That's What Frenemies Are For

May 27, 2019
Littlefield (House of Glass) teams up with debut novelist Gershell in this witty glimpse into the lives of the very wealthy residents of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Julia Summers lives a life of luxury as wife to real estate developer James and mother of Henry and Paige, who attend the exclusive Graylon Academy. When pipes burst in the family’s Hamptons summer home, the repairs for which will take the entire summer, she is forced to stay in the City for the season. Julia tries out new fitness club Flame and mentors personal trainer Tatum by helping her develop her own style and gain clients. As Tatum gets Julia into shape, Julia lets Tatum live at her apartment for a while. But Julia soon suspects that Tatum may have stolen from her and told lies about Julia to her friends. As Julia’s friends become more distant and James is arrested and charged with bribery, Julia becomes the immediate target of gossip and soon discovers who her true friends are. The authors keep the plot moving at a quick pace, and it’s fascinating to follow the two-sided personalities of her characters—superficially friendly but backstabbing when the opportunity arises. This entertaining page-turner is delicious, biting fun.

June 1, 2019
A New York City socialite tries to impress her friends by making over a spin instructor into a weight-loss and mind-body-connection guru. In Littlefield (The Guilty One, 2015, etc.) and first-time author Gershell's debut novel as a pair, Julia Summers loves her husband, James, and her two children, Henry and Paige. But, to be honest, Julia really loves herself most of all. She's a vapid, vain, Upper East Side stay-at-home mom, and everything she does is carefully calculated to impress the fellow moms, her so-called friends, at her kids' private school. But she has become complacent, and her influence as a trendsetter has weakened. When a long-unnoticed leak ruins the Summers' vacation home in the Hamptons and Julia is forced--forced--to spend the summer in the city with her children while her husband works around the clock and her friends relax in their own country homes, she does the only thing she can think of: foists the kids off on summer camp, the nanny, and a backup babysitter so she can focus on losing weight and regaining her social cachet. She makes it her summer project to re-create Tatum, a bubbly instructor at Flame, a boutique gym that has not yet become popular with the rich-mom crowd. "That was my catnip," Julia says. "I was an urban bloodhound trawling for treasures that went unnoticed by others, and I was famous for my finds." But Tatum is not so easily controlled. She dates who she wants, she makes friends with whom she wants, and she makes the same bad decisions that 20-somethings everywhere have made and will continue make. The novel focuses solely on Julia's story, told in the first person, and the other characters and events appear flattened and one-dimensional through the prism of her opinions. There are no heroines in this tale: It's a predictable, slow-moving train wreck you can't look away from.

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July 1, 2019

Julia Summers has a $5 million apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and a husband raking in the dough to support their two children and the nanny who cares for them. Her biggest worry is when her next coffee date with her best friends will be. However, when the family's summer trip to their Hamptons house is canceled, she's left stranded in Manhattan while her entire social circle flees the city. Needing a project, she cashes in on an auction basket that she won to a new cycling gym called Flame. There she meets Tatum, a young, fresh-faced fitness instructor, who turns into Julia's pet project, and then some. Multigenre novelist Littlefield ("Aftertime" series; The Guilty One; Garden of Stones) and newcomer Gershell come in hot with this look at the cutthroat world of Manhattan's social elite. Readers will love watching Julia groom Tatum into a fitness star; from discarding her Target leggings to treating her to keratin treatments and gel manicures, no stone is left unturned in the makeover process. VERDICT An excellent choice for fans of Lauren Weisberger.--Erin Holt, Williamson Cty. P.L., Franklin, TN

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2019
Julia has everything a New York mom could want?an Upper East Side apartment, a devoted husband, friends, and social capital?but she knows she has started to let things slide. She used to be the one who discovered the next big up-and-coming thing, and it's been a while since her last find. She is looking forward to a summer in the Hamptons to shore up her status, but a disaster leaves her vacation home unlivable. Stuck in the city for the summer, she decides to go looking for a project to get herself back on top of the mommy hierarchy and finds Tatum. Julia vows to turn this spin instructor into the next hot fitness guru and impress everyone by summer's end. But Tatum is not as easily managed as Julia might have hoped, and she might actually be a little bit devious. Everything is going wrong, but it will take a true crisis to show Julia who her real friends are. Unputdownable. Littlefield and Gershell write together seamlessly in this dishy summer read perfect for fans of Lauren Weisberger.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)