Quickies

The Alphabet Challenge has been going on so long that I'll never get each one fully reviewed. So here are some blurbs.

Bombshell by Lynda Curnyn - I read this one at the tail end of my Red Dress Ink phase, before they all started to seem like the same book. (I might go back to them, though. I just needed a break from all chick lit, all the time.) 34 year-old blonde bombshell Grace Noonan dumps her boyfriend Ethan after he reacts with horror to a pregnancy scare. And the cosmetic company she works for, whose motto used to be "beauty beyond 30," has decided to focus on the teen market, throwing her department into an uproar. Adding to the stress is the return of Michael, the founder's son and a former flame of Grace's - he's back in New York and is engaged to the teen campaign's project manager. It all has Grace wondering if it's time to give up on the single life and visit the sperm bank. I don't remember much about this one, but it was fairly good chick lit and Grace was an interesting character.

Chloe Does Yale by Natalie Krinsky - Natalie Krinsky writes a sex column for the Yale Daily News and so does her fictional counterpart,Chloe Carrington. It amuses some people and disgusts others. One of her critics is the mysterious YaleMale05, who sends her e-mails about the column and she embarks on an e-mail flirtation with him. He's not overly mysterious, however - his identity is actually pretty predictable once you're partway into the book. I think the audience for this book would be the same as the one for her column - college students. I felt a bit old for it. But it wasn't a bad bit of fluff. Again, I don't remember much of it, but I recall that some of the columns were pretty funny, including one where Chloe has to walk home from a party wrapped in a garbage bag.

It's a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod Murder by Rosemary Martin - My friend Cassie recommended this one and it was one of the first ones I read for the challenge, over my winter holiday in 2006. It's the first in a series called Murder-A-Go-Go, which I think is a fab title! Elizabeth "Bebe" Bennett, formerly of Richmond, Virginia, loves everything about 1960's New York, from the Peppermint Lounge to her pink sectional couch (I'd love a pink sectional couch!). She particuarly loves her sophisticated stewardess room-mate Darlene, and her job as secretary to the dreamy Bradley Williams at Rip-City Records. Unfortunately, when Philip Royal, lead singer of a Beatles-like band that Rip City wants to sign, turns up dead in his hotel bathroom (electrocuted by his own guitar) Darlene is a suspect, having become "intimately acquainted" with him on her recent flight to England. The scandal also puts Bradley's job on the line, so Bebe knows she must solve the murder to save her 2 favourite people. Southern Bebe is sweetly naive (she doesn't understand why womanizing Bradley has had so many secretaries leave) and she's so enthusiastic about her swinging New York life (and her clothes, in particular). The 60's details are lots of fun and, as I mentioned in my review of The Room-Mating Season, I love me a 60's setting. A light, groovy mystery.