Summer Blowout

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.

Bella Shaughnessy is addicted to lipstick with names like My Chihuahua Bites and Kiss My Lips-an occupational hazard, since she works at Salon de Paolo, her family-run beauty salon, 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. 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. But then Bella meets a cute entrepreneur, and despite their bickering, they can't seem to stay away from each other. A small, well-tressed dog also finds her way into Bella's 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.

Publishers Weekly

Cook updates the themes of love and disenchantment that drove Life's a Beachand Must Love Dogsin 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)

"Late starter" Claire Cook is an inspiration for aspiring writers and women in midlife transition. She wrote her first novel when she was in her 40s, sitting in her minivan at 5 AM, waiting for her daughter to emerge from swim practice! Since then, she's gone on to limn the lives of plucky middle-aged women in a series of bestselling romantic comedies like Must Love Dogs.