When Megan Crane(like me, she’s a Southerner now living in California) stepped into the literary light last year with her debut novel, English as a Second Language, Kirkus called it “an engrossing, intelligent read never lacking in drama or humor.” Now she’s back with a second novel, Everyone Else’s Girl, just released on the brand new Warner Books imprint 5 SPOT. About the book: Meredith McKay has gone to a lot of trouble to create the picture-perfect life for herself—far away from her troublesome family, thank you. When her father’s car accident forces her back to her hometown, however,...

Read more »

Lauren Baratz-Logsted stops by with this week’s offering: It’s been a crap week for reading. Of the eight books I’ve read since last I was here, there’s only one worth mentioning, As Hot as It Was, You Ought to Thank Me, by Nanci Kincaid, a coming-of-age story. In my own debut novel, The Thin Pink Line, crazy Jane Taylor, an editor bemoaning the current state of publishing submissions, says, “And then of course there were the gadzillions upon gadzillions of coming-of-age stories that kept streaming in like so many lemmings headed for the cliffs; I mean, didn’t any of...

Read more »