Summer Blowout by Claire Cook

Holy cow what is going on with me!!! I've been a ferocious reading beast lately! Maybe its the warm summer sun (*minus today's nasty weather*), but I have been eating up any novel I can get my hands on!

Last night I stacked up a pile of my recent purchases from the Oregon Coast trip last week on top of my nightstand and it just keeps growing! I think it took me maybe 3 days to read this book, and I really could have finished it in two. I absolutely LOVED this book. It was like sitting down to watch a favorite sitcom or chick-flick.

The author Claire Cook also wrote Must Love Dogs, which is the movie Jason and I saw the day we got engaged, and we had absolutely loved it. So I thought surely another book by the same author would be just as good if not better. And I was so right, Claire Cook did not disappoint! I loved all the girly descriptions of all the makeup Bella used on her clients, I should have kept a running list to actually try those colors out! It was very light reading and a perfect summer read. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good, fun chick-lit story.

Description: Bella Shaughnessy is addicted to lipstick with names like My Chihuahua Bites and Kiss My Lips, an occupational hazard, since she works as a stylist and makeup artist for her family's small chain of beauty salons in Marshbury, Massachusetts, along with her four half-brothers and -sisters. The owner is her father, Lucky Shaughnessy, a gregarious, three-times-divorced charmer with Donald Trump hair, who is obsessed with all things Italian and still carries a torch for his first wife, Bella's mother. After Bella's own marriage flames out spectacularly when her half-sister runs off with her husband, Bella decides she has seen enough of the damage love can do. She makes a vow: no more men.

Then Bella meets a cute entrepreneur at a college fair, and despite their bickering, they can't seem to stay away from each other. He also gives her a brilliant business idea, one that just might allow her to share her makeup expertise with the world. A small, well-tressed dog finds her way into her life, and her heart, and she decides to chance that, too. When the whole clan heads to Atlanta for a big Southern wedding, sparks fly--in a summer blowout no one will ever forget.

This hilarious, rambunctious novel is pure Claire Cook: full of juicy conflict and unconditional love.

Rating: *****

Recommend: to anyone that enjoys a light-hearted chick-lit novel.