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snapped: a novel (mira books, 2010)
sara is having a meltdown. she's teetering on the edge of forty and struggling to maintain her persona as montreal's premier trend-spotter. she's spent the last fifteen years snapping photos of the city's fashion victims, basking in free stuff and leading expensive trend tours for corporate executives she finds loathsome. but this life is no longer satisfying. and to make matters worse, her friends are abandoning urban life for suburban comfort, having kids and dabbling in plastic surgery — all things sara wants no part of. she's not looking for a husband, she doesn't want kids, but she's terrified of growing old, and refuses to heed the advice of her friends to give up her bad habits and grow up.
her behaviour becomes even more reckless when her young, ambitious competition starts to close in and publicly bruises her ego. sara is afraid she's losing her touch and is sent reeling into a spiral of self-doubt, fearing her success has been nothing but a fluke. she's plagued with guilt over the three-thousand, five-hundred and sixty people she's mocked in print by branding them fashion DON'Ts, and becomes obsessed with making amends. but what does a narcissistic, aging hipster have to do for absolution?
snapped careens through sara's world as she drinks, smokes, stirs up social melodrama, and becomes increasingly unhinged as she wonders if there's more to life than DOs and DON'Ts. she trips from one ridiculous situation to the next, along the way having unexpected encounters with a scheming assistant, a chatty life coach, an attractive bar owner, a kind-hearted old lady, and a rockabilly paper boy in this darkly funny story about a woman who thinks she's losing her cool.
find out more about snapped and read or download the first chapter here.
every little thing: a novel (mira books, february 2011)
from the back of the book:
if it's not one thing, it's her mother
before there were mommy bloggers, there was britt. san francisco's brassy scandal queen filled her newspaper column with juicy details of her many marriages, cosmetic surgeries and everything about her only daughter, mason.
then britt dies. suddenly and in spectacularly embarrassing fashion. so mason — now thirty-five and vehemently un-britt-like in every way — returns home to settle her affairs...though some affairs are not so easy to settle.
now caught in her own sordid debacle, mason finds herself thrust back into the spotlight, and this time it's her own doing.
struggling to define herself as anything other than britt junior, mason soon discovers that britt's intensely public life still held some secrets. And though the overgrown teen rebel has always favored combat boots, she may yet walk a mile in her mother's shoes.
the mod girls (publishing date tba)
it’s 1984 and 18-year-old penny and her best friend, jen, are trying to make a go of it in the DIY fashion business, designing and making clothes using sixties mod sewing patterns and vintage fabrics. consummate anglophiles who are sincerely devoted to their mutual obsession with retro style and culture, the girls quickly become local celebrities in their small city, thanks to their distinctive look and active nightlife.
they seem poised for success, but when unexpected differences arise, penny starts to question the future of their friendship, her own future and identity — and whether she was in fact born in the wrong decade.
unabashedly nostalgic, the mod girls speeds through Penny’s changing world as she encounters cute british boys, smarmy landlords, dirty hippies and a super-chic friend, leah, who wears only white sleeveless go-go dresses, all the while peppering her observations with humour and plenty of vintage style.
the mod girls is a novel-in-progress. the process of research and writing is chronicled on the blog of the same name.
spree: a cultural history of shopping (arsenal pulp press, 2003)
from the back of the book:
shopping is much more than the simple purchase of goods. as buying has become an essential part of life, shopping is irrevocably tied to our cultural identity, and we are a culture obsessed and beguiled by the desire for consumer goods.
in spree, journalist, cultural columnist, and shopping addict pamela klaffke reveals the ritual that is now daily routine. her book is an entertaining and provocative study of shopping's rich and enduring history, from parisian arcades to american shopping malls, from the inventions of cash registers and shopping carts to the varied shopping customs around the world, from games shows to internet shopping and ebay.
full of informative sidebars and fascinating photographs, spree documents how shopping has evolved from a need, to a want, to a sport.
rights inquiries: contact carolyn swayze or kris rothstein at reception@swayzeagency.com
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