Reviews

BOOKLIST

Belle has decided to leave Alabama and the family newspaper to become a “real” journalist in New York City. With help from Granddad, she moves into a cozy Soho studio and nabs a job at a conservative cable  news channel. While she is befriended by a female broadcaster and wined and dined by older men, she realizes something unsavory is happening at the channel. She sneaks out evidence while putting together an unassigned story on the Democratic presidential hopeful—and readies for the eventual blowup.

Although she has abandoned her red-state roots, Belle remains tied to some traditions, especially oldfashioned Southern cooking; accordingly, each chapter offers corresponding recipes. Add to that a surprising setup by her family, which leads to love with an aspiring chef who is ready to leave the Southfor New York’s competitive kitchens. Food, love, and politics mingle in this lively chick-lit debut. —Aleksandra Walker 

Publisher’s Weekly

Parkhurst, former blogger and media gossip staple turned Web-and-TV culinary personality, brings considerable Southern charm and sass (plus some mouth-watering recipes) to her chick lit debut, but there’s no mistaking the revenge fantasy at the heart of this tale of struggle and success. The former Fox News Channel correspondent plunks her Mobile, Ala., debutante narrator, Belle Lee, at a smarmy news network, where she begins her rise to the media heap from the very bottom. Determined not to be trampled, Belle turns supersleuth and discovers the sticky political web woven by her American News Channel bosses and uses the goods as leverage to get her own pieces on air. “Even if I had to work for horn dogs and thieves… I would produce a piece that would get me a job as a ‘real’ journalist,” Belle vows in a “never go hungry again” moment. Predictably, Belle breaks out from under the bad guys and shifts her professional focus to something more heartfelt. There aren’t any surprises, but the tartly told story is a genuine guilty pleasure. (Sept.)