Friday Finds

Another fun book meme care of Should Be Reading.

What great books did you hear about / discover this past week?

I went to Barnes & Noble last weekend and I found some great books. Here are a few. I actually had a scrap of paper that I grabbed off a friend so that I could write down the titles I wanted to wishlist. Crazy aren't I?

First in a sexy new series featuring the match-making schemes of an infamous courtesan.

Award-winning author Claudia Dain tells a tale of impropriety and independence, and a mother and daughter determined to bend the rules of society in their favor.

Young Lady Caroline's prospects for a suitable match are severely limited by her mother's infamous past. Before Lady Sophia Dalby entered London society, she was a highly desired courtesan. What man of title, position, and wealth would marry a courtesan's daughter?

Sophia's solution is to purchase a husband for Caroline-the Earl of Ashdon-agreeing to settle his gambling debts if he will take her daughter's hand. Insulted, Caroline refuses to have a husband who was bought for her.

But after meeting the fiery Lord Ashdon, she wonders if it wouldn't be satisfying to have him pay for her, perhaps with a priceless pearl necklace? With Sophia pulling the strings, Lord Ashdon may get more than he bargained for and Caroline may get just what she wants.

The intensity of emotion and vivid language here are more reminiscent of Anderson's Speak (Farrar, 1999) than any of her other works. Lia and Cassie had been best friends since elementary school, and each developed her own style of eating disorder that leads to disaster. Now 18, they are no longer friends. Despite their estrangement, Cassie calls Lia 33 times on the night of her death, and Lia never answers. As events play out, Lia's guilt, her need to be thin, and her fight for acceptance unravel in an almost poetic stream of consciousness in this startlingly crisp and pitch-perfect first-person narrative. The text is rich with words still legible but crossed out, the judicious use of italics, and tiny font-size refrains reflecting her distorted internal logic. All of the usual answers of specialized treatment centers, therapy, and monitoring of weight and food fail to prevail while Lia's cleverness holds sway. What happens to her in the end is much less the point than traveling with her on her agonizing journey of inexplicable pain and her attempt to make some sense of her life. —Carol A. Edwards, Denver Public Library

All right. Honesty time. Everybody’s got a number—in fact, everyone’s got a few numbers. There’s the one we tell our friends, the one we tell our spouses, the one we tell our parents… but only we know what our true number is.

How many people have you slept with?

Meet chick lit’s sauciest, sassiest new heroine…

“My name is Delilah Darling, I’m twenty-nine years old, I’m single, and well… I’m easy.”

When Delilah reads a survey revealing most people have 10.5 sexual partners in their lifetime, she begins to feel more like a tramp than she’d like. She’s slept with 19 men so far—almost twice the national average. During a self-help moment, Delilah vows to cap her “number” at 20, swearing that she’ll save her last spot for the RIGHT guy. However, after losing her job and having a wild night on the town, she falls into bed with Mr. WRONG.

Unwilling to up her number but unable to imagine a life of celibacy, Delilah dreams up a foolproof plan: she’ll track down every man she’s ever slept with in a last-ditch effort to make it work with one of them. Hitting the road in a rental car, she begins a madcap adventure that takes her across the country, from New York to Chicago, New Orleans to LA.

A hilarious romp through Delilah’s past loves, 20 Times a Lady shines a spotlight on every woman’s dirty little secret and proves that, when it comes to matters of the heart, sometimes numbers only tell a fraction of the story.