Meanderings and Muses: What I've read and what's next

Simply put, I think M.j. Rose rocks.

Receiving an advance copy of her newest novel, The Fashion Orphans, (co-written with Randy Susan Meyers), made me a happy girl.

"Two estranged sisters find that forgiveness never goes out of style when they inherit their mother’s vintage jackets, purses… and pearls of wisdom.

Half-sisters Gabrielle (55) and Lulu (48) have only two things in common: mounds of debt and coils of unresolved enmity toward, their controlling recently deceased mother.

The sisters arrive for the reading of their mother’s will and instead of a sizable inheritance discover all they have been left is their mother’s secret closet jammed with high-end designer clothes and accessories—most from Chanel.

Contemplating their mother’s self-indulgence, the sisters can’t help but wonder if Lauren Weisberger had it wrong: because it seems, in fact, that the devil wore Chanel. But as they explore the collection, meet and fall in love with her warm, wonderful friends, and magically find inspiring messages tucked away in her treasures—it seems their mother is advising Lulu and Gabrielle from the beyond—helping them rediscover themselves and restore their relationship with each other. "Are

I loved it.

Another book (thanks to NetGalley), I read recently and loved is Lost and Found in Paris by Lian Dolan.

From NetGalley:

"The ultimate escapist adventure in Paris, told with wit, style, and a touch of intrigue, by the popular and dynamic author of The Sweeney Sisters.

Joan Blakely had an unconventional childhood: the daughter of a globe-trotting supermodel and a world-famous artist. Her artist father died on 9/11, and Joan—an art historian by training—has spent more than a decade maintaining his legacy. Life in the art world is beginning to wear on her—and then one fateful afternoon her husband drops a bombshell: he’s fathered twins with another woman.

Furious but secretly pleased to have a reason to blow up her life, Joan impulsively decides to get out of town, booking a last-minute trip to Paris as an art courier: the person museums hire to fly valuable works of art to potential clients, discreetly stowed in their carry-on luggage. Sipping her champagne in business-class, she chats up her seatmate, Nate, a good-looking tech nerd who invites her to dinner in Paris. He doesn’t know she’s carrying drawings worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But after a romantic dinner and an even more romantic night together, Joan wakes up next to her new lover to discover the drawings gone. Even more shocking is what’s been left in their place: a sketch from her father’s journals, which she thought had been lost when he died on 9/11, and a poem that reads like a treasure hunt.

With Nate as a sidekick, Joan will follow the clues all over Paris—from its grand cathedrals to the romantic bistros to the twisty side streets of Monmarte—hoping to recover the lost art, and her own sense of adventure. What she finds is even better than she’d expected. "

And now i'm excited that some books I have been waiting for have arrived.

A new novel by a literary hero -