Mike (female) loses her advertising job, and finds work teaching life skills to seventh grade girls (sounds like BS, but I could have used a few lessons in this subject). Away from the fast-paced ad biz, she learns about herself and her relationships, etc. ( )

I take a break once in a great while and read a modern romance novel. It's junk food, alright? But this one, though it has a happy ending, has a completely different plot and trajectory than typical. There is a dark hard realistic edge to it; and Shanman works hard to make her women rounded and self-fulfilled. Good messages here. ( )

http://olvasonaplo.freeblog.hu/archives/2010/06/28/Ellen_Shanman_Everything_nice... ( )

I really enjoyed this. Not your typical chick lit. A fun, breezy read. Just a bit disappointed in the ending - I wanted more! :)" ( )

Everything Nice brings me back to my "fluff". But not so much fluff that you want to poke your eye out with a pencil. Fluff with a meaning.

I first caught wind of Everything Nice in a Shelf Awareness daily bullentin. http://www.shelf-awareness.com/. So I added it to my list of "books to read" in my palm & went looking for it when I got to work. One of the things that caught my eye wad the fact that it is a Bantam Discovery book. Two other books that have that label were The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond and My Best Friend's Girl by Dorothy Koonman. So of course, I had to check it out.

Everything Nice is the story of Michaela "Mike" Edwards. She is the proverbial motherless child, raised by her surgeon father & kind of left to fend for herself when it comes to all things "girly". The result is that Mike has grown up to be a hard, unapproachable woman. She is a no nonense, take no prisoners star in the advertising world.

But when her mentor gets fired, Mike is the next to go. She has burned too man bridges to stand on her own without the mentor to "protect" her from the executioner.

This is when Mike's life gets interesting. She is forced to do some serious soul searching and with the announcement of her father's engagement, she realizes that some things just can't be avoided. And rather than face the disappointment of her new stepmother, she attends a job interview at an all girls school. And is completely shell-shocked when she is offered a job.

This book has everything a girl is looking for in a good "chick-lit" book. There is the life challenge, the vulnerable heroine, the rocky relationship with family, and there is even a ruggedly handsome Aussie to satisfy the Romance portion of the book.

Everything Nice is a fun book with a likeable heroine and a plot that will hold your interest. Perfect for those of you needing a break from Vampires & Werewolves. ( )