Talk Gertie to Me [Mass Market Paperback]

Lois Winston (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Nori Stedworth is having one heck of a day. After getting splashed with burrito sauce and muddy water on the streets of New York, she heads to her boyfriend's apartment and discovers him in the Jacuzzi with one of her best friends. Homeward bound to her tiny apartment, she finds her mother waiting for her, having left her father in Ten Commandments, Iowa. And that's not the end of Nori's terrible day: the company she works for is folding. Then, just when she needs her, an old childhood companion reappears: Nori's imaginary friend, Gertie. Gertie's acerbic comments help Nori cope, and when handsome Mackenzie Randolph accidentally reads Gertie's offbeat and off-color journal entries, he offers Gertie her own talk show on his radio station. Suddenly, Nori becomes a huge success, but what will her parents say? Whimsical, funny, and original, Winston's small-town-girl-makes-good romance shouldn't be missed. Maria Hatton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 305 pages
• Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Company (April 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0505526840
• ISBN-13: 978-0505526847
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,257,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

At the age of twelve, I wanted to be an astronaut, but NASA wasn't interested in astronauts who suffered from motion sickness. So I set my sights on Broadway. No go. Broadway only wants singers who can sing and dancers who can dance. Who knew? Lucky for me, I enjoyed drawing. Luckier still, I was good at it. I settled on art school and a subsequent career as a writer and designer in the consumer crafts industry. Then I got the urge to write fiction, and a new career was born.

In my new series, The Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, I've combined my love of writing with my love of designing by creating an amateur sleuth who works as the crafts editor at a women's magazine. The first book in the series, ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN, will be released January 1, 2011. In the meantime, you can come meet and get to know Anastasia and the gang over at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers (www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com) where they blog daily. And I hope you'll stop by my newly redesigned website at www.loiswinston.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Laughter, wit and a touch of womanly wisdom!, April 5, 2006

By 

Cy Korte (Wisconsin Rapids, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Talk Gertie to Me (Mass Market Paperback)

Nori Stedworth is having a "bad" day. What can an out of work data-source hunter do when she walks in on her best friend - make that ex-best friend and her almost fiancée in bed? When her mother walks in unannounced on the run from her husband and Ten Commandments Kansas -I mean Iowa, where ever? Bad things come in three right? That's when a "grumpy hunk" accidentally swaps laptop computers at the local coffee shop.

Mac Randolph is going to lose his job if he can't come up with a new voice for his radio station. Now he know he has found the New Voice IF he can just meet her. So Mac spends time at the local coffee shop hoping to find the owner of the laptop he accidentally took.

Mayhem and chaos are the general condition of the day for Mac and Nori. Between trying to get her mom back home, keeping her new job quite and starting a new love interest Nori hand are full. Oh yeah, did I tell you Nori's father shows to find her mother making a bellybutton casting with Hyman Perth.

TALK GERTIE TO ME is Ms Winston's debut book. Laughter, wit and just a touch of womanly wisdom gives the book a fresh take. After reading this book you can say "Yeah, I have had days like that." Well, just pull up a chair and join the club and laugh along with the rest of us and Gertie.

Reviewed for eBookIsle.com by Michele

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humor with a twist, June 21, 2006

By 

Caridad Pineiro "NY Times and USA Today Bests... (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Talk Gertie to Me (Mass Market Paperback)

The cover caught my eye not just because it was pink, but because of the great title. What was inside the cover didn't disappoint. The story has a mix of a things including Gertie, an imaginary childhood friend who returns to help Nora through her crises. Add a menopausal mom, a handsome man and unexpected success and this book doesn't stop making you chuckle. The witty dialogue and different story line are sure to grab you until the very end and leave you with a smile.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it!, April 26, 2006

By 

Detra Fitch (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Talk Gertie to Me (Mass Market Paperback)

Honora "Nori" Stedworth thought she had it all. She lived in a garden level apartment in Manhattan, has a rich dermatologist boyfriend, and a good job at a dot-com. Then, in the space of only a few hours, Nori finds her boyfriend cavorting in the Jacuzzi with her supposedly best friend, she gets laid off from work, and her mother flies in for an indefinite visit. To cope, Nori does what she did when she had been little; she has a conversation with her imaginary friend named Gertie. Gertie is Nori's sarcastic side with some pretty snappy come-backs. Sounds harmless, right?

Enter Mackenzie "Mac" Randolph. Mac is the station manager for WBAT radio. WBAT is the Big Apple's talk radio, which focuses totally on men and sports. Due to a computer mix-up, Mac and Nori end up taking the radio station by storm. Nori is now the hottest thing on radio with her talk show "Gertie Gets Even". As Gertie, Nori tells men exactly what about them annoys women. And the ratings soar. But Nori is not the only one in the family getting famous.

Constance "Connie" Stedworth is tired of living in the shadow of her husband. Her husband, Earnest, is the mayor of their home town called Ten Commandments, Iowa. Earnest refuses to leave the 1950s and runs the town and his family the same way. Connie leaves Ten Commandments for various reasons and her entrepreneurial side comes out. Connie becomes famous as the "Belly Button Artist to the Stars." But by following their dreams will Connie lose her husband and will Nori become the family's black sheep?

***** Absolutely hilarious! At one point of the book I tried to read the story out loud, with different voices for each character. But I could not keep a straight face and I kept snickering. This novel is like two stories in one. Nori and Connie take turns telling what is going on in their lives. Oh, and the secondary characters are just as colorful as the main ones! After all, the setting IS in New York, where colorful characters abound and anything can happen (and usually does with frequency). I am hopeful that Reese may get her own story told one day. Author Lois Winston deserves a standing ovation for this gem! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.