The Best Laid Plans    by Lynn Schnurnberger Order:  USA  Can Ballantine, 2011 (2011) Hardcover, e-Book Read an Excerpt      Reviewed by Hilary Williamson Lynn Schnurnberger, author of The Botox Diaries, Mine are Spectacular! and The Men I Didn't Marry, now brings fans a wry and witty, fluffy, funny and farcical comedy of errors in The Best Laid Plans. Its madcap heroine is Truman 'Tru' Newman, an Upper East Side M&M (into Mothering and Maintenance), who is about to learn that her investment banker husband Peter (her college sweetheart) lost his job three months before and their credit cards are totally maxed out. Constant criticism from Tru's beauty queen mother (Miss Subways May 1959) Naomi Finklestein, 'an up-close cautionary lesson in the folly of chasing rainbows', doesn't help the situation. While Tru worries over what to do next, her best friend Sienna Post is fired from her job as the local nightly news anchor. Sienna also sleeps with a younger man, the Newman's boy-wonder tax lawyer, Bill Murphy, who insults her by offering substantial financial help. But this inspires Tru with a plan - to run an escort service of courtesans over the age of forty. Bill soon signs up for both the legal work and to enlist the Johns from amongst his nerdy, twenty-something friends. He sees it as a great niche market. In the meantime, Peter has been offered a job by a new tenant in their building, blond bombshell Tiffany Glass - should Tru be jealous? And her fourteen-year-old twin (but not identical) daughters, Molly and Paige are competing for the attention of their high school Lothario, the DA's son, Brandon Marsh. Happenings in this hilarious novel just keep on getting wackier, as Sienna blogs about the business, Peter and Tiffany head to Hawaii, and the girls end up at the police station, tagged the Twin Hitters. Tru's best-laid plans do indeed go very much awry, but by the end of the novel, all is well in her world again, her relationships have improved, Sienna and Bill are a couple, and Tru has learned a few things about herself along the way. The Best Laid Plans makes a perfect New Year read - touching, slightly crazy and all about fresh starts. Have fun with it! Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Contemporary books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews