Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary [Paperback]

Monica Nolan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2007

Wild Women! Lurid Adventures! Shocking Desires! And A Lot Of Filing.

The story your mother never told you--printed here for your own good.

Lois Lenz was like any other wholesome former cheerleader with a knack for office skills--until she took a job at Sather & Sterling in bustling Bay City. Spending her days in the cut-throat typing pool and her nights at the all-women's residence of Magdalena Arms, Lois had no idea she was entering a world of working girls whose passionate desires--and fabulous fashion sense--could lead any innocent lamb astray...

Netta--serious and smart, she's unlike any woman Lois has known...

Maxie--The height of society fashion, and girls are so very in style...

Pamela--Lois's old high school Pep Squad pal certainly has changed...

Miss Gill--the office manager has secrets and plenty of file cabinets to keep them in...

Dolly--an actress whose martini shaker is as busy as her love life...

Mrs. Pierson--"The hyena," Lois's boss, her office is a place of hard work and private dictation...

And many more!

Lois Lenz--she was a good girl a long way from home about to discover that not everything is what it seems, navy is a bad suit choice, and love can bloom in the strangest of places...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Unabashedly campy and titillating, Nolan's debut novel (after short story collection The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories) is a tale of 1950s lesbian career girls loose in the big city. Innocent suburban cheerleader Lois Lenz is thrilled when her guidance counselor suggests she forgo junior college and take a secretarial position in nearby Bay City. Leaving behind Faye, her best friend and kissing practice partner, Lois rents a room at the Magdalena Arms, a once reputable boarding house for career girls that has fallen into disrepair. As the personal secretary to the cutthroat ad exec Mrs. Pierson, Lois must juggle her new career with her new friends and their search for the truth behind the disappearance of the girl who once lived in Lois's room. Lois eventually partakes in a few Sapphic trysts before realizing her true deviant nature (as she puts it). Nolan effortlessly parodies the world of the career girl and tries to do for the growing lesbian pulp genre what Hammett and Chandler did for the private dick novels of the 1940s. While its appeal will be limited, this is a must-read for any fan of steamy pulp fiction. (Aug.)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 246 pages
• Publisher: Kensington (August 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0758214227
• ISBN-13: 978-0758214225
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,045,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Teasing, tantalizing, promising--but never really delivers, October 11, 2007

By 

labellepersonne (Midwest USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary (Paperback)

This book was not what I expected. From the cover and the blurbs on the back of the book--I thought it was going to be both lurid and hilarious--it is neither.

The book is mildly interesting in a Nancy Drew sort of way.

Apparently it is merely a take off on the pulp fiction from the 1950's minus, thank goodness, the usual negativity that accompanied those books. However, it fails to deliver any real erotica, nor did I find it particularly humorous.

The book is a little slow paced at the beginning and lapses into complete silliness towards the end.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So much fun!, September 20, 2007

By 

greenegret (Chapel Hill, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary (Paperback)

This book was so much fun to read! I really enjoyed her book of short stories - even if the title WAS too embarrassing to read it on the airplane in public after I bought it in the airport bookstore - but this one was even better.

Her characters were funny and sweet (most of them), nobody was irredeemable, and she had the tone and dialect perfect for books actually written in the era this was set in.

Anyone who likes Mabel Maney's parodies of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys will love these. They're completely different - much more erotic, even though they certainly are PG-13 - but the era and the tone are very similar. Anyone who enjoys those old pulp novels will like this, too - she cleverly uses a lot of the old standard themes and settings.

I really hope that she writes some more like this, even if she doesn't do a true sequel.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just a rollicking good time, September 16, 2007

By 

Kathleen C. Adkins "Desmodia" (Westchester County, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary (Paperback)

This was a great, fun read. Monica has a word-perfect ear for the mores of the 50's, when I grew up, from fear of Commies to cheerleader routines. Her sly, tongue-in-cheek take on the worldlification of a young girl made me laugh out loud.

For a good time, read...