Summer Blowout [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Claire Cook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2009

A good makeup artist never panics. Bella Shaughnessy knows this. She's the resident makeup maven in a family of Boston Irish hair salon owners; she has an artful solution to almost every problem. But Bella feels bruised beyond the reach of even the best concealer when her half-sister runs off with her husband. What could she come up with to cover a hurt like that?

Plenty, it turns out. She conceives an invigorating new business idea, and soon meets a cute entrepreneur who can help out. Despite their bickering, they can't seem to stay away from success - or from each other.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Cook updates the themes of love and disenchantment that drove Life's a Beach and Must Love Dogs in her latest beacher. Bella Shaughnessy, a makeup artist whose solace in times of hardship is finding just the right lipstick to match her mood, gets a divorce and quits men after discovering that her husband of 10 years has been seeing her younger half-sister, Sophia. During a wedding job, she gets stuck with dog-sitting Precious (who looked kind of like a flying squirrel) and quickly gets so attached that she takes drastic measures to keep the dog. Can other kinds of attachment be far behind, as cute and easygoing Sean Ryan enters the picture? Sufficient comedy and romance keep readers entertained until the last page. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Bella Shaughnessy and her large extended family, including ex-wives and half-siblings, all work in her father’s chain of Boston salons as hairdressers and makeup artists. While business is up, the same cannot be said for Bella, since her half-sister Sophia is now dating her ex-husband Craig. Sophia also gets all the good clients, prepping senators for TV while Bella is stuck with ungrateful brides who leave their dogs and wild kids with her to babysit. She meets an entrepreneur named Sean Ryan at a career fair who gets under her skin as he simultaneously gives her an idea for a business venture to separate her from her crowded family of stylists. Bella struggles to find her place within her family and ease herself into the idea of a new relationship while always finding the right shade of lipstick for her mood. A brisk story, Summer Blowout is primed, like Cook’s previous novel Must Love Dogs (2002), to become a big-screen romantic comedy. --Hilary Hatton --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Voice; Reprint edition (April 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401340954
• ASIN: B002KHMZSG
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #132,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I can't believe I have 8 novels, with a 9th, Wallflower in Bloom, coming from Simon & Schuster Touchstone in June 2012! I also have one husband, two kids, one dog, and 7 brothers and sisters and I'm the bestselling author of Best Staged Plans, Seven Year Switch, The Wildwater Walking Club, Summer Blowout, Life's a Beach, Multiple Choice, Ready to Fall, and Must Love Dogs, which became a Warner Bros. movie starring Diane Lane and John Cusack.

I hope you'll visit http://ClaireCook.com, where you can read excerpts of all my novels and find book club questions. And make sure you check out my writing and reinvention pages, where I share everything I've learned so far.

Come hang out with me on my Facebook author page, too: http://www.facebook.com/ClaireCookauthorpage.

And follow me at http://Twitter.com/ClaireCookwrite. I'll follow you back!

Okay, here's the rest of my story:

After decades of procrastination, I wrote my first novel in my minivan outside my daughter's swim practice at five in the morning. It was published when I was 45, and at 50 I walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of the adaptation of my second novel. Midlife rocks! I love telling my story, because I think so many women (and a few good men!) have buried dreams like mine. My advice: dust them off and go for it!

I love speaking to groups, and teaching reinvention workshops for women coming into their own at midlife. I love writing novels and feel incredibly lucky to get to do it for a living -- this is the career I almost didn't have!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Claire Cook Has Done It Again, June 5, 2008

By 

Violet Quill (Waltham, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Summer Blowout (Hardcover)

Claire Cook has done it again! It seems as though she's created her own genre: wonderful. moving, and breezy summer reads. How could anyone resist Bella Shaughnessy, the newly single entrepreneur who, after swearing off men, finds herself falling for one? I've always appreciated comfort food; what I didn't know until I read Claire Cook's novels is that there was such a thing as comfort reads. She's the sort of writer who hides her great talents behind her all-too-human characters, almost all of whom operate from a profound sense of goodwill and, despite their trials and tribulations, optimism. You can't finish this book without a smile on your face and a burning desire to read more Claire Cook novels.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Summer Blowout, June 3, 2008

By 

A. Foglia - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summer Blowout (Hardcover)

"Summer Blowout" is about Bella, a hairdresser, in an Irish (spelled I-t-a-l-i-a-n) family of hairdressers. The story is similar to a perfectly seasoned marinara sauce; with a pinch of hope, heartache, determination, wit and love -- with an extra pinch of humor (to "boot"). For dessert there is the little dog named, Cannoli, that Bella adopts--sort of. It's a great read and even has some cosmetic tips I found useful. I really enjoyed it!!

--A Foglia

SUMMER BLOWOUT

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Summer Read!!, July 10, 2008

By 

Janice A. Belmonte "janb" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summer Blowout (Hardcover)

Claire Cook has again succeeded in creating a funny, nostalgic and satisfying summer read. This book has all the ingredients you want to accompany a beach chair and a few cans of cold beer on an afternoon ALONE at the beach; romance, slapstick comedy, family relationships and by the way, a few good tips on starting a new business and doing your own marketing. I not only greatly enjoyed this story, I learned something while I was at it! I love the way Claire develops characters through dialogue - it makes them come alive and also makes them soooo real. I loved Bella, the heroine. She so reminds me of one of my best friends - she says the things I aways want to say but can't quite bring myself to blurt out. Claire, I've read all your books so far and can't wait for the next one. You are living my dream!