Virtually Perfect - Pub Day Review & Giveaway

Review by Deb Czajkowski

People are saying Lizzie Glass is washed up, a ‘has been’, not marketable anymore, and Lizzie can’t very well disagree with them.  It’s been five years since she had her successful television show and her cookbook deal.  Today she’s no longer a celebrity, no longer in demand.  Invitations to parties and events stopped arriving ages (and ages!) ago.  And now her magazine column is being canceled.

Unemployed and seriously in need of income ─and some distance between her and New York would be a breath of fresh air as well─ Lizzie accepts the only paying job on her proverbial (kitchen) table: personal chef for wealthy Jim and Kathryn Silvester at their beach house ─correction: beach mansion!─ on the Jersey Shore.

Creative challenges are Lizzie’s specialty, thank goodness, because the Silvesters have very specific requirements. Jim loves meat but shouldn’t have it.  He’s only at the beach house on weekends, so that’s a help, but every weekend the Silvesters seem to throw a theme party.  Kathryn “I only eat paleo” seems to live for her parties, keeping everyone’s glass (especially hers) full. Son Nate supposedly only eats pizza and not the paleo kind! Daughter Zoe has her one gluten free cupboards that apparently have invisible do-not-touch signs on them.  But that’s not her only obsession. Zoe also has a website she calls The Clean Life, but the entire site smells more than a little fishy.

Lizzie soon discovers that challenge ─the verb─ may be the key word for this summer. Look out Lizzie!  Look out Silvesters!  The gauntlet(s) will be thrown down!

Virtually Perfect is a smorgasbord for reader. The life of the rich (if not famous). Great food menus for foodies (I do love good food!). Family drama (always good fodder for laughs). Intrigue (Who doesn’t love a mystery?). And romance (duh!). Author Paige Robert’s novel has it all.

No matter the month, reading a good book is always in season.  But as the temps drop and the leaves begin to fall, this is a great time to read Virtually Perfect. Just maybe it’ll remind you of the fun times you had this summer; help you laugh over family mishaps; encourage you to seek out fall flavors for fabulous foods; show you that life is messy ─everyone’s life─ at one time or another; make you smile as only love can do.

Fun and funny. Tasty and tempting. Drama and dilemma. Life and love.  Virtually Perfect.

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About the author:

Paige Roberts is a writer, journalist and author of the forthcoming novel, VIRTUALLY PERFECT. A graduate of Yale University and Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, she lives outside Philadelphia with her family and an ever-expanding collection of cookbooks.

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Kensington Books is giving one winner

A print copy of Virtually Perfect by Paige Roberts

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The Confectioner's Tale - Pub Day Giveaway

A sensual tale, set in Paris, of love against all odds, family secrets, and the art of confectionery.

At the famous Patisserie Clermont, a chance encounter with the owner's daughter has given one young man a glimpse into a life he never knew existed: of sweet cream and melted chocolate, golden caramel and powdered sugar, of pastry light as air. But it is not just the art of confectionery that holds him captive, and soon a forbidden love affair begins.

Almost eighty years later, an academic discovers a hidden photograph of her grandfather as a young man with two people she has never seen before. Scrawled on the back of the picture are the words “Forgive me.” Unable to resist the mystery behind it, she begins to unravel the story of two star-crossed lovers and one irrevocable betrayal.

A literary mystery and love story, The Confectioner’s Tale is as pleasurable as the finest French patisserie.

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About the author:

After a childhood spent acting professionally and training at a theatre school, LAURA MADELEINE changed her mind and went to study English Literature at Newnham College, Cambridge. The author of The Confectioner's Tale, she now writes fiction, as well as recipes, and was formerly the resident cake baker for Domestic Sluttery. She lives in Bristol, but can often be found visiting her family in Devon, eating cheese, and getting up to mischief with her sister, fantasy author Lucy Hounsom. She lives in the UK.

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Thomas Dunne Books is giving

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The Confectioner’s Tale by Laura Madeleine

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P.S From Paris - promo & giveaway

On the big screen, Mia plays a woman in love. But in real life, she’s an actress in need of a break from her real-life philandering husband—the megastar who plays her romantic interest in the movies. So she heads across the English Channel to hide in Paris behind a new haircut, fake eyeglasses, and a waitressing job at her best friend’s restaurant.

Paul is an American author hoping to recapture the fame of his first novel. When his best friend surreptitiously sets him up with Mia through a dating website, Paul and Mia’s relationship status is “complicated.”

Even though everything about Paris seems to be nudging them together, the two lonely ex-pats resist, concocting increasingly far-fetched strategies to stay “just friends.” A feat easier said than done, as fate has other plans in store. Is true love waiting for them in a postscript?

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About the author:

Marc Levy was born in France. When he turned eighteen, he joined the Red Cross, where he spent the next six years. In 1983, he created a computer graphics company based in France and the United States. Six years later, he co-founded an interior design and planning company with two friends; the company soon became one of the leading architecture firms in France.

At thirty-seven, Marc Levy wrote a story for the man that his son would grow up to be. In early 1999, his sister, a screenwriter (now a film director), encouraged him to send the manuscript to a French publisher, who immediately decided to publish If Only It Were True. Before it was published, Steven Spielberg (Dreamworks) acquired film rights to the novel. The movie, Just like Heaven, starring Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo, was a #1 box office hit in America in 2005.

After If Only It Were True, Marc Levy began writing full-time. Since then, he has written 18 novels. His work has been translated into 49 languages and has sold over 40 million copies worldwide. 

Marc Levy currently lives in New York City.

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