The Bachelorette Party by Karen McCullah Lutz

She paid for the acting classes that taught him to smolder. And Zadie was no longer being pleasured.Two years were wasted with Jack. And his job on Days got him a big fat ego. A waiter with the kind of eyes that said, “It’ll be a mere matter of seconds before I get your panties off and pleasure you like you’ve only dreamed of.” Those eyes got him his job on Days. I guess he’s not coming.”Zadie fucking hated Jack Cavanaugh.She’d met Jack before he was a soap star, back when he was a lowly waiter at Chin Chin. That she once had to hear Jack Cavanaugh’s pill-popping mother say, “Well, dear. That she once stood in the foyer of a church in a big white wedding dress waiting for Jack Cavanaugh to show up. She had no desire whatsoever to explain to this woman that she was once engaged to Jack Cavanaugh. That man’s the only thing that gets me through the day.”Zadie sighed and sat back down. She watched him take off his motorcycle helmet and shake out his shaggy black hair, smoldering all the while, before she got up to change the channel, only to be met with severe opposition from a middle-aged black woman who was painting her nails in two different, alternating shades-pink on one finger, red on the next. But there she was, stuck in the waiting room of a Jiffy Lube on Ventura Boulevard, forced to stare at Jack Cavanaugh as he portrayed “Nate Forrester,” bad boy with a heart of gold. OneThere was no one in the state of California, on the planet, or in the ozone who wanted to watch Days of Our Lives less than Zadie Roberts.

'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. Lutz's terrific characters and sharp insights put this delightful novel a step above the rest. The Bachelorette Party is a remarkable, assured debut. Zadie faces a major debacle: should she tell Grey about Helen's night of indiscretion, or forever hold her peace? Helen turns into a girl gone wild and manages to get herself into a situation that just might sink the happy couple for good. But when the Pinot Grigiot goes down and the sweater sets come off, things get out of control. The coup de grace is Helen's bachelorette party, thrown by her clique of prissy friends and certain to be a day of torture. Unexpectedly, Grey gets engaged to Zadie's prim and proper cousin Helen, and suddenly Zadie is dragged back into wedding festivity hell.

With the help of her best buddy Grey and several bottles of wine, she just might survive the trauma of the wedding that wasn't. After being left at the altar by her soap star fiancé, Los Angeles high school teacher Zadie Roberts wants nothing more to do with love and romance.

The Bachelorette Party by Karen McCullah Lutz