I'd give this one a 3.5. Dolan doesn't break any new ground here as far as the plot but here characters are much more layered than one usually finds in this kind of story. Plus you get Dolan's sense of humor, a good sense of the setting, and some very fun characters. ( )

I'd give this one a 3.5. Dolan doesn't break any new ground here as far as the plot but here characters are much more layered than one usually finds in this kind of story. Plus you get Dolan's sense of humor, a good sense of the setting, and some very fun characters. ( )

Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan is the perfect book to start off the new year. Helen Fairfield needs to reinvent herself after her husband is killed by a Rose Parade float. Sure, these things are huge but they run at a top speed of about three miles per hour. It's an opening scene similar in tone and absurdity as the steam roller scene in A Fish Called Wanda (1988).

Most of the book then is the aftermath of Helen's widowhood. She learns that the home's mortgage is underwater and that her husband while screwing nearly every woman he know, he also screwed over the family finances. Helen needs a job and a smaller home she and her son can afford.

As Helen is thrust out of the Pasadena elite (really, I'd think of them as San Marino elite, but hey!) she is forced now to work for them. Rather than this being a story where a once trophy while ends up having to take a low paying domestic job, Helen ends up working at the Huntington Library. ( )

Fun and funny, and loaded with laugh-out-loud moments. Dolan knows how to turn and twist a phrase to really make it giggle.

Petrea Burchard
Camelot & Vine ( )

When I won and then received the book via Early Reviewers, I wasn't sure what I was thinking when I requested it - it seemed like a "fluffier" book than I normally read. However, this book is a classic case of "don't judge a book by its cover". The cover screams flowery, fluffy, whimsy, and while Helen of Pasadena does have some of that (and quite a bit of wit), there's actually a lot of depth and substance here. The novel is basically about a women who loses her wealthy (or so she thought) and socially powerful husband in a very bizarre (and pretty funny, actually..sorry!) accident, then loses her social bearings, which she (and others) more or less equates to losing herself. Or so she thinks. She ends up proving herself, and those around her, wrong in some very surprising and entertaining ways, as she adjusts to being a single mom of a teenage boy, gets a job for the first time in her adult life, contemplates selling her house, and navigates the world of adult dating for the first time in 15 years. It turns out that this is a story of a very resilient woman learning to make her own way in the world, and I really enjoyed the book. I didn't realize this was the first book in a trilogy until after I read it, and while I'm not really sure what could come next with these characters (their stories seemed complete in this book) or whether that would interest me much, this book has put me on notice to at least check out the next one. ( )