Slightly Single (Red Dress Ink paperback}
In this shopworn, Bridget Jonesy tale, Tracey Spadolini is desperate for love. Not surprisingly, given the genre, Tracey smokes, drinks and eats too much, and frets about her romantic life. Even more predictably, the 24-year-old plumpish protagonist from a sprawling Italian family in upstate New York has settled for an unfulfilling entry-level ad agency job with a smarmy boss, and lives in a "drab East Village flat." The good news is that Tracey's friends pretty Kate, a bleached blonde with "fake aquamarine pupils," and gay stereotype Raphael, a Ricky Martin look-alike love her. The bad news: life isn't peachy in the true love department. Will, Tracey's handsome, waspish boyfriend, is an actor with little talent and no time for Tracey. Their relationship "has been about as stable as an Isuzu Trooper at eighty mph on a hairpin curve," but a decent alternative turns up in attentive Buckley, a freelance copywriter. When Will leaves town to act in summer stock, a dejected Tracey starts slimming down, boning up on literary classics like Moby Dick and generally re-evaluating her life. Markham a pseudonym for Wendy Corsi Staub, award-winning romance author and ghostwriter for the likes of Fabio has done little here to break out of pulp romance and into literature. The narcissistic upsets of a shallow crew of 20-something singles and the hackneyed ending now are sadly out of date and hold little appeal. Agent, Laura Blake Peterson.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.