Meg Bowden

by Meg Bowden

Whether you religiously visit gossip blogs or occasionally pick up the latest People magazine, Sad Desk Salad is a must-read. Jessica Grose’s debut novel reveals the ups and downs of professional blogging in our media-savvy age of gossip and trash-talking behind the computer screen. For Sad Desk Salad protagonist Alex Lyons, the dog-eat-dog profession of online writing may prove to be too much to handle.

The novel follows Alex, an associate editor at the female-run online magazine Chick Habit, over the course of a week in which her world is turned upside down. With fickle co-workers and a demanding boss, Alex has always found it difficult to draw the line between her professional and personal lives. On a usual workday, an anonymous tipster sends a link to an R-rated video of a politician’s straitlaced daughter. Alex also discovers a hate-blog that bashes all Chick Habit employees—but mostly just Alex. As her life is shaken by these digital woes, she repeatedly lets down her closest companions, including her best friend and long-time boyfriend. Disproving the “sticks and stones” proverb, insecurities and guilt fill Alex’s head, causing her to put her most valued relationships at stake. Soon, Alex must decide how bad she wants success at Chick Habit. Will posting a racy video of a politico’s young daughter save her career—but simultaneously ruin the lives of others?

Grose, the deputy editor of New York Magazine’s Vulture website, is educated in the digital world due to her former positions at Internet magazines Slate and Jezebel. She uses her knowledge of the industry to tell a comedic, relatable tale that keeps you guessing until the final pages.

Fiction

Fiction

A love story the size of Texas

Review by Meg Bowden

by Meg Bowden

After hitting the bestseller list in 2010 with her enthralling first novel, San Antonio writer Leila Meacham returns with the much-anticipated Tumbleweeds. Like Roses, her new work is set in Texas, where drama runs rampant and football stars run the town. Told over the course of decades, this story is a whirlwind full of deceit, murder and unyielding love.

Complete with Friday night football games and a love triangle, Tumbleweeds tells the story of three close friends living in a small Texas Panhandle town. Catherine Ann, a straightlaced California girl, leaves her luxurious home to move in with her grandmother after her parents are killed. She guardedly enters her new life at Kersey Elementary, where she meets the boys who will shape her life.

Pals Trey Don “TD” Hall and John Caldwell act as Catherine Ann’s protectors, ushering her into their world of popularity and football. In one way or another, the three are all orphans, and they quickly form bonds as tight as blood relatives. After several nights of passion and secrets left untold, their lives are forever changed as their familial bond unexpectedly and gravely crumbles. Just like tumbleweeds, they are detached from each other, left to drift in the wind.

Thoughtfully written, Tumbleweeds follows these characters through struggles and growing pains, all born from their family misfortunes and adolescent mistakes. When all is said and done, each person understands the truth of the adage, “timing is everything.” Meacham’s second novel is a juicy page-turner that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the final page.

Fiction, Historical Fiction

Fiction Historical Fiction

A rollicking ride through France

Review by Meg Bowden

by Meg Bowden

The moment he catches a glimpse of that familiar silhouette, Lucien Lessard’s world begins to change. After a two-year sabbatical from their relationship, his beloved lady, Juliette, has unexpectedly returned to Paris. With dark tresses and the fairest skin, Juliette inspires Lucien in both work and play, but is she really what she seems?

With equal parts humor and mystery, Christopher Moore’s Sacre Bleu brings to life the French Impressionist art movement in late 19th-century Paris, exposing the painters’ colorful personalities through Lucien, a baker-turned-artist who interacts with various real-life artists of the movement—including Monet, van Gogh and Pissarro. To judge by the adventures of Lucien and his closest friend, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, it seem that the artist’s life away from the canvas usually involves booze and brothels.

Lucien’s career path is not only motivated by his late father’s love of painting, but also the mysterious Juliette. After Juliette’s countless requests, he ignores his misgivings and agrees to paint her nude figure using a special aquamarine color. This “Sacred Blue” is only provided by an odd little man known as The Colorman—who just might be connected to the unexplained death of Lucien’s friend Vincent van Gogh. The result of his capitulation results in an unpredictable tale that is woven around shorter chapters about other French Impressionists and the history of the Sacred Blue, a color that, like Juliette, has hidden depths.

While Moore’s satire of the Parisian art world is entertaining and whimsical, this is not a laugh-out-loud novel. Much like his novel Lamb, he combines historical research with an intelligent sense of humor, resulting in amusement rather than gut-busting laughter. An imaginative trip through Paris filled with comedy, death, love and mystery, Sacre Bleu has something for everyone.