NEW RELEASE
Best Staged Plans - Claire Cook (2011)
With two grown children and a house too big for their needs, Boston home stager Sandra Sullivan and her husband, Greg, are ready to start enjoying the next phase of their life. That is if she can get Greg and their son, Luke, to focus on readying the house for selling. Growing increasingly frustrated with their lack of help, Sandra decides enough is enough, issues an ultimatum and heads to Atlanta to work on a renovation project with her best friend's boyfriend, who recently purchased a boutique hotel, and visit with her daughter and son-in-law. However, almost immediately upon her arrival, Sandra's daughter, Shannon, announces she's received a promotion and is heading to Boston for a month of training, leaving Sandra alone with her son-in-law, Chance, for the duration of the project. And just when she thinks things can't get any worse, Sandra begins to suspect her friend's boyfriend is cheating on her. So much for leaving the drama at home. Cook has given us relatable characters dealing with everyday issues and frustrations in a witty, yet smart, way. There are more than a few laugh-out-loud moments and readers will no doubt find bits and pieces of Sandra in themselves, as she deals with family, life and the loss of her reading glasses. (LEK)
Claire Cook's eighth novel Best Staged Plans focuses on a home stager who is looking to downsize her own home. The summary says: "Sandy Sullivan is a professional home stager in the Boston suburbs, so getting rid of her own house, remaking it for the market, and downsizing should be a breeze. But nothing is ever as easy as it seems, with her husband Greg dragging his feet and their son Luke moving back home to inhabit the basement 'bat cave'. Sandy reads them the riot act and takes a job staging a boutique hotel in Atlanta recently acquired by her best friend's boyfriend. The good news is that she can spend time with her recently married daughter Shannon. The bad news is that Shannon soon receives a promotion and heads back to Boston for training, leaving Sandy and her Southern son-in-law, Chance, as reluctant roommates. And if that's not complicated enough, she suspects her best friend's boyfriend may be seeing another woman on the side. Sandy quickly finds her hands full fixing up houses - and her life." You can read an excerpt at the author's website.