Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson

Loved this book.
I'm a big fan of Joshilyn Jackson in general, after being wowed by her first novel, Gods in Alabama. 

I've also blogged about her at Booklist.http://bookgroupbuzz.booklistonline.com/2010/06/16/authors-you-should-try-joshilyn-jackson/

Backseat Saints is the story of Ro, an abused wife who finally makes a break for it.  What's really interesting is that the character that Jackson has created  does not seem at all to be the type of woman who would put up with abuse.  She's really headstrong, witty, and you get the feeling she could bust anyone's balls at a moment's notice (at least, before she got married, she was strong).  She also happens to be in love with her hateful husband, despite the abuse.  When a psychic tells her that she's going to die at his hand unless she kills him first, she finally lets the "old" Rose Mae out.

Funny, smart, and fast paced, I enjoyed this story for the characters as well as the tight plot.

Jennifer Weiner will be with us for a while!

Yay, today Jennifer Weiner just signed a contract for 4 more books with her publisher, Atria Books.
She's one of my favorites, so I'm very happy about this news!

Courtesy of Galley Cat:
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/deals/jennifer_weiner_inks_four_book_deal_163413.asp

A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff

After reading a lot of CRAP women's novels in the last year or so, I was delighted to finally get some good stuff this year (be sure to see my posts about Katherine Center and Allison Winn Scotch for examples of the good stuff!)

As you know, I do a Summer Beach Reads Roundup for Library Journal. This year, there was a book that I enjoyed so much, I asked my editor to please let it run as a separate review instead of the shorter reviews that get into the article.

Isabel Wolff's A Vintage Affair has totally renewed my faith in women's fiction (British women's fic to be specific!) I've read several of her chick lit novels before, but they were from the early 2000s - to be honest I hadn't even realized she was still writing. Turns out, she just hasn't been published in the US for a while. Thanks, Bantam, for bringing her back to us!

Wolff, Isabel. A Vintage Affair. Bantam. Jul. 2010. c.257p. ISBN 978-0-553-80783-7.

Vintage clothing lover Phoebe opens her own resale boutique in London's Blackheath neighborhood, meeting much success. She's grateful for the hustle and bustle the shop provides, because it lets her forget her guilt over the death of her best childhood friend, not to mention that she just left her fiancé at the altar. When the elderly Mrs. Bell contracts with Phoebe to sell her entire wardrobe, Phoebe finds herself reeled in by the story of Mrs. Bell's childhood friend, thought lost in the horrors of the Holocaust. Additionally, our heroine's got not one but two new suitors keeping her on her toes. Sounds like a lot, but Wolff manages to keep every story line interesting and on track, including plenty of fashion talk. VERDICT:  Fans of British chick lit, rejoice! (And readers who aren't already fans, prepare to become such.) With a wide cast of realistic, wonderfully drawn characters, a deft blending of the past with the present, and a seemingly effortless managing of several plots at once, this charming novel by the author of Behaving Badly and The Trials of Tiffany Trott deserves a place in all popular fiction collections.


Review from the May 1, 2010 issue of Library Journal. Copyright 2010 Library Journal/Rebecca Vnuk.

Katherine Center and Allison Winn Scotch

Recently, I had the privilege of "meeting" 2 authors I really like, Allison Winn Scotch and Katherine Center, via Twitter of all things! Ah, the power of the internets. It all came about like this - I did a program at the PLA national conference this year, my portion was on Women's Fiction (surprise!). I mentioned Scotch and Center as 2 of my top picks for up-and-coming WF authors (although, now that they each have 3 books under their belts, they've arrived, really). Library Journal picked up the program to blog about, Center got notification of it via Google Alerts, tweeted the program, sent it to Scotch, and voila, the next thing I knew I'm following them, they're following me, and boom, internet friendship blossoms. : )

Anyway, over on the Booklist blog that I contribute to, I've started talking about good WF picks for book clubs, and, have featured both of these stellar authors. I was lucky enough to snag a review copy of Scotch's upcoming novel and got my hold in early at the library for Center's latest, so here are condensed blurbs about them. Head over to the Booklist postings about Scotch and Center to read more about them. Enjoy!

Katherine Center: Full post here. "Center’s newest, Get Lucky, was just published this month in trade paperback, so even though it’s new it won’t be a hassle to obtain for groups. Sarah, an ad exec, is fired from her job when she forwards an inappropriate email to her entire firm. She decides to leave the rat race of New York to stay with her sister in Houston for a while. Her sister, Mackie, has been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby. Sarah decides that what the heck, she’s not working anyway, she’ll be the surrogate! While of course, wackiness ensues… this is also a story with real heart and depth."

Allison Winn Scotch: Full post here.
"Her latest book, The One That I Want (due out in June 2010) has the same sense of whimsical fantasy - only this time instead of going back in time, we get to take a look forward. Tilly actually loves her seemingly perfect life, until she realizes it’s not so perfect after all. When her husband leaves her to follow his basketball-coaching bliss, Tilly stumbles through life until a psychic pal grants her the gift of clarity - the ability to flash forward into the future and see where life is going to take her. Again, Scotch handles a whimsical premise that could be downright silly in another writer’s hands and manages to make it sound perfectly reasonable and possible. Her down to earth characters and snappy sense of humor are a real treat, and readers will enjoy discussing Tilly’s fate."

Recent Salon article on women's fiction: Women's Fiction: All Misery and Martinis?

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/03/19/womens_fiction

"As Rebecca Traister wrote in 2005, 'Beating on 'women's' fiction -- and dismissing certain literary trends as feminine rubbish -- has a history as long as the popular fiction itself.'"

The article also goes on to define a big issue with women's fiction, which is that it's a very vague definition, and no one seems to know who gets to decide (publishers? readers? authors?) what ends up tagged as WF or not.