Leslie Carroll – författare

With her sharp wit and riveting style, Leslie Carroll plunges us deep into the world of the overscheduled children of New York, and the oversexed, over-lipoed, overpaid people who raise them -or pay their nannies!

What happens when a trophy wife gets turned in for someone even younger, blonder, and prettier? Claire Marsh doesn''t take it lying down. She may have lost both husband and housekeeper in the horrible divorce, but even if she''s not able to keep living in the manner to which she''s accustomed, she''ll do what it takes so that her daughter will—with a little help from her slightly wild, slightly out-of-control sister MiMi.

Question:What do Amy, the new mom; Meriel, the West-Indian housekeeper; Claude and Naomi, the alternative couple; Faith, the elegant widow; and Talia, the super-skinny ballerina have in common?

Answer: Abso-freakin''-lutely-nothing!

Except that they all live lives of not-so-quiet desperation on the Upper West Side of New York City. What gets them through? Their unusual therapy sessions with supershrink Susan Lederer, held in the depths of the laundry room. Susan knows that all of life''s problems eventually come out in the wash, but while the washers keep breaking down, she helps her female friends take control.

But Susan''s life has become an agitated mess. Her teenage daughter seems destined for a fast-food future; her son''s adolescence hasn''t quite hit yet . . . and her perfect husband is hiding something. Susan could use a really good shrink.

Instead, her dirty linen exposed, she finds that it''s her friends who rally ''round her, and by the final spin, she realizes that while it might not take a whole village, it does sometimes take a laundry room to get rid of the nastier wrinkles in life.

Now if only she could find the formula for getting rid of that ring around the collar.

Forty is fabulous for Tessa Craig. Heck, she has it all—a glamorous job as a political speechwriter, a Manhattan duplex, and a handsome boyfriend, Congressman David Weyburn, whose integrity, charisma, and good looks have made him his party''s rising star. But her fabulosity fizzles when scandal strikes, and Tessa watches helplessly as her seemingly happy love life and successful career collapse like a house of cards.

Tessa realizes it''s time to embark on a new journey, one she should have made a long time ago. It''s a trip that takes her to the Emerald Isle and back, leading her heart in unimagined directions. She makes new friends, unexpectedly adopts a new family (or do they adopt her?), and discovers unanticipated love with silver-tongued, green-eyed, aspiring pub owner, Jamie Doyle. And, most importantly, Tessa makes that uphill climb over the rainbow to find the ultimate pot of gold: Herself.

A touching and hopeful look at the underworld of the office temp from hilarious author Leslie Carroll.

Meet Alice Finnegan: 30-something, single, and stuck in a cycle of horrific secretarial temp jobs. She''s trying to fulfil her childhood ambitions of on-stage stardom while sharing an apartment with her 90-something grandmother, a feisty, funny, former Ziegfeld showgirl.

Along the rocky road to independence Alice encounters a colourful cast of oddballs, nuts, and control freaks (including members of her immediate family). And just to keep life interesting, she succumbs to the pitfalls of office romances and the perils of nasty bosses as she endeavours to keep her sanity intact and make that big break into the spotlights.

When life throws you a curve ball...

Venus deMarley has just been hit with a wild pitch. At forty she''s finally found the perfect fiancé, when Sophie—the daughter she gave up for adoption twenty years ago—suddenly reappears. Venus has another crisis on her hands as well: her eccentric millionaire dad just died and willed her his pet project—a rag-tag minor league baseball team called the Bronx Cheers—if Venus and Sophie can reconcile and once again become a family. Venus knows diddly about sports, but Sophie''s a jock, unlike her glamorous mom. And after two decades apart, these two women know nothing about each other, and rarely agree on anything. But maybe—just maybe—they have more in common than they think...