I'm pleased to be a part of Meredith's tour for her latest novel, Blogger Girl, a fabulous and fun chick-lit read.
**Everyone who leaves a comment on the tour page will be entered to win a $20 Amazon gift card! Anyone who purchases their copy of Blogger Girl before November 25 and sends their receipt to Samantha (at) ChickLitPlus (dot) com, will get five bonus entries.**
Summary
What happens when your high school nemesis becomes the shining star in a universe you pretty much saved? Book blogger Kimberly Long is about to find out. A chick lit enthusiast since the first time she read “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” Kim, with her blog, “Pastel is the New Black,” has worked tirelessly by night to keep the genre alive, and help squash the claim that “chick lit is dead” once and for all. Not bad for a woman who by day ekes out a meager living as a pretty, and pretty-much-nameless, legal secretary in a Manhattan law firm. While Kim’s day job holds no passion for her, the handsome (and shaving challenged) associate down the hall is another story. Yet another story is that Hannah Marshak, one of her most hated high school classmates, has now popped onto the chick lit scene with a hot new book that’s turning heads—and pages—a cross the land. It’s also popped into Kim’s inbox—for review. With their ten-year high school reunion drawing near, Kim’s coming close to combustion over the hype about Hannah’s book. And as everyone around her seems to be moving on and up, she begins to question whether being a “blogger girl” makes the grade in her off-line life.
Excerpt
I rolled off of Jonathan and onto my back. Since I was almost always on top when I slept with him, I wondered if all of his pot smoking made him incapable of doing the work. When we dated in high school, cheap beer, not weed, was his drug of choice.
“So what’s going on with you?” he asked, reaching over one of his lean arms to grab a cigarette from his midnight blue Ikea dresser.
I quickly got out of his bed. The smell of cigarettes made me sick. “When are you gonna quit smoking?”
“Hey, I don’t complain when you text me for a booty call so no complaining about the smoking.”
“Screwing me is not bad for your health!”
“That’s arguable,” Jonathan laughed as he scratched his unruly head of dark hair.
I swatted him with my pants before putting them back on. “Time for a haircut, Middleton!” Although I vaguely remembered being madly in lust with Jonathan when we were high school sweethearts from the ages of 16-18, we had been just friends for the past ten years. And friends with benefits off and on for the past two. I hadn’t dated anyone I liked in a while, was uncomfortable taking home strangers from bars and Jonathan was either too lazy or stoned to make the effort. We fell into bed occasionally out of convenience and, that night, out of mere sexual frustration on my part.
Still lying on the bed, one arm extended behind his head, Jonathan took a drag with his free hand. “How’s Black is the New Purple going these days?”
“Pastel is the New Black is going very well, thank you.” I chuckled. Jonathan never remembered the title of my blog but at least he always managed to ask about it.
“Did you hear about Hannah Marshak?” He sat up and tapped his cigarette into an ashtray.
“Ugh. What about her?” Hannah was bitch central in my high school class. Well, at least to me and Bridget. She had more personalities than Sally Field in the movie Sybil and some of our class probably thought she was cotton candy sweet.
“She wrote a book.”
I felt my face drain of color as I remembered Hannah suggesting in front of my entire 8th grade Home Economics class that I have an expert look at my Coach bag because the leather strap looked too dark to be authentic and she would feel so terrible if my mother had spent money on a fake. Hannah came off looking like a Good Samaritan while I looked like the poor little girl with the knock-off bag. I considered donating the bag to Goodwill but Bridget said that would be playing right into Hannah’s hands and talked me out of it. “She what?”
“She wrote a novel. Some crap about a chick in Paris.” Jonathan took another deep drag of his cigarette. “It’s being published.”
My throat burned as if I’d chain smoked a pack of Jonathan’s Marlboro Reds and I was afraid I was going to regurgitate prosecco all over his dirty wood floor. “I gotta go.”
“You all right?” Even though the effects of weed had seemingly rendered Jonathan paralyzed in his relaxed position on the bed, I could hear a hint of emotion in his voice.
“I’m fine,” I lied. After squeezing my feet into my shoes, I walked around to Jonathan’s side of the bed and kissed his stubbly cheek. “As always, thanks for the good time.”
“You can leave the money on the counter.”
“Fuck you.”
Guest Post
At the opening of Blogger Girl, Kimberly Long is content with her life. Sure, her day job as a legal secretary is pretty uninspiring but her popular chick lit book blog, Pastel is the New Black affords her the opportunity to do what she enjoys more than almost anything else in the world – read and post her thoughts about the novels she loves and hates, and discuss books with likeminded people. Kim’s reviews are highly sought after and her opinion is very well respected. Blogging is the one area of Kim’s life where she feels completely in control and at peace. That is until Kim receives a request to review the debut novel of her high school nemesis, Hannah Marshak. In the ten years since Kim has graduated, she has moved on from the drama that transpired between the walls of her high school but Pastel is the New Black is Kim’s sanctuary and she doesn’t want it contaminated by Hannah Marshak. Unfortunately, there is a constant buzz about Hannah’s book, Cut on the Bias, in social media and Kim is faced with a dilemma: To review the book or To NOT review the book – THAT is the question. I know that when I am faced with a difficult decision, I often write a pro/con list. Since I embodied the soul of Kim while writing Blogger Girl, it stands to reason that she would write a pro/con list as well and she gave me permission to share it with you. (In all honesty, she didn’t really have a choice.)
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Reasons to review Hannah’s Book
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Reasons NOT to review Hannah’s book
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Because I’m a book blogger and it’s what I do!
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Because she’s a biatch!
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Because Nicholas thinks I should and he’s smart and really freakin hot!
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Because I want nothing to do with promoting her writing career.
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Because if it sucks, I can piss all over it on Pastel is the New Black and knock her down a peg. Maybe even negatively affect her sales.
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Because she thinks I will!
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Because if it’s good and I can write a positive review about anything Hannah-related without throwing up in my mouth, I will know that I can accomplish almost anything!
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Because my little sister Erin wants me to.
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Because as much as I hate to admit it, I’m really curious about the book and want to know if Hannah has any writing ability whatsoever.
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Because of that time she accused me of carrying a knock-off Coach bag in front of the entire class even though it was real!
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Because of that time she told me how nice my hair looked all one length *conveniently* five minutes after eavesdropping on my conversation with Bridget telling her I was getting my bangs cut after school.
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Because she suggested I audition to be a munchkin in the school’s performance of The Wizard of Oz.
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Because Bridget would kill me.
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Because she called me Kim Short all through junior high and high school.
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Because I really don’t want to.
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Author Bio:
A born and bred New Yorker, Meredith Schorr discovered her passion for writing when she began to enjoy drafting work-related emails way more than she was probably supposed to, and was famous among her friends for writing witty birthday cards. After dabbling in children’s stories and blogging her personal experiences, Meredith found her calling writing “real chick lit for real chicks." When Meredith is not hard at work on her current work in progress, she spends her days as a trademark paralegal at a law firm in New York City. Meredith is a loyal New York Yankees fan and an avid runner. She also loves to read and is always on the lookout for her new favorite author. A State of Jane is her second novel.
A born and bred New Yorker, Meredith Schorr discovered her passion for writing when she began to enjoy drafting work-related emails way more than she was probably supposed to, and was famous among her friends for writing witty birthday cards. After dabbling in children’s stories and blogging her personal experiences, Meredith found her calling writing “real chick lit for real chicks." When Meredith is not hard at work on her current work in progress, she spends her days as a trademark paralegal at a law firm in New York City. Meredith is a loyal New York Yankees fan and an avid runner. She also loves to read and is always on the lookout for her new favorite author. A State of Jane is her second novel.
Connect with Meredith!
Buy the Book!
Currently 99cents on Amazon for Kindle.
Review
5 stars
I really enjoyed Blogger Girl but had to laugh at the protagonist being a big boobed 4'11" as I could completely relate, and yes, the short jokes do wear thin after awhile so it was nice to not have them all through the book, just enough to know how annoying they can be!
Kim Long (or Short if you're a Mean Girl) has a job she enjoys but isn't passionate about so she spends much of her time on her chick lit review blog, a genre she enjoys and feels she virtually kept alive. She also has a burgeoning relationship with the office hottie which keeps her boring job a little more interesting. She discovers that her high school nemesis has, oh my God, written a chick lit book and with the upcoming school reunion, she's not exactly sure how to handle it.
Besides the height thing that Kim and I have in common, she was such a relatable, ordinary girl with regular, loveable friends and relationships. The story was funny, although some parts had me holding my breath. The characters were real and didn't frustrate me with over the top antics, nor were any of them too perfect. A couple of times I did wonder if the high school bully really could continue to be as nasty as she was but the subtlety was well explained and, lets face it, unfortunately there are really people like that.
It was a perfect chick lit read that I couldn't put down. I look forward to reading Meredith's other works.
