Jane HellerCritiques

Amy has to work professionally with her former best friend Tara, former because Tara ran off with Amy’s fiancé Stuart. Tara and Stuart are now living a seemingly blissful married life, and Tara wrote a book about it which Amy is assigned to publicize. To cope, Amy invents a fiancé of her own, a famous author who will make Tara jealous. Complications ensue.½

half-way thru and just couldn't do it. Way too madcap and maddening. Like reading an I Love Lucy episode without the humor

I really enjoyed this. As with almost every book I read lately - did they pass a law or something? - this one is told from alternating perspectives.

Part 1 is devoted to Amy. She tells the story of how Tara, her former best friend, stole Amy's rich and successful fianc̩ and married him instead. This, unsurprisingly, results in the end of the friendship. Amy spends years in therapy trying to get over this double betrayal by Tara and Stuart.

The former friends run into each other four years later on the streets of Manhattan. Tara, looking beautiful, raves about her wonderful marriage to Stuart and their fabulous house in Long Island. She asks Amy condescendingly how she is doing and Amy invents a great fianc̩ of her own. They part company.

In a ridiculous coincidence, it turns out that Tara has written a lifestyle book called "Simply Beautiful" which has been purchased by L&T, the publishing house Amy works for. Guess who has to manage the publicity for the book? Amy. It is really a silly setup; but once you stop rolling your eyes about it, kind of fun.

Tara relentlessly presses Amy for more details about her fianc̩, and instead of 'fessing up, Amy schemes to come up with one. She quickly goes through various candidates among her male acquaintances, trying and failing to find someone remotely impressive. To her surprise she convinces L&T's star author Tony Stiles, to play along with her charade. Tony happens to be the favorite author of Tara and Stuart, and he agrees for reasons of his own to pose as Amy's besotted lover during various outings with the other couple.

By the time the focus switched perspective in Part 2, I thought Amy was a complete nitwit; so even though she was the villain of the piece up to this point, I was very sympathetic to Tara's point of view. Especially as we learn that Tara has not been completely honest about her "Simply Beautiful" life with Stuart.

The two women unravel each other's secrets, work through their past hurts, and ultimately join forces to solve a mystery and rediscover their friendship. It's all very unbelievable but fun.

Not such a huge fan, I can't blame her for being angry but I just don't understand the extreme measures, maybe because I've never had a bad breakup.

Best Enemies by Jane Heller (Audiobook)
Narrated by Rachel Fulginiti

3 Stars - Jealousy, Lies, Envy .. with a hint of romance. This book had more lying than I have seen before in a book. Lies on top of lies. It's a wonder there was a happy ending.

Amy was so worried about what Tara thought of her, that much of this book was spent on how she could one up her. I found it a bit tiresome after awhile and at points, the fact that she was taking things a bit too far on her revenge actually lowered my respect of her.

This book did come with a side dish of romance. I usually like it as the main course, however this one was sweet… once Amy got herself together.

The Narrator did a good job on the voices. She was clear and easy to listen too. It was a decent way to pass some time.

Elaine and her best friends Jackie and Pat decide to take a week's vacation at a cooking retreat. It's a retreat about farm to table cooking, something that doesn't appeal much to Elaine and after she meets the other people in the group, she is really not happy with the subject. Much to her dismay, the boyfriend that she just broke up with, shows up at the retreat to try to win her back. After a few days, Elaine finds out that someone plans to murder the celebrity chef who is leading the retreat. The police don't give her any help so she and her two friends make plans to stop the murder before it happens.

This is a perfect romantic comedy for the not so young. I enjoyed it - especially Elaine who had a great snarky side to her personality.

This is a sequel to Princess Charming but you can read it as a standalone without any confusion. Thanks to the author for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

transferring reading records from spreadsheet

Another of Jane Heller's lighthearted mysteries, as a cookbook editor with a golf-obsessed husband helps solve the murder of a feminist country club member.

A Chinese food book, almost forgotten an hour after I was through with it. Light, fluffy, entertaining. The whole concept of "Womenspeak" came off as quite condescending, and the main character not all that likable. It's odd, though, because by the end I was still enjoying the book.

The coincidence that dominates this story is ridiculous. It's revealed in the book jacket, but I won't spoil. A celebrity journalist in LA loses a big story and is banished back home to Middletown, where (gasp)... no, I won't spoil it. Didn't buy a word of it.½

The concept of two imperfect people coming together was appealing and well-written, yet the humor didn't seem to materialize as promised by other reviews.

This book, is about how two best friends became the worst enemies. The main character was engaded to some guy she was seeing for a few years. Comming home from work she ends up catching her best friend sleeping with her fiance. The best friend explains how they didnt mean to hurt her in anyway but they had feelings for each other and was gonna come and talk to the main character about it. The main character ends up canceling the wedding and ending her friendship with her best friend. 4 years has went by and the main character is jogging in the streets of new york city and bumbs into her ex-best friend. Her best friend look really good and probably was having a great life with her ex-fiance. The main character ends up lieing to her ex-best friend saying that she has been dating someone for the last 2 years... The main character is a book publisher at a big company. Later on the book she finds out that her ex-best friend is going to be her new client and would have to sell and publish her book. The main character is tottaly against it because she hates her and she doesn't want to make her ex-best friends life even bettter then her own. The ex-best friend invites the main character over to her new home with her ex-fiance and tell her to bring her long-term boyfriend with her. The main character brings along a client that's an author and is very snobby. She has to lie to her client and saying they are going on a date to watch a movie but they need to stop by this client of her to talk about the book. Which is not true. The ex-fiance and the ex-best friend are inlove with the client that the main character is dating. They love his books. Through out, their visit they end up staying over and have to sleep together in a room that only has 1 bed.

well im going to stop now, because basically im telling you the whole story, but this story is full of adventure, love and drama, and you will find out how the main character gets away with all the lies she says to her ex-best friend and her ex-fiance and how she deals with them. Read it its a really good book, i enjoyed it. :)

Funny story. Mother bugs daughter who is a struggling actress about getting married and finding Mr. Right. Then the mother becomes favous and a man tries to marry her for her money

I really enjoyed this book. It brought some of the 2007 heartbreak a little too close for comfort, but it also made me remember some of those I'd forgotten - the call ups, where are they now? Bronson Sardinha. Chris Britton. Some who heralded in a new era - Joba - some who need to permanently go back to Scranton - Hughes and Kennedy.

I loved that Heller finally got her man, and a fitting one. Glad he remembered her too and she got to meet a number of the Yankee family. Perfect book to bring in the new season with

nice read

Overall I didnt like this book. It was an easy read, only took me about three hours. The characters were good, not enough depth if you ask me. I liked the whole story line, but it would have been nice to evolve it more. It was written in first person, which made it hard for me to get into. I can't stand books in first person, and normally I don't read them.
The characters were cute. I loved the Aunt and the Mother. It reminds me of my family, minus the phobias. I loved the little girl, and the boy in the wheel chair.
It was great to see the character development in Ann. She went from this woman who joined a volunteer program to get a interview, to actually loving these people and caring.
I didn't like Malcolm at all. And I don't even know where to start on him.
I think this book would make a better movie than a book. And if it ever comes out in theaters I would be the first person to go see it.
Over all it just wasn't my cup of tea.½

Integrity's got Ann Roth down. As far as celebrity reporters go, she's rare. With honest, down-to-earth decency and sharp smarts, Ann's been top in her field for awhile. But according to her new sharp-nosed boss, these respectful and sweet ways no longer cut it. When he sends her on a mission to score a nearly-impossible interview with a reclusive Hollywood heart-throb and tells her to hone her "journalistic killer instinct (or else)" she goes for it. Unfortunately, "going for it" leave her with cheesecake in the face, a failed assignment and an anxiety attack. Humiliated and jobless, Ann returns to her hometown to live with her anxious family and to re-group.

Luckily, Ann gets another chance to prove her journalistic killer instinct: the reclusive hollywood heart-throb she failed to interview first time around checks into a hospital in her home town. Hungering to prove herself, Ann signs up as a volunteer to get close to him. Up until now, SOME NERVE has been laugh-out-loud funny, fast and entertaining; while it continues to be those things, here it also acquires some bittersweet depth. As Ann chases after the actor's story, she also begins to look closely at the other patients. Some her cynicism slackens, and Ann becomes softer and more real to readers. Not only does she fall for Malcolm, but she overcomes many of her fears by providing comfort to the sick; in helping the needy, she begins to find herself.

For me, this part of the book really transcended the fun and fast beginning (which I also loved), and became bigger than what I expected. Ultimately, Ann had to decide between her career and love, and it's a real mystery which she picks. While she felt like a fun friend before, I actually began to care about her character on a higher level when she's volunteering at the hospital and discovering herself.

SOME NERVE is light-hearted and a fun ride, but deals with some issues that set it apart from other similar reads. All in all, I loved it, and will definitely be recommending it to friends-- 4 1/2 stars!½

Pretty good, but not great. There were some good parts, and it moved quickly, but I did get frustrated with the formulaic way it was written. I like chick lit, and I know that means there is a lot of formula to it, but I do like a little ingenuity - you don't have to always follow the formula to the letter.
It did make me want to go volunteer at a hospital, though!

I was really hoping to like this book. But...
The first part of this book (it is divided into 3 parts) is just background information that the author needs to know, but as a reader, I did not.
The actual story of a rich wife, Allison, whose husband leaves her for his first wife and is forced to take a job as a maid where she is later accused of murdering her Devil Wears Prada-ish boss, doesn't even start until 88 pages into the book!

The rest of the book, while at least having the story to tell, is still rather boring and much too long.
Allison is not the most likeable character. She has an extremely annoying habit whenever something bad or unpleasant happens to her (like when a police officer is giving her a body cavity search) of thinking: "Quick! Quick! A joke! A joke!" After which she procedes to tell a knock-knock joke. She does this many, many times. It was very irritating.
This book desperately tries to be light and funny and, in my opinion, never once succeeds. If you're looking for a funny mystery to read, try Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series and leave Cha Cha Cha to dance solo.

Total page turner! LOVED IT!!!!

Possibly one of the worst book I've ever read. The whole storyline started of so well in this interesting premise of preschool teacher Nancy Stern taking on a blind date that wasn't meant for her, but was actually for the other, more glamorous, Nancy Stern that had just moved into the same building. Teacher Nancy seemed to be a stable, reasonable woman, and for this one time she acted on impulse to accept the date. But it went downhill from there, with Nancy becoming this neurotic, nagging, nosy, completely obnoxious character. Where did this drastic personality change come from? It became really bizarre when a murder was introduced into the story that took this plot in a bad direction. The men-bashing in the book was over-the-top as well, and the one guy that is propped up as the standard for men seemed way too understanding about all of the deception coming from Nancy and the fact that he would even tolerate her constant nagging is ridiculous.
The ending was so cheesy that I was constantly rolling my eyes.
It started out so well and had some potential for a fun read, but it just completely fell flat with its characters and plot. It's never a good thing when you can't stand the main character and feel no sympathy for anything that happens to her.

Dr. L. Wyman has to teach Toughest Boss to "woman speak"
Mildly humerous male vs females. Very readable

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