The Lonely Hearts Club

Book excerpt: Jo Waldman lives life to her own soundtrack—working for her father by day while pursuing her music career in NYC’s downtown clubs at night. Music is her passion, along with her boyfriend, Jesse, who shares her dreams of making it big. Jo's old band, The Lonely Hearts Club, came thisclose to getting a huge recording contract, and she’s just biding her time, waiting for lightning to strike twice. The music business is tough, but so is Jo. So when Jo's father fires her and Jesse breaks up with her, Jo doesn’t get upset—she just wants to rage. Dusting off her computer, Jo writes a blog entry, pouring her heart out about the shortcomings of love. Except that no sooner does Jo hit “upload” than the site sends a mass e-mail to the entire Lonely Hearts mailing list, alerting everybody Joe has ever met that she's been brutally dumped. All Jo wants to do is hide under the covers, but to her surprise, supportive e-mails start flowing in—many of them from complete strangers. Apparently, her anti-love rant has struck a chord. The Lonely Hearts Club Blog develops a huge following, even capturing the eye of Jo’s sworn nemesis, bubble gum pop princess Amber Fairchild. Jo soon becomes an icon for all things “anti-love,” and at her fans' request, she begins to plan The Lonely Hearts Club Ball—a massive anti-love Valentine's Day party to end all parties. Jo quickly becomes the poster girl for lonely hearts, and it inspires her to start writing music again. There's only one problem: the web programmer helping Jo with her site is simply dreamy. Jo's never been very good at depriving herself of anything, but if this budding romance is exposed, she'll be revealed as an 'anti-love' fraud and risk losing all the people who have grown trust her voice. So is it time to start singing love songs, or time to pick up the guitar and return to the hard rock that almost got The Lonely Hearts signed in the first place? Either way, Jo's got some big decisions to make, and it looks like she's going to have to take one step closer to doing something she never thought she'd do—becoming a grownup. From Brenda Janowitz, author of the beloved Brooke Miller novels SCOT ON THE ROCKS and JACK WITH A TWIST comes another uproariously funny and heartfelt story that will ring true to anyone who's dug themselves into a hole only to find that getting out is where you least expect it.