Lynda Curnyn is a native New Yorker who hasn't migrated very far from her Brooklyn birthplace. She grew up on Long Island and has since made Manhattan her home.
After getting a liberal arts degree from New College at Hofstra University, she went on to New York University for her master's degree in English Literature, even contemplated a Ph.D until she realized she didn't want to spend her 20s in the library. So she did what all good English majors do-she went into publishing. Now, after more than a decade of working with some of the top authors in women's fiction, she has settled down to her dream life of full-time writing. In between plotting novels and stories, Lynda enjoys hanging out with her family, dishing with her girlfriends, and summers spent on Fire Island.
Enjoyable Chick lit. Curnyn enfuses her characters with a believable vunerability. In this story, Grace Noonan is a single woman working for an upscale cosmetics firm in New York City. Realising suddenly and painfully that her current boyfriend is not interested in a permanent future and feeling a surprising yearning for a child, the story starts with her breakup. Grace moves on quickly, as she has developed a wall of protection over the years and an ability to make pre-emptive strikes - breaking up with her boyfriends before they can break up with her. This wall has grown because of a string of men who have an interest in having her their bed, but not in their lives. On top of that, she is adopted, searching for her real mother, who has not replied to her letter asking to meet. There is a little more depth to this character than some others in chick-lit. A sequel to "Engaging Men", though it can be read alone without having read the first one.
The best thing that came out of this book, for me, is the following: "So long as a woman has twinkles in her eyes, no man notices she has wrinkles under them."
I can relate to most points that were brought to the table by the author, but the pacing and the general plotting made this a forced read, an unfortunately, not a very easy, careless and carefree one, as one would expect from a chick.lit romance.
This book is a good way to pass time. While some parts of the story are intriguing, especially the protagonist's relationship with Dr. Somerfield, it could have been written better. Also, while it was obvious the author was trying to offer closure at the end of the book, it was rather abrupt and ruined what little momentum the book had going for it.
Thirty-something year old Grace Noonan has just dumped her boyfriend Ethan because he's made it perfectly clear that he doesn't want to have a baby with her. From that point, she embarks on a little bit of soul searching.
BOMBSHELL had a lot of gusto. In this novel, our heroine has realistic insecurities and real life issues. Struggling with the emptiness she feels from losing the biological mother she's never known, her psychologist swears that every negative issue or concern that comes her way has something to do with this unfortunate event.
On top of it all, she watches as the only man who she's ever really had any true feeling for, marry a woman for the same exact reason he broke it off with her. Grace begins to slowly but surely take life with a grain of salt. Grasping the realism that it is quite alright to be a buxom, bodacious blonde, who doesn't have the perfect body, life, or outlook on dealing with the male species, Grace is the perfect example of the caterpillar turning into the beautiful butterfly.
But of course, there is always the prince charming that comes along and steals our protagonist's heart away. This is where Dr. Jonathan Sommerfield comes in. Her relationship with the good doctor is one that is best left with minimal details, as it is a relationship that the author has put together so adequately. The way the two evolved into such growing individuals just by being with each other was so sweet!
I didn't read ENGAGING MEN prior to picking up BOMBSHELL. Not having the background on the characters prior, wasn't a problem for me as much as it was for a few other readers. I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Grace Noonan is a 34 year old career girl who finds herself longing for more than the stream of non-committal men in her life. She wants to be recognized for her talent at work. She wants to hear from her birth mother whom she recently found. She even finds herself wanting to have a baby! We follow Grace's antics in the cosmetic world and with a young colleague of her father, Tom, who- even though a fashion-backwards professor - does something to her that she can't explain, or resist.
It's nice to read a book when you already know the characters. But, you could pick this up without having read "Engaging Men" and still enjoy it just as much. Grace is a wonderful character, with real reactions to everyday problems. I like that the book ends without tying-up all (or any) of her loose ends too. It shows that the point is being happy for yourself and with yourself and everything else will fall into place. I'm hoping a sequel will come at some point.
Okay so my foray into "chick lit" is not going well. This book was better than "Good in Bed" but not quite as good as "Something Borrowed". All three of them were overall just OK! Just OK is not what I am looking for in a book.
There really isn't a lot to say about this book because it was boring and didn't have a lot of meat to it. I am so glad that I bought these books at a used bookstore because I only paid half-price and now I can (hopefully) sell them back and hopefully save someone else from spending full price on them.
The only good part of this book was the fledgling romance between the main character and her newly widowed professor boyfriend. Probably th only part that kept me reading.
I read this book fairly quick. It had my interest from the beginning however there was some "whining" I could have done without. I think that is my biggest peeve about Chick Lits. The authors seem to feel that having the main character whine about their life is going to make it seem like real life. Instead it makes me irritated and will make me put the book down. For Grace's age and how many men she had bedded by the time she was 35, she was a complete whiner on her age and where she was in her life. Yes she thought she had a fabulous job and so much money, but her happiness was completely missing. I did finish the book and it was a good book.
Grace Noonan doesn,t have it all. Her latest boyfriend has just revealed he doesn,t want to have babies with her forcing her to move on yet again. And now her employer a top cosmetics company has decided to enter into the youth cosmetics market instead of just concentrating on the women over thirty market. This 34 year old marketing exec is starting to wonder if she is ever going to get it all.Or should she leave the beauty race and focus on the sperm bank. Is there something she has yet to discover about life and love in New York.
Typical chick lit book. I, however, found myself relating to Grace more than I've really ever related to another chick lit heroine. At one point she says that she's sick of men wanting her in their beds but not their lives. I know that feeling all too well. So to read about a woman who feels the same is somewhat refreshing. I want more of her story. I want to know if anything happens with Jonathan. I want to know how things at work pan out. So many unanswered questions.
Grace Noonan had pages in which to develop some depth of character -- her conflicted search for her birth mother, her cut-short relationships with men, her consuming career goals. All this was diluted in the pages the author decided to spend on shopping sprees and on decisions of what to pull out of the closet for Grace's next event.
At times, this book read like a fashion catalog. Highly recommended but only if that is what you enjoy reading most!
While this book has some of the normal trappings of a regular romance novel, it actually got better the more I read. The book becomes much more about love and loss rather than the typical romance novel. The book encourages the participants to come to terms with their past losses in order to move on with life. While there is certainly a romantic tone to the book, it is more than that and I found it an enjoyable story.
Please don't ask me to tell you exactly what this book was about or to give you a detailed account as I won't be able to. This was borrowed from my library quite a few years ago and I only have vague recollections of enjoying it while it lasted. I want to say that this main female lead was suppose to be bigger than average but by no means fat, yet I might be mixing it with another book with a similar cover. I wonder why I never did seek out other books by this author....
The best thing that came out of this book, for me, is the following: "So long as a woman has twinkles in her eyes, no man notices she has wrinkles under them."
I can relate to most points that were brought to the table by the author, but the pacing and the general plotting made this a forced read, an unfortunately, not a very easy, careless and carefree one, as one would expect from a chick.lit romance.
It was okay, but sometimes I felt as though the writer was trying to trick us into thinking she was pregnant. Also, I felt as though more could have been developed between her and her sister. I also got really annoyed with the young clebrity, and could never really see her importance.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This was a cute book, and I liked that the main character was unabashedly hot and sexy, instead of the usual self-deprecating cute girl characters these books usually have.