Best Enemies
by Jane Heller
Amy Sherman and Tara Messer, lifelong best friends, are now all grown up and living in New York City. There has always been some friction in their relationship because Amy feels overshadowed by the extravagantly beautiful and elegant Tara (a lifestyle guru). When Amy catches her fiance, Stuart, in a passionate embrace with Tara two weeks before the wedding, she cuts both of them out of her life. The two eventually marry each other, while Amy focuses on her demanding job as publicity director for a major publisher. Four years later, Amy and Tara are thrown together when Amy is assigned to promote Tara's new book. The two women weave a web of deception, with Tara pretending her life is perfect (even though Stuart is a serial womanizer) while Amy invents a rich, handsome boyfriend, whom she then has to produce.

Bet Me
by Jennifer Crusie
Thirty-three-year-old Minerva Dobbs is annoyed when her current boyfriend dumps her three weeks before her sisters' wedding. But she's downright furious a few moments later when she overhears her now "ex" boyfriend bet hunky Calvin Morrisey that he can't take her home and bed her. In fact, she's so angry at them both that she lets Cal take her to dinner and decides to string him along until after her sisters' wedding. Minerva pegs Cal as a handsome "used car salesman of seducers." Cal thinks Minerva is a "cranky, starving, risk-averse statistician." But Minerva's hormones keep whispering "this one," although she knows the gorgeous Cal isn't the man for her practical, white-cotton-bra, several-pounds-over-thin, self. And Cal is blindsided by the lust he feels for the voluptuous, sensual woman he glimpses behind Min's actuary exterior. While Cal and Min struggle to deal with their mutual distrust and attraction, their friends and families try their best to interfere and direct the progression of the unlikely romantic connection.

Don't Make me Choose between You and my Shoes
by Dixie Cash
New York City is miles from Salt Lick, Texas, in more ways than one, but Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin are rarin' to go. The best friends/beauty shop owners/private-eye partners have been offered an all-expense-paid trip to the National Association of Private Investigators convention in the Big Apple. Debbie Sue sees the invitation as validation, but Edwina has one goal: to get her feet into a pair of super-glam designer shoes, not easily had back home. Yee-haw! As a sign of things to come, the two Texas tornadoes don't even get out of the state without causing pandemonium at the Dallas airport. And once they land in the Big City they meet Celina, a small-town librarian who's broke and bereft from getting robbed, and Cher, an amiable "working girl" with a heart of gold. Taking them under their wings, they head right for trouble as Edwina nearly starts a riot in the hotel bar. But the Big Apple hasn't seen nothin' yet! While helping shy Celina hook up with a hunky young police detective, the Domestic Equalizers bumble their way into a murder investigation that could end up leaving Debbie Sue deceased and Edwina stone-cold in her new Jimmy Choos!

Everything Hurts
by Bill Scheft
Phil Camp never wanted to be a self-help guru. The bestseller he wrote under a pseudonym was meant to be a parody. Instead it is taken seriously and soon earns him a spot writing a thoughtful self-improvement newspaper column. But how can he help others when he can barely help himself? For the past ten months Phil has been in constant pain, walking with a limp and lying on a wrestling mat on his apartment floor. Hes introduced to a book by Dr. Samuel Abrun, who says that the pain is all psychosomatic. Between Phils traumatic childhood stories and irritation at having a right-wing radio blowhard for a half-brother, this new neurotic development is just one more layer for his therapist to dissect. Ultimately Phils quest for pain relief leads him on a trip that does more than any self-help book possibly could.

God Save the Sweet Potato Queens
by Jill Conner Browne
Fans of Jill Conner Browne's hilarious advice and queenly assurance should mix up a margarita and prepare to enjoy themselves with her book God Save the Sweet Potato Queens. Whether you're still a Cute Girl or have made it to the glorified ranks of Fabulous Woman, the allure of big hair, utter confidence, and a sparkly tiara is easily understandable. Forget "less is more"--as Jill and all the Tammys can tell you, "more is more, and also better."

Patty Jane's House of Curl
by Lorna Landvik
The story begins in 1953, at Patty Jane's wedding to handsome Norwegian Thor; that evening, the bride becomes pregnant, frightening her husband and eventually prompting his mysterious disappearance only days before their daughter is born. Meanwhile, Harriet falls in love with Avel, a doting millionaire. They're blissfully happy together, so when Avel goes on a business trip just before their scheduled nuptials, it's a sure bet his plane will crash. The ensuing years pass quickly as the sisters adjust to single life. Patty Jane opens the eponymous salon and raises her daughter, while Harriet, who never quite gets over Avel, develops a drinking problem. Both women will love again, but new troubles are in store.

Skinny Dip: a Novel
by Carl Hiaasen
It begins with attractive heiress Joey Perrone being tossed overboard from a cruise ship by her larcenous husband, Chaznot for her money, which she has had the good sense to keep well away from him, but because he fears she is onto his crooked dealings with a ruthless tycoon who is poisoning the Everglades. But instead of drowning as she's supposed to, Joey stays afloat until she is rescued by moody ex-cop Mick Stranahan, a loner who has also struck out in the marriage department. Then the two together, with the unwitting aid of a suspicious cop who can't pin the attempted murder on Chaz, hatch a sadistic plot to scare that "maggot" out of what little wit he has. Even Tool, a hulking brute sent by the tycoon to keep an eye on Chaz, eventually turns against him, and much of the fun is in watching the deplorable Chaz flounder further and further in the murk, both literally and figuratively.

Standing in the Rainbow
by Fannie Flagg
The time is 1946 until the present. The town is Elmwood Springs, Missouri, right in the middle of the country, in the midst of the mostly joyous transition from war to peace, aiming toward a dizzyingly bright future. Once again, Fannie Flagg gives us a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle classes and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears.