Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Strohmeyer, S. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Silver Falls Library | MYS STROHMEYER | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
New York Timesbestselling author Susan Andersen called Bubbles Unbound"rollicking good fun. Bubbles rocks!" The Houston Chroniclepraised it as "riotous...a strong debut." And award-winning author Carolyn Hart crowned it "fizzy as bicarb, funny as Evanovich...should bubble right to the top of the bestseller lists." Now the spandex-wearing, cleavage-baring hairstylist-cum-journalist and sleuth from Lehigh, Pennsylvania, returns in another wacky, wisecracking mystery that offers a few priceless beauty tips along the way. New troubles for Bubbles: Her friend, bride-to-be Janice, never showed up at the altar, and everybody's blaming Bubbles for singing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" at the bachelorette party the night before. Now Bubbles has just found Janice's uncle Elwood dead on his bathroom floor-his skull bashed in and his Rolls Royce missing. The baffling murder could be her Big Break as Bubbles goes deep undercover in Whoopee, Pennsylvania (located between Intercourse and Paradise) as a "plain girl from Ohio" boarding with a local Amish family. That means no spandex, no showers, and...no makeup. When she's not helping out on the farm, Bubbles searches for clues-with the usual hilarious results. Featuring a cast of characters that includes a chocolate-baking neo-Nazi; a shoofly pie-obsessed Dutchman; Bubbles' loony mother, LuLu; her precocious teenage daughter, Jane; and that love'em-and-leave'em hunk, Stiletto-along with selected Dutch country beauty recipes-Bubbles in Troubleis another rip-roaring adventure in a rapidly growing mystery series with "never a dull moment" (bestselling author Fay Weldon).
Author Notes
Sarah Strohmeyer grew up in Bethlehem, PA, & is a former newspaper reporter. Her previous book is "Barbie Unbound: A Parody of the Barbie Obsession". She lives outside of Montpelier, VT, with her husband & two children.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In her second novel featuring the high-energy beautician/rookie reporter, Bubbles Yablonsky (after 2001's Bubbles Unbound), Strohmeyer successfully navigates the fine line between humorous stereotype and sympathetic amateur investigator. As the novel opens, the tube top-wearing, Camaro-driving, self-described last "Polish-Lithuanian Barbie doll in Lehigh, Pennsylvania" is taking the blame for jinxing the nuptials of her shy friend, Janice, a records clerk in the local police department. Janice has not only gone missing but the uncle with whom she lives is soon found dead in his gated retirement home. Bubbles retraces Janice's last steps, which lead to some shady doings in Amish country. Bubbles goes undercover, frantically (and hilariously) shifting between her role as a sexy reporter and her cover as an Amish widow. Despite her bumbling in a foreign culture, Bubbles manages to win the friendship and trust of this tight-knit community, and her own respect and growing understanding of the Plain folk is nicely conveyed. Bubbles's hunky beau, photographer Steve Stiletto, makes a steamy appearance, along with many other well-wrought oddball characters, including Bubbles's mother, Lulu, who's going through a Jackie O. phase. The over-the-top force-of-nature protagonist and the lovingly detailed descriptions of clothing and hair styles make up for some gaps in logic and a slightly rushed ending. Also delightful are the useful recipes (hangover cure, cuticle softener, etc.) all involving vinegar sprinkled throughout. Agent, Heather Schroder. (July 1) FYI: At this past May's Malice Domestic convention, Bubbles Unbound won an Agatha Award for Best First Mystery Novel. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
On the way to Paradise, hang a right at Intercourse and you'll find Whoopee-Whoopee, Pennsylvania, a bucolic town about to be disrupted in every way possible by ace cosmetologist Bubbles Yablonsky, who's trading her blow-dryer for a pitchfork as she goes undercover to convince sourball editor Dix Notch to give her a permanent berth on the Lehigh News-Times. She's tracking an exclusive on the Hochstetter twins, a couple of good old Amish boys picked up on I-78 for grand theft auto. But her interest in Lancaster County is personal as well, since it's also the childhood home of Bubbles's friend Janice Kramer, a runaway bride whose Uncle Elwood happened to turn up dead in his posh condo pretty much at the same time as Janice was stranding Mickey Sinkler at the altar. And in this week of the Pickle Fest, Bubbles's mom, Lulu, and Genevieve, her musket-toting sidekick, decide to tag along-a lucky thing, since their timeshare gives Bubbles the perfect place to squirm out of her apron and back into her favorite tube-top preparatory to bombing down the Lincoln Highway giving hot-oil treatments to calves, flagging down bulldozers with her bra, stopping land-grab schemes, smooching with sexy photojournalist Steve Stiletto, and, yes, solving both crimes. Strohmeyer's second is even more over the top than her debut (Bubbles Unbound, 2001), but with the funniest moments reserved for bit players like Genevieve. Instead of tickling gently, Bubbles smacks you with humor as broad as a whoopee pie in the kisser.
Booklist Review
Bubbles Yablonsky is back, doing hair, moonlighting as a reporter for the local paper, and stumbling into a bit of amateur sleuthing. This time she's off looking for Janice, a friend who walked out on her own wedding, leaving her uncle's corpse behind. To track her, Bubbles must surrender her makeup and spandex and don Amish garb, for Janice is really Elspeth and has gone home to the heart of Amish country in Whoopee, Pennsylvania. Strohmeyer was on surer--and funnier--ground in Bubbles' first adventure, Bubbles Unbound [BKL Ja 1 & 15 01]. Bubbles "Plain" doesn't really work, even with shoofly pie as a murder weapon and a sweet homage to fellow Pennsylvania Dutch^-themed author Tamar Meyer. Bubbles' relationship to her brilliant teen daughter and to the elusive but hunky photographer Stiletto helps carry one through. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido