Book picks similar to
Hot Stuff by Janet Evanovich


romance
janet-evanovich
chick-lit
mystery

Full House


Steffie Hall - 1981
    She represents everything he's so artfully avoided. Happy in her home life, a divorced mother of two, Billie is the epitome of stability. They have nothing in common.To his horror, Nick is fascinated-- and irresistibly attracted. When Billie generously offers to share her home with Nick's crazy cousin Deedee for a while, Nick finds himself visiting-- often. And while each is slowly seduced by the other's charms, and both are wildly encouraged by devious Deedee, Billie and Nick find out that what they have in common is most important of all. But neither one knows that danger is lurking where they least expect it and a killer is closing in on them.

Fast Women


Jennifer Crusie - 2001
    Nell Dysart's in trouble. Weighed down by an inexplicable divorce and a loss of appetite for everything, Nell is sleepwalking through life until her best friend finagles a job for her with a shabby little detective agency that has lots of potential and a boss who looks easy to manage. Gabe McKenna isn't doing too well, either. His detective agency is wasting time on a blackmail case, his partner has decided he hates watching cheating spouses for money, and his ex-wife has just dumped him...again. The only thing that's going his way is that his new secretary looks efficient, boring, and biddable. But looks can be deceiving and soon Nell and Gabe are squaring off over embezzlement, business cards, vandalism, dog-napping, blackmail, Chinese food, unprofessional sex, and really ugly office furniture, all of which turn out to be the least of their problems. Because soon, somebody starts killing people. And shortly after that, they start falling in love...

Northern Lights


Nora Roberts - 2004
    With nowhere else to go, he accepted the job as Chief of Police in a tiny, remote Alaskan town with the hopes of starting over. Despite the name, Lunacy provides a balm for Nate's shattered soul—and an unexpected affair with pilot Meg Galloway warms his nights...But other things in Lunacy are heating up. Nate suspects the killer in an unsolved murder still walks the snowy streets. His investigation will unearth the secrets and suspicions that lurk beneath the placid surface, as well as bring out the big-city survival instincts that made him a cop in the first place. And his discovery will threaten the new life—and the new love—that he has finally found for himself.

Everyone Worth Knowing


Lauren Weisberger - 2005
    Then Bette meets Kelly, head of Manhattan's hottest PR firm, and suddenly she has a brand-new job where the primary requirement is to see and be seen inside the VIP rooms of the city's most exclusive nightclubs. But when Bette begins appearing in a vicious new gossip column, she realizes that the line between her personal life and her professional life is...invisible.

Goodnight Nobody


Jennifer Weiner - 2005
    Her once-loving husband is hardly ever home. The supermommies on the playground routinely snub her. Her days are spent carpooling and enduring endless games of Candy Land, and at night, most of her orgasms are of the do-it-yourself variety.When a fellow mother is murdered, Kate finds that the unsolved mystery is the most exciting thing to happen in Upchurch, Connecticut, since her neighbors broke ground for a guesthouse and cracked their septic tank. Even though the local police chief warns her that crime-fighting's a job best left to the professionals, Kate launches an unofficial investigation -- from 8:45 to 11:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, when her kids are in nursery school.As Kate is drawn deeper into the murdered woman's past, she begins to uncover the secrets and lies behind Upchurch's picket-fence facade -- and considers the choices and compromises all modern women make as they navigate between marriage and independence, small towns and big cities, being a mother and having a life of one's own.

Nature Girl


Carl Hiaasen - 2006
    In his latest New York Times bestseller, Hiaasen introduces impassioned, possibly bipolar, self-proclaimed queen of lost causes Honey Santana, who schemes to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference, and dinnertime sales calls.

Wedding Night


Sophie Kinsella - 2013
    Completely crushed, Lottie reconnects with an old flame, and they decide to take drastic action. No dates, no moving in together, they’ll just get married . . . right now. Her sister, Fliss, thinks Lottie is making a terrible mistake, and will do anything to stop her. But Lottie is determined to say “I do,” for better, or for worse.

Don't Want to Miss a Thing


Jill Mansell - 2013
    But everything changes overnight when his sister dies, leaving him in charge of her eight-month-old daughter Delphi. How is he ever going to cope?Comic-strip artist Molly Hayes lives in the beautiful Cotswold village of Briarwood. When it comes to relationships, she has a history of choosing all the wrong men. Leaving the city behind, Dex moves to Briarwood - a much better place to work on his parenting skills - and he and Molly become neighbours. There's an undeniable connection between them. But if Dexter's going to adapt, he first has a lot to learn about Molly, about other people's secrets...and about himself.

Our Husband


Stephanie Bond - 2000
    But how even?Fate has just thrown a curveball at the women in Raymond Carmichael's life-- all three of them. When they meet at his hospital bed, they discover they're all married to the same man. And when Raymond suddenly dies, the police suspect that one of these spunky ladies has commited murder...The Socialite-- Blonde, post-menopausal, and mad as hell, Beatrix always suspected Raymond married her for her daddy's money...twenty-one years ago.The Doctor-- a smart, small-town family physician, thirty-five-year-old Nathalie had ironically insisted on only one thing from her husband of seven years...absolute honesty.The Stripper-- Twenty-one and an exotic dancer, Ruby would have chalked up her brief marriage to a learning experience...if she hadn't been pregnant.Now they're three women left with a man's betrayal-- and worse, each other. But one thing they each insist-- they didn't kill Raymond. What can they do? Something outrageous and probably impossible: stick together to catch a murderer...A Selection of the Doubleday Book Club

The Switch


Sandra Brown - 2000
    Yet it's the first time as adults that they've even considered the childhood prank. Melina, the more impetuous twin, proposes that her circumspect sister take her place as a media escort to NASA astronaut and national hero Colonel Christopher "Chief" Hart.Although it's an enticing offer, Gillian declines for a very personal reason --- she's preoccupied with whether or not the artificial insemination she underwent that day will be successful. Besides, she warns Melina, such a switch could have unexpected consequences.Media-savvy Chief turns out to be an easy assignment for Melina --- in fact the evening with him is as much pleasure as business. But the following morning police arrive at Melina's door with the worst possible news: her beloved twin has been brutally murdered in her own bed. And on the walls, scrawled in blood, are obscenities directed at Gillian, along with insults toward Native Americans that indisputably link Chief to the crime.Dissatisfied with the official police investigation, Chief and Melina form a grudging alliance, strike out on their own ... and find themselves uncovering more questions than answers. Mistrusting even the authorities claiming to protect them, on the run with their lives in danger, the two are soon following a crooked and bloody trail that inexplicably leads to Gillian's attempt to conceive a child ... and to the threshold of an inner sanctum, where a megalomaniac hatches horrific schemes and lies in wait for Gillian's replacement, her identical twin --- Melina.

The Other Side of the Story


Marian Keyes - 2004
    A former NYPD cop, she now lives in London making million-dollar book deals while trying to make partner at her firm . . . all the while sleeping with the boss man. Lily Wright is an author who believes in karma, and is waiting for the sky to fall after stealing her former best friend's man. Though her first book failed to sell, her life turns upside down when her most recent book becomes a huge bestseller. Gemma Hogan is an event designer extraordinaire, but her personal life is nonexistent after losing the love of her life and her best friend in one fell swoop. To make matters worse, her father has just left her mother. While taking care of her mother, she e-mails a close colleague about her frustrations, who in turn forwards the hilarious e-mails to a famous literary agent named Jojo Harvey, who just happens to represent her former friend, now enemy, Lily Wright. . . . Written in the charming and chatty voice that has become Marian Keyes's signature style, this hilarious and heartwarming novel proves there are three sides to every story . . . especially in the world of publishing!

Bubbles Unbound


Sarah Strohmeyer - 2001
    Or that she’s a gum-snapping hairdresser with Barbie-doll curves pinched into hot pants and a tube top. Or that she’s saddled with a sleazy ex-hubby, a precocious daughter and a shoplifting mother. What can a beautician do to add new highlights to her image? For starters, trip over a corpse, and implicate a wealthy town socialite in the crime. Now, with a well-muscled photographer by her side, Bubbles is playing star sleuth. But as the investigation unravels, her shining moment grows as dark as a shopgirl’s roots. However dangerous her new career, at least the hottest graduate of Two Guys Community College is finally busting loose—and this time she’s really giving Lehigh, Pennsylvania something to talk about. Sarah Strohmeyer won the 2002 Agatha Award for best first mystery for Bubbles Unbound.

Size 12 Is Not Fat


Meg Cabot - 2005
    That was before she left the pop-idol life behind after she gained a dress size or two — and lost a boyfriend, a recording contract, and her life savings (when Mom took the money and ran off to Argentina). Now that the glamour and glory days of endless mall appearances are in the past, Heather's perfectly happy with her new size 12 shape (the average for the American woman!) and her new job as an assistant dorm director at one of New York's top colleges. That is, until the dead body of a female student from Heather's residence hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft.The cops and the college president are ready to chalk the death off as an accident, the result of reckless youthful mischief. But Heather knows teenage girls . . . and girls do not elevator surf. Yet no one wants to listen — not the police, her colleagues, or the P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives — even when more students start turning up dead in equally ordinary and subtly sinister ways. So Heather makes the decision to take on yet another new career: as spunky girl detective! But her new job comes with few benefits, no cheering crowds, and lots of liabilities, some of them potentially fatal. And nothing ticks off a killer more than a portly ex-pop star who's sticking her nose where it doesn't belong . . .

Lavender Morning


Jude Deveraux - 2009
    Her mother grew up attending private schools and afternoon teas, but she married the local handyman. After her mother died when Joce was only five years old, her father remarried into his own class, and Joce became an outsider -- until she met Edilean Harcourt. Although she was sixty years Joce's senior, Miss Edi was a kindred soul who understood her like no one else ever had. When Miss Edi passes away, she leaves Joce all her worldly possessions, including an eighteenth-century house and a letter with clues to a mystery that began in 1941. In the letter, Miss Edi also mentions that she has found the perfect man for Joce -- a handsome young lawyer. Joce is shocked to learn that the mystery, the house, and the future love of her life are all in Edilean, a small town in Virginia that Miss Edi never told her about. Hurt that the woman who meant so much to her kept so many secrets, Jocelyn moves to this tight-knit village in an attempt to understand the legacy that has been left to her. As she begins to dig into Miss Edi's mystery, she soon discovers some shocking surprises about her family's history and her own future -- and she meets a man with his own mysterious past.

Deep Dish


Mary Kay Andrews - 2008
    Mary Kay Andrews has cooked up a tale y’all will savor to the last bite. ”—Paula DeenBattling TV chefs—a handsome Georgia redneck and a struggling young professional woman—find themselves competing for a coveted weekly time slot on national television in Mary Kay Andrews’s delightful New York Times bestseller Deep Dish. The incomparable Mary Kay offers heaping portions of humor, heart, and sass that fans of Fannie Flagg, Jennifer Crusie, Adriana Trigiani, Emily Giffin, and the Sweet Potato Queens simply will not be able to resist, as the winner-take-all cooking competition gets intense, especially when love ups the ante.