THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  Have you ever read a book that made you smile from page one until the end? That was my experience with Jennifer Niven's MEET THE NEWMANS (Flatiron Books). The cover colors are delicious. 1950s: The Newmans have been America's favorite TV family for twelve years on CBS. Their real life is exactly what viewers see on the air, with a few make-believe moments. The mother can't cook or clean, and one of the brothers isn't into girls.  1964:  But now their nearly perfect apple-pie show feels out of touch, a bit dated. Mothers are going to work wearing mini skirts, and women aren't jumping at any man's commands. Ratings are plummeting, and writer/creator/DAD's luck may have run out. There are many family secrets, and an accident threatens to cancel the show before the network has a chance. MEET THE NEWMANS is a funny, rich story with plot twists and drama. Jennifer Niven has written a clever, unique novel. JENNIFER NIVEN is the #1 New York Times and international...

  The shocking new psychological thriller from the bestselling author Nicole Lundrigan, THE CASE STUDY (Viking) is a twisty, unsettling, and masterfully plotted game of magnetic push-and-pull between two women whose secrets threaten to collide. When Mia was a young woman, she read a magazine article about a murderous teenage girl with a rare and disturbing psychiatric delusion. Fascinated by the details, she sought out the doctor who’d treated the girl, and eventually married him. Twenty years later, Mia’s curiosity is piqued once again when her husband announces that his famous case study will be republished—and that he will be reconnecting with his former patient.      Lainey has never felt that her feet are fully on the ground—not since she was released from a psychiatric institution at the age of twenty-one. When her former doctor reaches out, she decides to tell him the truth about what happened all those years ago. Perhaps she can ...

    The Last Straight Woman (Signal)  is a call to set aside the baggage of what female heterosexuality evokes, in favour of a definition of what it actually entails: women liking men. No more, no less. That a woman is straight implies nothing about how conventional or submissive she is. It does not mean she wants to be accommodating to men generally.      Using that simple definition as its launching point, the book moves to the history of women’s desire for men and how it is ultimately separate from much of the history of marriage. Phoebe then turns to the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, and to second-wave feminist critiques of heterosexuality—a pattern that repeated itself when early-2000s sex positivity gave way to post-#MeToo reticence. One sees men’s desires pitted against women’s need for safety, with women’s own lusts all but forgotten. She examines the ways everyone from queer theorists to evolutionary psychologists has cast doubt on...

  Rachel Mills' debut novel, THE PLAYERS CLUB (AtriaBooks),h is   a bold, big concept about a secret club of women who risk everything to ask the question:   If you could be anyone…who would you dare to become? Beth Greenwood has spent her life playing it safe. She’s been a graphic designer at the same company for a decade, she dutifully meets men from the apps for dinner and sometimes casual sex, and she thinks about decorating her sterile, small apartment. Her comfort and joy are her Sunday catch-ups with her sister Elspeth, whose perfect life, very different from Beth’s, has recently started to unravel. One day, Beth meets a woman who invites her to join a secret club. It’s not knitting or books; it’s living out an experience you’ve always wanted to have. Cirque du Soleil acrobat, gonzo graffiti artist, performer in the BDSM underground scene: these women will get you everything you need to—temporarily—be the person you might have been, had your life taken one or two d...

  FORTY LOVE (ZibbyPublishing) by Jane Costello is a fun, sexy rom-com about learning to take big swings, discovering new passions, filling an empty nest, and maybe another shot at love Jules has lived next door to the local tennis club for years without picking up a racket. As a full-time buyer for a national chain of lifestyle stores and a single, widowed mother of a teenager, she doesn’t have time for a hobby. And then, there is the matter of that run-in with her old school crush, Sam, who recently joined the club. In a surge of boldness, Jules decides to stop playing it safe and accepts an invitation to join the amateur tennis team. Soon enough, she has fully embraced the tennis life and finds herself loving the game and her teammates, but that’s not all. Her intense attraction to Sam is gaining an advantage over her. Now Jules is facing a whole new kind of match with her insecurities, her desires, and maybe—just maybe—a second shot at love. And boy, does it have some spin on i...

  Celebrity gossip can cut to the quick, but when it turns deadly, it’s up to an aspiring reporter and her quirky neighbors to close the case in RACHEL WEST and the FALLEN STAR (Berkley), the first of a witty and nostalgic new mystery series. Baby doll top, gladiator sandals, and fully loaded iPod at the ready: it’s 2008 in Los Angeles, and Rachel West is a little less starry-eyed than your average ingenue. Copyediting a celeb gossip rag isn't the glossy entertainment journalism Rachel thought she would be doing, but hey, it pays the bills. Some of them, anyway. Rachel’s life changes overnight after meeting Molly Byrne, a former child star and current tabloid fave for her drunken escapades and rotating cast of boyfriends, and what begins as a chance encounter in a nightclub bathroom quickly grows into a genuine friendship. When Molly is found dead, Hollywood accepts her death as an overdose. But Rachel knows for a fact her friend was clean —and she’s not alone in her suspicions tha...