TART

Author: Jody Gehrman ISBN: 0373895267 7/2005 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: RED DRESS INK

Meet Claudia Bloom. She's having one of those years. First she steals her ex's VW bus and drives it from Austin to Santa Cruz, where it promptly explodes. Next she lets herself be rescued by Clay, a cute DJ on a motorcycle, falls hard and meets his somehow-never-mentioned-estranged wife while searching frantically for her panties. She tries to forget about Clay and focus on her tenuous new career teaching theater at UC Santa Cruz, only to discover Clay's wife is her colleague and his mother is her boss. Could it get any worse? When her neo-Deadhead cousin shows up with a horse-size mutt, Rex, and the two of them take up residence on her couch, Claudia's pretty sure things have hit rock bottom.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Now this is a character I can totally relate to. If there's something that looks like it might go wrong, can go wrong, or will go wrong, it seems to always happen to me. I'm totally there, right in the thick of it. So, too, is TART's walking disaster attractor, Claudia Bloom. But on the up side, the good seems to balance out the bad, and our "I know this can't be happening to me" little Claudia ends up with the good guy in the end.

TART is just what the title conveys: perky, fun, sexy and witty, with just the right mix of tang. But it's also thoughtful and emotionally charged, with an unexpected dramatic turnaround toward the end that you will never see coming. Even though we laugh with Claudia as she stumbles over career, lovers, friends and complicated family situations, it doesn't take long to realize that life for her will never be your typical day at the beach. As the saying goes, life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce. And believe me, Claudia proves her mettle as she does more than her fair share of rebounding.

All the characters in TART shine—from the lost and tragic Rose, to Claudia's distant mother, Mira, right on down to the sexy heartthrob, Clay Parker, who Claudia instantly gravitates to and who has a lot to do with the minor mishaps her life seems lately to attract. Even the minor characters, such as Claudia's adversary at the college and Clay's friend with Turret's Syndrome, are so well integrated, that even with such small exposure they all seem unforgettable. That says as much for the author and her writing skill as it does for the characters she's created.

The bottom line? TART is a well written mix of eclectic and sympathetic characters, unexpected life happenings, and topped off with witty dialogue and a storyline you can sink your teeth into without puckering. I'd be happy to read another of Gehrman's offerings in a heartbeat... with a twist of tartness hopefully included.

Nancy Davis