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Lipstick Chronicles
The Lipstick Chronicles: Book One
The hilariously sexy chronicle of five women at work, at play, and in love.
Together, Elyssa, Alix, Dana, Carole, and Robyn make up Allheart.com, the online greeting card company where romance is more than just business. With lives in progress and love in limbo, they aren't asking for much. Just a decent man, a good cocktail, and a close friend. In the meantime, two out of three ain't bad.
Together, Elyssa, Alix, Dana, Carole, and Robyn make up Allheart.com, the online greeting card company where romance is more than just business. With lives in progress and love in limbo, they aren't asking for much. Just a decent man, a good cocktail, and a close friend. In the meantime, two out of three ain't bad.
448 pages, Paperback
First published November 4, 2003
1 person is currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Shay
174 books501 followersKathryn Shay is a lifelong writer. At fifteen, she penned her first 'romance,' a short story about a female newspaper reporter in New York City and her fight to make a name for herself in a world of male journalists - and with one hardheaded editor in particular. Looking back, Kathryn says she should have known then that writing was in her future. But as so often happens, fate sent her detouring down another path.
Fully intending to pursue her dream of big city lights and success in the literary world, Kathryn took every creative writing class available at the small private women's college she attended in upstate New York. Instead, other dreams took precedence. She met and subsequently married a wonderful guy who'd attended a neighboring school, then completed her practice teaching, a requirement for the education degree she never intended to use. But says Kathryn, "I fell in love with teaching the first day I was up in front of a class, and knew I was meant to do that."
Kathryn went on to build a successful career in the New York state school system, thoroughly enjoying her work with adolescents. But by the early 1990s, she'd again made room in her life for writing. It was then that she submitted her first manuscript to publishers and agents. Despite enduring two years of rejections, she persevered. And on a snowy December afternoon in 1994, Kathryn Shay sold her first book to Harlequin Superromance.
Since that first sale, Kathryn has written twenty-one books for Harlequin, nine mainstream contemporary romances for the Berkley Publishing Group, and two online novellas, which Berkley then published in traditional print format.
Kathryn has become known for her powerful characterizations - readers say they feel they know the people in her books - and her heart-wrenching, emotional writing (her favorite comments are that fans cried while reading her books or stayed up late to finish them). In testament to her skill, the author has won five RT BookClub Magazine Reviewers Choice Awards, three Holt Medallions, two Desert Quill Awards, the Golden Leaf Award, and several online accolades.
Even in light of her writing success, that initial love of teaching never wavered for Kathryn. She finished out her teaching career in 2004, retiring from the same school where her career began. These days, she lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children. "My life is very full," she reports, "but very happy. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to pursue and achieve my dreams."
Fully intending to pursue her dream of big city lights and success in the literary world, Kathryn took every creative writing class available at the small private women's college she attended in upstate New York. Instead, other dreams took precedence. She met and subsequently married a wonderful guy who'd attended a neighboring school, then completed her practice teaching, a requirement for the education degree she never intended to use. But says Kathryn, "I fell in love with teaching the first day I was up in front of a class, and knew I was meant to do that."
Kathryn went on to build a successful career in the New York state school system, thoroughly enjoying her work with adolescents. But by the early 1990s, she'd again made room in her life for writing. It was then that she submitted her first manuscript to publishers and agents. Despite enduring two years of rejections, she persevered. And on a snowy December afternoon in 1994, Kathryn Shay sold her first book to Harlequin Superromance.
Since that first sale, Kathryn has written twenty-one books for Harlequin, nine mainstream contemporary romances for the Berkley Publishing Group, and two online novellas, which Berkley then published in traditional print format.
Kathryn has become known for her powerful characterizations - readers say they feel they know the people in her books - and her heart-wrenching, emotional writing (her favorite comments are that fans cried while reading her books or stayed up late to finish them). In testament to her skill, the author has won five RT BookClub Magazine Reviewers Choice Awards, three Holt Medallions, two Desert Quill Awards, the Golden Leaf Award, and several online accolades.
Even in light of her writing success, that initial love of teaching never wavered for Kathryn. She finished out her teaching career in 2004, retiring from the same school where her career began. These days, she lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children. "My life is very full," she reports, "but very happy. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to pursue and achieve my dreams."
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 12, 2012
It started off good. The details and set up were good. It was the fact that it got split into different stories that made it go down hill. Each story got shorted and the author must have assumed that since the characters were mentioned in an earlier story that the character was already established, which was clearly not the case. I lost interested and tried over and over to get back into it. I'm not going to finish it at this point and it has never taken me a month to read a book unless I just decided it's too crappy to finish. I can count that on one hand.
July 14, 2012
There is no story for Dana. My favourite would be the last story about Alix and Marc Preston :)
July 20, 2020
Cheesy romance book with four stories. Passed the time but wasn’t anything outstanding.
June 28, 2015
Warning: This review is not going to be a positive one, I'm sorry!
The Lipstick Chronicles is a romance/erotica collection of short, interconnected stories about five women who run/work at a greeting card company. First issue for me was that neither the fact that it was romance nor the fact that it was four short stories is advertised on the book! I'm not a fan of romance or short stories, so if this was clear from the blurb on the back, I wouldn't have picked the book up to start with.
The other major (and I mean, MAJOR) issue with the blurb on the back is that one of the stories described there simply isn't in the book. The back cover describes it as a "hilariously sexy chronicle of five women", and goes on to describe each of the women in a small paragraph, along with their "story". Four of these correspond to the four stories in the book. The fifth, Dana's story, is apparently about the "queen of the one night stands" who decides to go celibate, but is falling for her celibacy mentor. This actually sounded the most interesting to me, but it is simply not in the book. At all. Dana appears once or twice, but literally no mention is made of the description on the back. I feel like it's just... missing.
Of the four stories that did make it from the cover to the pages, three are... typical romance. Dull, sappy, ridiculous and predictable. They involve impossibly perfect men who fall madly in love with the women either at first sight or within a day or two. Unrealistic and impossibly satisfying sex is quickly followed by some kind of misunderstanding, which is then solved to allow each of the women to skip off into the sunset with their new love. The shorts also included some of the typical sexism and misogyny that plagues this genre. Every single one of these apparently successful and smart women loses it within moments of meeting "their" man, and starts to act possessive and bizarre after the first date. Demanding to know where it's going, assuming that if he is so much as speaking to another women, it's grounds for ignoring, yelling, even throwing things at the poor man's head. Standard themes of being saved also run through the stories. Prepare for eye-rolling.
However, the final story, "Tumbling Down" actually went from eye-rollingly predictable "romance" into a very dangerous territory. The relationship here is between the company's graphic designer and an ad executive that is working with the company. First off, there are issues with the legality of these arrangements - he is simultaneously trying to convince her to come work for the agency AND boinking her brains out. Massively illegal ploy, and there would be huge ramifications about her going to work directly for him, but that doesn't bother anyone. In fact, her friends are egging her on (as were the friends of a character in another one of the stories, who decides to sleep with a potential investor. Because there is nothing wrong with that, apparently.). Even more disturbingly, the story continually and repeatedly romanticizes reluctance to the point of rape. Repeatedly, the main character tells the man in no uncertain terms that she doesn't want to sleep with him, that it's not ok because of their work connections, that it will not happen. Instead of respecting that in any way, he badgers her into admitting attraction to him, jumps on her to kiss her into submission, and even tells her that he is revoking the job offer! Words about reluctance and being "unable to resist" after he surprises her by leaping on her when she has already said no abound - it's supposed to be sexy, but it's just creepy. It's also quite terrifying to think that this is being romanticized for readers.
Finally, the last story has overtones of homophobia - because Alix's ex is gay, constant and inappropriate references to AIDS are made. Clearly the author needs to do some research on why, exactly, HIV isn't a "gay problem" and hasn't been considered one since the 70s (when it still shouldn't have been). This attitude made it extremely difficult to finish reading - I was left with a nasty taste in my mouth.
In conclusion, I expected a chick lit novel. I was promised five stories and given four. Three of the four were mindless and predictable drivel, and one romanticized non-consent and had strong homophobic undertones. I wouldn't recommend this novel, and I would love to know what on earth the "authors" were thinking. (Also to tell them about the many spelling errors. It's a printed book, for goodness' sake! An editor should have caught these, at least)
The Lipstick Chronicles is a romance/erotica collection of short, interconnected stories about five women who run/work at a greeting card company. First issue for me was that neither the fact that it was romance nor the fact that it was four short stories is advertised on the book! I'm not a fan of romance or short stories, so if this was clear from the blurb on the back, I wouldn't have picked the book up to start with.
The other major (and I mean, MAJOR) issue with the blurb on the back is that one of the stories described there simply isn't in the book. The back cover describes it as a "hilariously sexy chronicle of five women", and goes on to describe each of the women in a small paragraph, along with their "story". Four of these correspond to the four stories in the book. The fifth, Dana's story, is apparently about the "queen of the one night stands" who decides to go celibate, but is falling for her celibacy mentor. This actually sounded the most interesting to me, but it is simply not in the book. At all. Dana appears once or twice, but literally no mention is made of the description on the back. I feel like it's just... missing.
Of the four stories that did make it from the cover to the pages, three are... typical romance. Dull, sappy, ridiculous and predictable. They involve impossibly perfect men who fall madly in love with the women either at first sight or within a day or two. Unrealistic and impossibly satisfying sex is quickly followed by some kind of misunderstanding, which is then solved to allow each of the women to skip off into the sunset with their new love. The shorts also included some of the typical sexism and misogyny that plagues this genre. Every single one of these apparently successful and smart women loses it within moments of meeting "their" man, and starts to act possessive and bizarre after the first date. Demanding to know where it's going, assuming that if he is so much as speaking to another women, it's grounds for ignoring, yelling, even throwing things at the poor man's head. Standard themes of being saved also run through the stories. Prepare for eye-rolling.
However, the final story, "Tumbling Down" actually went from eye-rollingly predictable "romance" into a very dangerous territory. The relationship here is between the company's graphic designer and an ad executive that is working with the company. First off, there are issues with the legality of these arrangements - he is simultaneously trying to convince her to come work for the agency AND boinking her brains out. Massively illegal ploy, and there would be huge ramifications about her going to work directly for him, but that doesn't bother anyone. In fact, her friends are egging her on (as were the friends of a character in another one of the stories, who decides to sleep with a potential investor. Because there is nothing wrong with that, apparently.). Even more disturbingly, the story continually and repeatedly romanticizes reluctance to the point of rape. Repeatedly, the main character tells the man in no uncertain terms that she doesn't want to sleep with him, that it's not ok because of their work connections, that it will not happen. Instead of respecting that in any way, he badgers her into admitting attraction to him, jumps on her to kiss her into submission, and even tells her that he is revoking the job offer! Words about reluctance and being "unable to resist" after he surprises her by leaping on her when she has already said no abound - it's supposed to be sexy, but it's just creepy. It's also quite terrifying to think that this is being romanticized for readers.
Finally, the last story has overtones of homophobia - because Alix's ex is gay, constant and inappropriate references to AIDS are made. Clearly the author needs to do some research on why, exactly, HIV isn't a "gay problem" and hasn't been considered one since the 70s (when it still shouldn't have been). This attitude made it extremely difficult to finish reading - I was left with a nasty taste in my mouth.
In conclusion, I expected a chick lit novel. I was promised five stories and given four. Three of the four were mindless and predictable drivel, and one romanticized non-consent and had strong homophobic undertones. I wouldn't recommend this novel, and I would love to know what on earth the "authors" were thinking. (Also to tell them about the many spelling errors. It's a printed book, for goodness' sake! An editor should have caught these, at least)
August 8, 2011
A mixed bag--this is about a group of five women who start an electronic greeting card business and become fast friends in the meantime.
Elyssa, the CEO, is a workaholic overachiever who meets her match in the head of a VC they approach for second round funding.
Robyn, the "gofer," meets the man of her dreams, Steve, a pianist at a local bar.
My favorite was Carole's story--she's a divorcee, and somewhat cautious of relationships since her ex was such a needy guy. She's used to be the caretaker, and is unsure how to let someone take care of her. She meets Mitch, a senator's aide, and is tempted but he's quite a bit younger than she is...
The last story was about Alix, whose life is turned upside down when her perfect guy turns out to be gay.
I'm curious to read more, but am not dying to run down the next book in the series.
Elyssa, the CEO, is a workaholic overachiever who meets her match in the head of a VC they approach for second round funding.
Robyn, the "gofer," meets the man of her dreams, Steve, a pianist at a local bar.
My favorite was Carole's story--she's a divorcee, and somewhat cautious of relationships since her ex was such a needy guy. She's used to be the caretaker, and is unsure how to let someone take care of her. She meets Mitch, a senator's aide, and is tempted but he's quite a bit younger than she is...
The last story was about Alix, whose life is turned upside down when her perfect guy turns out to be gay.
I'm curious to read more, but am not dying to run down the next book in the series.
October 4, 2019
Allheart.com is a greeting card company getting big. Each of the stories tell about one of the principals in the company.
"Men at Work" by Kathryn Shay is about Elyssa Wentworth CEO and investor Joe Monteigne.
"By a Nose" by Fiona Kelly is about Robyn Barret, the pleasure loving secretary, and her wild crush on musician/computer programmer Steve Rood.
"Landslide" by Vivian Leiber is about Carole Titus, the divorced sales manager and Mitch Evans - Colorado congressional aid/senate apointee.
"Tumbling Down" by Lynn Emery is the worst of the lot, about Alix Harris - graphic designer and Marcus Preston, a marketing guru. Alix's long time boyfriend dumps her because he's decided he's gay - bad.
Some sex.
"Men at Work" by Kathryn Shay is about Elyssa Wentworth CEO and investor Joe Monteigne.
"By a Nose" by Fiona Kelly is about Robyn Barret, the pleasure loving secretary, and her wild crush on musician/computer programmer Steve Rood.
"Landslide" by Vivian Leiber is about Carole Titus, the divorced sales manager and Mitch Evans - Colorado congressional aid/senate apointee.
"Tumbling Down" by Lynn Emery is the worst of the lot, about Alix Harris - graphic designer and Marcus Preston, a marketing guru. Alix's long time boyfriend dumps her because he's decided he's gay - bad.
Some sex.
January 14, 2008
Just like a relationship, sometimes, you ended up with the wrong person! So is with this book! I bought it at Border, Singapore. I've to admit that I don't have much time to scrutinize (yes,scrutinize)the store to find my "soulmate" and ended up buying this totally boring book!
But, sometimes, you just got to put up with the bore. Sometimes, we had to meet the wrong person in order to prepare ourselves for the right one.
Back to the book. Don't be discouraged by my mean comment! Some people might found the book interesting. So I'll leave it up to you. But still, to be honest, this one is definitely not my soulmate!
But, sometimes, you just got to put up with the bore. Sometimes, we had to meet the wrong person in order to prepare ourselves for the right one.
Back to the book. Don't be discouraged by my mean comment! Some people might found the book interesting. So I'll leave it up to you. But still, to be honest, this one is definitely not my soulmate!
March 3, 2009
The hilariously sexy chronicle of five women at work, at play, and in love.
Together, Elyssa, Alix, Dana, Carole, and Robyn make up Allheart.com, the online greeting card company where romance is more than just business. With lives in progress and love in limbo, they aren't asking for much. Just a decent man, a good cocktail, and a close friend. In the meantime, two out of three ain't bad.
Together, Elyssa, Alix, Dana, Carole, and Robyn make up Allheart.com, the online greeting card company where romance is more than just business. With lives in progress and love in limbo, they aren't asking for much. Just a decent man, a good cocktail, and a close friend. In the meantime, two out of three ain't bad.
January 8, 2010
+I liked how the women worked at an online greeting card company!
-Unrealistic, cheesy, predictable.
-Dana's story wasn't in the book at all.
+/-The first two stories were OK and much better than the last two.
-Unrealistic, cheesy, predictable.
-Dana's story wasn't in the book at all.
+/-The first two stories were OK and much better than the last two.
November 19, 2015
Eh. Not that jazzed by this book. I finished it because I can't not finish a book once I've started. All four stories were predictable. And all the same. Just different characters. Just glad it's over.
August 23, 2007
I liked this book except for the very last section. I couldn't relate to it and I felt it was written poorly. Almost made the whole book a waste of time.
July 21, 2008
Fun quick read. I liked how the book was divided into sections with different stories about each character.
January 28, 2009
A quick, easy read. Purely entertainment as the stories that each of these women have aren't very realistic!
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January 31, 2009Classic "Chick-Lit" :)
May 10, 2009
Bluch, bluch, bluch - it made me want to gag. I can't believe I actually read this book. The only slightly redeeming factor about it were the references to places in DC. Do not read this book!
October 26, 2009
annoying, all 4 stories were basically identical.
April 23, 2011
Nice bit of fluff.
May 1, 2014
very good. now I'm wondering what is going to happen with Dana?
January 25, 2008
Super cute chick lit :-)
April 18, 2017
Awful. Just plain awful. Especially the last one.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews