Blueprints

May 1, 2015
Delinsky, whose bestsellers tackle the crises of family life, offers a story of growth for a woman and her adult daughter and the resulting painful divide. Caroline MacAfee is head carpenter for MacAfee Homes and host of the popular home-improvement show Gut It!, which chronicles the company's building projects. The company is a family affair, run by patriarch Theodore; Caroline's ex-husband, Roy; their architect daughter, Jamie; and her fiance, Brad, the company's lawyer. Caroline avoids Roy and his young third wife, Jess, and their toddler, Tad, preferring the wood shop to the boardroom. But then the producer of Gut It! drops a bombshell-Caroline is being replaced as host by Jamie. Caroline is furious, feeling she's the victim of ageism, and irrationally blames Jamie for orchestrating her own promotion. Heartbroken Jamie adores her mother and doesn't want to host the show, at least not like this. But suddenly this conflict becomes much less relevant when Roy and Jess are killed in a car accident and Jamie is given custody of Tad, her half brother. Grieving and overwhelmed, Jamie has just a few days to learn the trick of being a working mother. (Brad is no help, suggesting Tad be given, like an old potato, to someone else.) As her mother is still not speaking to her, Jamie begins to rely on Chip Kobik, a hunky dad and former NHL bad boy she meets at the park. He helps her navigate life with Tad and realize what real love looks like. Meanwhile, as the new CEO, the often unsympathetic Caroline softens while keeping company with her longtime friend Dean, the company's general contractor and a surprisingly romantic tough guy. Delinsky effortlessly brings the components together-romance, career shifts, changes in parent-child relationships-and if the novel becomes occasionally clunky detailing an architect at work or a real estate deal in action, then the two charming romances make up for it. A likable beach read with just a touch of gravitas.

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March 1, 2015
Best-selling author Delinsky (Chances Are, 2014) offers up a satisfying soaper about the strain placed on the personal and professional relationships between a divorced mother and her daughter when the pair are thrust into an untenable position. Caroline MacAfee, 56, relishes her job as the host of a popular local home-renovation show. So her 29-year-old daughter, Jamie, an architect who hosts segments on the show, is thrown for a loop when she learns that the producers want her to replace Caroline as the primary host. Thinking she can soften the blow, Jamie offers to tell her mother the bad news herself, but when she stalls and a producer beats her to the punch, Caroline feels completely betrayed by her daughter. The family is further fractured when Jamie's father and his much younger wife are killed in a car accident and Jamie becomes the guardian of their two-year-old son, Tad. Caroline and Jamie's relationship remains strained as Caroline embarks on a new romance and Jamie's engagement falters. Delinsky's many fans will find themselves absorbed in the drama of the MacAfees' lives. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The news about best-seller Delinsky's latest novel will be heard far and wide, and an initial 250,000 print run will be ready to go.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2015

Talented carpenter Caroline MacAfee has always enjoyed hosting the family's home construction TV show Gut It!, so she's crushed when the network wants to replace her with daughter Jamie. Then Jamie's father and his new wife die in a car crash. With a one-day laydown on June 9.

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