is a classic story about a woman who tries to juggle too much in an age where women are wondering about the myth of “having it all”. Hedge-fund manager Kate Reddy is a frazzled mother of two who's trying to make store-bought mince pies look homemade for the school Christmas party. Married to architect Richard, Kate feels endless guilt about not being a good-enough mother, especially because she has to travel a lot for work. When one of her trips brings her into contact with attractive client Jack Abelhammer, her family life is tested even more. Pearson is a British newspaper columnist and has two children. Her new novel I Think I Love You, out mid-2008, is a coming-of-age story set from the 1970s and is about rites of passage and one girl's infatuation with David Cassidy.
6/10
SNEAK PEEK
How (Not) to Have a Perfect Wedding - Arliss Ryan
Anne is a wedding planner at an opulent Newport mansion who has always been able to keep her composure through rowdy guests and sobbing brides. But today she is struggling to keep a smile on her face after having been served divorce papers. To make matters worse, the wedding party from hell has arrived - including high-maintenance bride Alice and groom Mead; and a bitter mother-of-the-bride and her ex-husband with his trophy wife. From the caterer to the groom to the barmaid, everyone involved tells the story of a disaster in the making.
CLUB CHALLENGES
November's Club Challenge is all about spending up big and being in debt.
AUTHOR NEWS
The big guns are ready to fire in 2008. Some of chick lit's most-loved authors have new releases coming out next year:
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Authors: If you have a new release out in 2008, .
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Copyright © 2007 Craig Pegler
