WHAT'S NEW
COMING SOON
2008 releases: We put Sharon Owens' Revenge of the Wedding Planner and Lucy Beresford's Something I'm Not to the ratings test.
Who knows? We may well be too busy cheering on our athletes at the Olympics. Aussie. Aussie. Aussie. Oi, oi, oi!
RECENT RATINGS
CONTACT US
Can't beat'em - join'em! The Chicklit Club ed is now on Facebook. Feel free to get in touch.
INTERVIEWS
How does a writing duo work when one lives in England and the other is across the Atlantic? We talk to the women behind Ellie Campbell.
AUTHOR NEWS
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From Seattle author Jennie Shortridge comes Love & Biology at the Center of the Universe - a story about a good girl learning to finally let herself be bad. When science teacher and control freak Mira Serafino, 45, learns that her husband has been seeing another woman, her perfect world is shattered and she wants no one, least of all her big Italian family, to know. So she heads north with little money, stopping only when her car breaks down in Seattle. She takes a job at an offbeat coffee shop, where Mira learns to go with the flow. |
BOOK NEWS
Here's one to warm the cockles of your heart. In Spare Change, by Utah author Aubrey Mace, Riley makes a new year's resolution to save her pennies and at the end of the year buy something nice for herself. But through working at a cancer treatment centre she decides to donate her extra money to cancer research instead. As people in her town begin to get involved, Riley finds herself heading a big fundraising campaign. And who is the secret admirer who keeps leaving money for her to find?
NEW RELEASES
The Wrong Sort of Wife? - Elise Chidley (2008)
Lizzie Buckley finds managing a household with three-year-old twins with little help from her busy husband is tiring her out. And when she vents her frustration at her married life, instead of sending the email to her sister, Jane, she mistakenly sends it to her husband, James. He takes offence at the fact she prefers a box of chocolate biscuits over sex with him and immediately moves out. Lizzie, who had never felt part of James' titled family, and the kids move away to a small cottage - hoping distance will make her husband's heart grow fonder so he'll take her back. As Lizzie waits for her life to get back on track, she takes up running - will this help her find a whole new lease on life?
7/10
BOOK NEWS
The synopsis of the next Cathy Kelly book has just been released. Once in a Lifetime is centred around a department store in the small Irish town of Ardagh. When Kenny's faces a takeover bid from a big chain, what effect will this have on the women bound up in the store? From Star Bluestone who sells her beautifully crafted tapestries, staff member Charlie who is the first to hear the rumours to Ingrid Fitzgerald, the wife of Kenny's owner who sees the store as the “other woman” in her strained marriage. And what about the glamorous women like Marcella Schmidt, spin doctor to disgraced politicians, who shop at Kenny's. It's due out in March.
CHICK LIT MEMOIR
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In her memoir Marrying Anita, journalist Anita Jain heads to India to look for a husband the traditional way. Fed up with the New York singles scene and under constant pressure from her Indian parents to find someone, Jain, 32, started to wonder: was looking for a husband in a bar any less barbaric than an arranged marriage? This is her account of chance encounters, nosy relatives and dating some potential husbands in her rapidly modernising homeland. |
NEW RELEASES
This is How It Happened - Jo Barrett (2008)
When Madeline’s boyfriend of four years, Carlton, dumps her, she gets mad, then decides to get even. Not only has he stolen away her dreams of a wedding but he has also shut her out of the company she helped create. Madeline toys with the idea of killing him via arsenic brownies and carbon monoxide poisoning. But in the end she hires a hit man to carry out her plan of attack. The story alternates between this campaign and flashbacks to their relationship, which is slowly revealed to be not as perfect as she thought. This tale of heartbreak and sweet revenge surpassed expectations.
7/10
CLUB CHALLENGES
Ready for some magic in your life? Let these paranormal chick lit novels cast a spell on you this month.
BOOK NEWS
Kate Long's latest novel, Family Sold Separately, is about a teenager whose only family is her eccentric grandmother Poll. Its synopsis says: “Not only does Poll buy all of Katherine's clothes, but she forbids her to leave the house unless it’s absolutely necessary. Would a chance to go to Oxford count? But the bigger question is: How can she abandon her grandma? Just when Katherine has resigned herself to a lifetime of watching daytime television . . . along comes a handsome, magnetic young man named Collum, who claims to be Katherine’s long-lost cousin. But as Katherine is about to learn, when it comes to family, things aren't always as they seem.”
INTERVIEWS
AROUND THE WORLD (South Africa)
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Zukiswa Wanner’s debut novel The Madams was about a South African businesswoman, Thandi, who hires a white maid. Her latest release, Behind Every Successful Man, tells the story of Nobantu, who has a successful businessman for a husband and two adorable children. But at Nobantu’s lavish 35th birthday party, she wonders what has happened to her own ambitions. It’s time for this mother to embrace her entrepreneurial side and start a kids clothing business. Wanner lives in Johannesburg. |
SCREEN SCENE
NBC has signed Bergdorf Blondes author Plum Sykes to develop a new TV show called Mogulettes, a half-hour comedy about 20-something female tycoons. The show will reportedly centre around Eva, the beautiful head of a cosmetics empire.
Jennifer Aniston's film production company Echo Films has bought the film rights to Jane Fallon's debut novel Getting Rid of Matthew about Helen whose affair with her married boss is ruined when he decides to leave his wife for her. The Universal Studio movie, with Aniston set to star and produce, is expected to be out in 2010. Aniston's company is also reportedly interested in Laura Dave's The Divorce Party.
BOOK NEWS
In Judy Sheehan's Women in Hats, theatre director Leigh Majors has worked hard to become more than just the daughter of Bridie Hart - America's favourite sitcom mum who can only play the role of a good mother if somebody else writes the dialogue. But when Leigh receives a special birthday gift from her playwright husband Michael, a play entitled Women in Hats, her estranged mother demands to play the starring role. So they must work together amid a crazy cast of characters and their troubled past to create what could be Broadway's next major hit. Sheehan is a playwright whose debut novel was the 2005 release And Baby Makes Two, inspired by her adoption of a baby from China. |
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INDUSTRY NEWS
Miramax Film Corp. certainly doesn't seem to love British author Allison Pearson. According to wire reports, it has sued her for breach of contract for failing to deliver her promised novel, I Think I Love You. The suit, filed last week in Manhattan, claims Pearson accepted $US700,000 five years ago for the book which was to be a coming-of-age tale about a David Cassidy fan. Pearson hasn't yet publicly commented on the suit. Pearson’s debut novel I Don't Know How She Does It, about working mum Kate Reddy, became a chick lit classic after its release in 2002. Miramax had bought the film rights to that back in 2001, when Kate was still just the subject of Pearson's weekly newspaper column. Director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada, Marley & Me) is reportedly attached to the project.
NAME CHANGE
Elise Chidley's The Wrong Sort of Wife? is about to be republished under a new name, Your Roots Are Showing. The story centres on Lizzie who seems to have the perfect life. But when she vents her frustrations about married life in an email, only to accidentally send it to her husband, she finds herself having to move out.
Watch out for our upcoming rating on this book.
NEW RELEASES
Spa Wars - Chris Manby (2008)
All Emily's dreams come true when she opens her own beauty salon, The Beauty Spot. And clients come flocking after she helps reality TV star Carina Lees survive a nail emergency on the way to an awards ceremony. Expanding her Essex business on the advice of the well-groomed financial adviser Matt, Emily takes on Natalie, a talented but badly groomed beautician. But then things start to go wrong. Who has got their sharpened talons out for Emily and her salon? The perfect book to while away your time at the hairdresser's, read it for its very funny take on 15-minute fame.
7/10
DREAM THEMES
Take a look at some books that are told in email or letter format in our You’ve Got Mail theme this month.
BOOK NEWS
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Samantha Krasner and her flamboyant, over-bearing mother, Madeleine Krasner-Wolfe, go head to head in Judith Marks-White's latest book, Bachelor Degree. When Madison Avenue art dealer Sam adds hot British artist Blake Hamilton to her roster, she soon feels the spark between them. Her mother immediately pictures him as a potential son-in-law and acts to bring them together. Meanwhile the twice-widowed Madeline is dating Dr Alden Gould, and, believing that it'll be good for Sam to play the field, also wants to set her up with her beau's son, Spencer. |
DEAR CHICKLIT CLUB
Q.What other books are like The Devil Wears Prada?
A. Take a look at our Top 10 For Fashionistas, which has a range of titles about the fashion and magazine industry. Another highly publicised book, which I haven't read yet, is Falling Out of Fashion, by Karen Yampolsky, who worked as assistant to Jane Pratt, founder of Jane Magazine. It's about Jill White, who rises through the magazine ranks to create her own magazine called Jill and then has to fight for its life after being taken over by a media conglomerate. Falling Out of Fashion also is being adapted for a movie through Hilary Swank's 2S Films company.
Got a question about chick lit books? and we'll try our best to answer it (questions may be edited for space and clarity reasons).
NEW RELEASES
Project Jennifer - Jill Amy Rosenblatt (2008)
For secretary Joan Benjamin, bad things not only come in threes, but also in the form of Jennifer. In just one week, she sees her ex-fiance Michael marry another woman, loses her cushy job and is forced out of her apartment. All because of women named Jennifer. For Joan, who at 30 still hasn't settled down with a man or career, it's enough to make her want to be someone else – someone called Jennifer. So she embarks on a new persona, striving to become a thinner, sexier, more composed, successful woman – just like all those perfect Jennifers with the world at their feet. But at what cost to her true self? An enjoyable debut about a grown woman still trying to find her way – before she earns herself a bad name.
6/10
SPECIAL OFFER
Confessions of Super Mom author Melanie Lynne Hauser is offering her novel, Jumble Pie, as an e-book free to Chicklit Club readers. It's a story about two women, Juliet and Emily, who forge a lifelong friendship after a home economics project gone wrong. See her website to register.
MAKING HER DEBUT
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In How Dolly Parton Saved My Life: A Novel of the Jelly Jar Sisterhood, by Charlotte Connors, four different women take the country singing star's advice to heart about paving their own way. When Jo Vann sets about forming a catering business in Atlanta, she reluctantly partners with Ellie, the wealthy daughter of an influential African-American family. Together with pastry chef Daisy and interior designer Cate, they open Jelly Jar Catering, a company which allows them to bring their kids to work, and still be successful businesswomen. As financial woes, worrying health inspections and personal troubles test the strength of the business, they discover that their friendship may just be the saving grace. |
TOP 10
What are this year's must-reads from the established authors – those who have proved time and again that they'll give you a good read?
AUTHOR NEWS
Mia King follows up her bestselling Good Things with Sweet Life, out in September. When her husband gets a new job in Hawaii, New York exec Marissa Price thinks it'll be the perfect place to find herself, save her marriage and reconnect with her eight-year-old daughter Pansy. But instead she finds their new home is a fixer-upper, her daughter now wants to be home-schooled and her husband wants time apart. King, who moved to Hawaii for the simpler life in 2000, says that her books deal with women who are pushed by unexpected circumstances to make changes that result in a more fulfilling and authentic life. “My main characters are successful women in their 40s who've achieved, in their mind, the ultimate successes. They're content with where their lives are and unaware that life has more in store for them. But before they get to experience that deeper, richer life, they have to undergo a trial-by-fire.” King's next novel Table Manners - the sequel to Good Things - is out next year.
AUSTRALIAN MADE
The Inner Gentleman - Alli Kincaid (2008)
What happens when a London soccer club wants its star striker to clean up his act so it can cash in on his sponsorship dollars and charity kudos? It hires The Inner Gentleman, an etiquette company run by the aristocratic Sebastian Clementine. He in turn calls his cousin Mia away from her father's deathbed in Tasmania to deal with the £150 million player Josh Watkins. After looking through his tabloid clippings - with details of his drunken nights out, sexual escapades and arrests - she meets him for afternoon tea at the Savoy - and finds that underneath it all he may not be such a bad boy at heart. But rather than being focused on the sportsman being taught to mind his Ps and Qs, the story centres on Mia's attempts to save her ancestral home - Clementine Castle. And as personal and family secrets are revealed, can Mia and Josh bring out the best in each other?
7/10
INTERVIEWS
Find out what inspired Lee Nichols to write her first chick lit mystery Reconstructing Brigid.
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The story is about a politically connected CEO who wants an investigation into his daughter Jody's car accident. And he wants the nation's premier accident reconstructionist, Brigid Ashbury, to lead the case. But after having experienced a recent crash herself, Brigid is now scared of cars. So she hires the prime suspect, Aaron - the boyfriend of Jody's sister - as her chauffeur and starts herself on the road to recovery - and discovery. |
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Copyright © 2007 Craig Pegler
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