The Gift Bag Chronicles

Hello! to any of the faithful who may still check in despite my decided lack of posting. I have been super busy with moving, a new job, and other assorted busyness.

One lovely thing I just learned is that I will have access to shelves and shelves of advanced reading copies, books that we cannot add to our collection but are here to help librarians choose the books they wish to purchase. Once that's done, the rest of the staff is welcome to read them.

On the advice of Science Boy, I will try to write short reviews for the books I read. I have some doubts as to how often I will read any of these books, let alone take the time to write a review -- however short -- but let's see how it goes, shall we?

This afternoon, I finished Hilary de Vries forthcoming novel, The Gift Bag Chronicles. Alex Davidson works as the head of event planning for one of LA's top publicity firms. Her life is hectic; she is forever running around to please and appease her famous clients, whether that means taking calls at 5 a.m. while on vacation or helping to lure goats out of a kitchen with tobacco, Alex is at the top of her game. Her life is busy but, despite the lack of down-time, it seems to be working for her. She even has the perfect boyfriend, Charles, a co-partner in her firm. Sure, he's in New York, she's in LA, but it works that way. The novel follows Alex as she deals with an impossible to please client, family illness, and realizing that maybe what she has isn't exactly what she wants after all.

The Gift Bag Chronicles isn't Great Lit. However, it is an entertaining way to spend a few evenings. I'm not a big fan of Chick Lit (which I suspect this will qualify as), and I saw what was coming after the first few chapters... Still, Ms. De Vries wrote with with and empathy for her characters and held my interest easily. I may even go back and find her earlier novel. Maybe. In all my free time...