Apocalipstick »

Sue Margolis was a radio reporter for fifteen years before becoming a novelist. She is the author of three previous novels: Breakfast at Stephanie's, Neurotica, and Spin Cycle.?

From the author who brought you Spin Cycle and Neurotica comes a hilarious new novel about falling in love, hating your job, and getting what you want out of life—-without ever mussing your lipstick!

When it comes to men, beauty columnist Rebecca Fine always seems to be on the scruffy end of the mascara wand. But all that changes the morning she meets Max Stoddart, her new colleague at the Daily Vanguard. With his upscale suit, Hugh Grant hair, and obscenely sexy good looks, he’s a single woman’s dream come true. Finally, her grandmother can stop surfing the Net for eligible Jewish males. But is Max the catch of the decade—-or just a major babe magnet?

Meanwhile, Rebecca’s old high school nemesis has resurfaced, a former blond bombshell called Lipstick who is now engaged to Rebecca’s widowed dad. And it’s good-bye to articles on toe cleavage when a hot tip sweeps Rebecca to the center of the Paris cosmetics world, where a miracle anti-wrinkle cream is about to be launched. That is, until she blows the whistle on a scandal that could set the beauty business—-and the future of world peace—-reeling. Will Rebecca win the recognition—-not to mention the Pulitzer—-she yearns for...and get the man of her dreams? Stay tuned.

Kirkus Reviews

Slapdash farce from the author of Spin Cycle (2001, etc.). Rebecca Fine, newly appointed and very nervous beauty columnist for the Daily Vanguard, is stuck in traffic and about to miss her first meeting at the paper. What better time to apply her mascara-and just as she does, the lout in the expensive car behind her suddenly honks, leaving Rebecca besmirched with a black streak from eyebrow to hairline. When she finally gets to work, she finds that her desk has been cleared for a newcomer and she's been banished to an undesirable corner. Surprise: the newcomer is the lout in the expensive car, who's actually quite attractive and becomingly modest. It's not even his own car. Max Stoddart, the new science and environmental correspondent, is bright, too. Rebecca is impressed but wary. After all, she has other things to worry about. Her Jewish grandmother, agitating for great-grandchildren, has been advertising on Rebecca's behalf on dateadoctor.com. And Rebecca's father has selected a former classmate of hers, the infinitely tawdry Bernadette O'Brien, to have a midlife affair-and crisis-with. Good news: svelte as a teenager, when she was dubbed "Lipstick" for the lurid red goo on her pouty mouth, Bernadette now has thunder thighs and looks older than Rebecca. Bad news: circumstances will force the two into a shared flat until Rebecca's father gets his act together. Even a night of erotic bliss with Max Stoddart wouldn't make up for this. And is that grandma-enlisted geek, Warren, leaving messages? Max is curious, Rebecca furious. Other medical professionals are soon sending e-mails: an ambulance driver, a cranial osteopath, two male midwives, a prosthetic limb technician . . . . And thingsgo from bad to worse when an undercover assignment from the paper's gung-ho editor lands Rebecca and Max in the Middle East, pursued by a host of nefarious ne'er-do-wells. Quick in pace and often very funny.