Search results for ""author colleen curran""

Something Drastic is a first-rate comedy wrapped in a clever story starring eccentrics galore. When her boyfriend dumps her, Lenore writes long letters to him while her own life takes her on a roller coaster of emotions and events.

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Colleen Curran returns with her latest novel, Guests of Chance, completing the hilarious trilogy that has taken readers through break-ups, make-ups, fierce friendships, a trip to Hollywood and everything in between. Starring Lenore Rutland, an unsophisticated but astute former singing waitress who owns a theme restaurant in Montreal, Guests of Chance is proof that life can be an adventure. The new novel picks up where Curran left off in Overnight Sensation. Without skipping a beat, our heroine finds herself nervously flying away from her beloved Montreal to England, all the while reflecting on her "star turn" at the Oscars. She has left behind her beloved partner Benoît and her collection of unique friends: Madame Ducharme, who is doing time for poisoning six of her fellow jurors when they let a murderer go free; heartbroken Viola, whose lesbian lover has left for Toronto with her much younger, slimmer and more glamorous new love interest; Heidi's fireman brother Daniel, who hasn't told their parents that he's gay; Elspeth and her odious husband; and Madame's spoiled lap dogs, Montcalm and Brioche. Lenore's best friend Heidi, a professor of English, has persuaded Lenore to come to England with her for moral support as she tries to discover whether her handsome pen-pal "boyfriend" is the real deal. Akin to Bridget Jones's Diary and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Guests of Chance is a laugh-filled romp with two inexperienced thirty-something travellers, enchanting new readers and making those who met Lenore in Something Drastic and Overnight Sensation fall in love with her all over again.

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Overnight Sensation is the independent and richly entertaining sequel to Colleen Curran's hilarious first novel, Something Drastic. Lenore Rutland, an unsophisticated but astute singing waitress in a Montreal theme restaurant, is a best friend with her tenant, Heidi Flynn, an English professor. Their neighbour, Reine Ducharme, an expert gardener and maman to a pair of spoiled lap dogs, has poisoned six of her colleagues on a jury that released a murderer. With Reine in prison, Lenore becomes foster-maman to the dogs, Brioche and Montcalm. As Overnight Sensation opens, Lenore is recruited as a guest on the Neighbours of Neighbours Who Murder segment of Fiona!, a TV talk show with millions of avid followers. Because of her honesty, she accidentally gets the better of the vicious Fiona. Suddenly famous, she wins instant recognition at a Canadiens game, a would-be husband, and a fan club consisting of the nieces of Heidi's jilted suitor. Hoping to gain the upper hand occasionally, Lenore and Heidi take Brioche and Montcalm to obedience school. There, a casting director "discovers" the pampered darlings for a made-for-TV movie, Gamon de Pycombe: Dog of the Titanic. The movie behind her, Lenore pursues her sensational amateur acting career as the star of Bells Are Ringing, and at the same time she and her boss, Gaëtan (the lover of Heidi's fireman brother Daniel), save the restaurant from bankruptcy. Romance advances and recedes for everyone and there are laughs aplenty, plot complications galore, and even a few tears. Overnight Sensation is a gentle satire that, like Something Drastic, contains more than a kernel of psychological truth in its humorous core.

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