Secrets of a Shoe Addict

March 31, 2008
Harbison's witty, fast-paced follow-up to last year's Shoe Addicts Anonymous
chronicles the foibles of four women brought together by—in this case—not shoes but debt. During a fateful trip to Las Vegas as chaperones of a school band trip, Loreen Murphy accidentally hires a male prostitute on the PTA credit card; pastor's-wife-with-a-past Abbey Walsh gets blackmailed by an ex-con ex-boyfriend; and usually restrained PTA president Tiffany Dreyer purchases thousands of dollars worth of clothes that she can't return. Enter the zaftig Sandra Vanderslice, who, before she started her shoe-importing business, made a living as a phone sex operator. She suggests her sister, Tiffany, hop on that gravy train to pay down her credit card bills. Loreen and Abbey join up, and soon the ladies are raking in dough and trying to hide their new source of income from husbands, kids and their snoopy nemesis, the cartoonishly judgmental Deb Leventer, who wants to take over the PTA. Harbison's writing is zingy and funny, and her light touch allows her to get away with the ridiculous situations in this nutty beach read.

May 15, 2008
Sandra, the phone-sex operator from Harbison's first novel ("Shoe Addicts Anonymous"), introduces three PTA moms with various money troubles to the lucrative job of the phone "actress." Although none is eager to learn the trade, all are desperate for cash after the kids' band trip to Las Vegas, where debts were racked up via an ill-fated shopping spree, an accidental night with a male prostitute, and a blackmailer. After these debts are settled, the women, who have bonded and become friends, use the spoils of their phone sex business, Happy Housewives, to fund a highly successful PTA. Some readers may appreciate a plotline that provides an excuse for plenty of phone sex conversations, although poorly developed characters and too many story lines make it a tiresome read. Recommended only where the first book has been popular. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/08.]Anika Fajardo, Coll. of St. Catherine Lib., St. Paul, MN

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