REVIEW Showcase Single Minded by Lisa Daily

I had the opportunity to showcase this novel back in June when it released and the cover and blurb captivated me so much that it went on my personal ever growing, leaning tower of a TBR pile. I'm so glad it was next on my list because so far it's the best book I've read in 2017.
I hope you enjoy my review of this fabulous find and I hope you'll grab a copy for yourself.
Enjoy!

ISBN-13: 9781250060440
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: 06-27-2017
Length: 288pp
Buy It: Amazon/B&N/Kobo/IndieBound

ADD TO: GOODREADS

Overview:

Alex has planned and executed her life with laser focus since she first met her future husband at the play-doh table on the first day of kindergarten. They have a terrific life, a gorgeous house on the bay, and fantastic careers they love. There's only one problem: Alex's husband has a secret. A big one.

Now, Alex’s perfectly planned life has completely fallen apart, her biological clock is starting to feel like the timer on a nuclear device, and she finds herself drooling over her completely-dreamy-but-definitely-off-limits client, a star chef opening a hot new restaurant.

Armed with dating guidance from her oddball collection of advisers—including her gay ex-husband, a foul-mouthed political consultant, a perkily masochistic yogi, and a pot-smoking octogenarian—Alex navigates the booby-trapped world of modern dating, in her search for a second chance at love.

excerpt courtesy St. Martin's Press––

1

You know that feeling when you’re suddenly startled out of a deep sleep, and you’re in that hazy middle world where you’re not sure what’s real—like maybe you actually could be chasing after an ice-cream truck wearing only fishing waders and a canary-yellow bridesmaid’s dress, or you’re just one answer away from winning a year’s supply of adult diapers on a Japanese game show?

My cell phone is in my hand, although I have no recollection of answering it.

“Don’t panic,” says Darcy, as I struggle to rouse myself.

Darcy is my closest friend, aside from my husband, Michael, who’s been the love of my life since the first day of kindergarten when I convinced him that the blue Play-Doh tasted exactly like cotton candy. He ate the whole can, just to prove me right. Michael was like that.

Darcy is a one-woman hurricane: a fiery, tell-it-like-it-is political consultant who is as hard on the men she dates as she is on candidates. As Darcy likes to put it, “I don’t have time for screwups.” She never calls me in the middle of the night.

“Oh my God, is someone dead?” I ask.

“Why is that always the first thing out of your mouth?” she says.

“Because someone always is,” I say.

It’s still dark outside and I check the clock: 5:04. Clumsily, I grope around on my nightstand until I locate the lamp switch and flip it on.

“Darcy, what’s going on?” I ask, propping myself up in bed. “Did somebody die? Or not?”

“Ugh. You’re about to,” she says.

“What do you mean?” I ask, feeling completely freaked without knowing why.

“There’s a story on one of the sports blogs. It’s about Michael.”

“My Michael? What about Michael?” I ask. My intestines do a nosedive and a nauseating cocktail of dread and adrenaline races through my body. Oh God, is he dead? He’s out of town for work, and I haven’t talked to him since last night.

And then, the more obvious, “Why are you up in the middle of the night reading the sports blogs?”

* * *

Darcy ignores me.

“It’s a post about Michael having an extramarital relationship with a twenty-one-year-old college basketball player.”

“That can’t be true,” I say with all the self-assurance a woman can possess while still wearing her pajamas. “What’s her name?” Michael would never cheat on me. Never. I’d kill him. Kill him dead.

“Alex, it’s not a her. It’s a him. Bobby something. He plays for Michigan, graduates this year, thanks Jesus after every basket, leads his team in prayer before every game,” she says.

“A him? Wait, wait, wait, what? I don’t understand. You’re saying Michael is sleeping with a man? A man?” And then it dawns on me. “Oh gawd. Did you say Bobby? Bobby Cavale?” I ask. “Michael wouldn’t shut up about him. How talented he is. What a big career he’s going to have. How he was the next LeBron or something. I thought it was just his stupid jump shot.”

“Apparently it was his layup,” Darcy deadpans. I snort and then giggle involuntarily. Darcy cracks jokes during funerals, scandals, and tragedies. It’s her way of helping to break the tension. Because it’s hard to contemplate throwing yourself in the path of a speeding termite truck when you’re rolling around on the floor laughing.

“Wait, are you saying … do you think Michael is gay?” I ask, absolutely incredulous.

“Yes,” she says. “Most definitely.” I feel my chest cave in.

“No, seriously?” I say.

“Seriously,” she responds. The line goes quiet. Which is unusual for Darcy.

“You’re crazy! Why do you think that?” I ask.

“Well, even aside from the whole making-out-with-a-guy thing, I always thought he was gay. I’ve never seen a man more insanely happy, jubilant, even, reporting from the locker room. And then of course there was that crazy Halloween party you guys threw last year. Michael was, hands down, the gayest Count Chocula ever. Also, I’m pretty sure he only took up biking so he could shave his legs and gift-wrap his package in Spandex. But that’s just speculation.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” I say, pressing my palms hard against my forehead in hopes of triggering some sort of twenty-minute amnesia, like a reset button for my brain. “Jesus, I feel like such an idiot.”

“It never occurred to me that you didn’t know. It seemed so obvious,” says Darcy. “I mean, you didn’t get your psychology degree online or stuffed inside a box of cereal, did you?”

I sigh deeply. This is not making me feel better.

Darcy asks, “Look, do you want me to get my crisis team on this and check it out? My best guess is that it’s going to blow up over the weekend, and depending on how it’s handled, die out by Monday. Unless there’s more. Or video. It’s not every day that a top draft pick and an ESPN broadcaster get caught screwing around. Michael is going to need a good publicist if he’s going to keep his job. The media loves to devour its own. Tell him to call me if he needs some names.”

“Mmmm-hmm,” I respond numbly.

“Or you can scratch that and just let him hang on live TV. Your call.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why does some stupid sports blog even care that two grown men are having sex, except for the fact that they both happen to work in sports?”

“Because Michael is married. Because Michael is a basketball commentator and Bobby is a top draft pick. Because Bobby is super-religious and has felt the need to speak to the media extensively against what he calls the sins of blasphemy and homosexuality. And because Michael is higher profile than the average hookup.” She snorts. “Between the homosexuality and adultery, all Bobby needs is for Michael to schedule an abortion and he’ll have Satan’s trifecta.”

“Are you sure it’s even true?” I ask. “Maybe it’s just a rumor.” Please, please, let it just be a rumor. A cruel but completely false rumor. A case of mistaken identity. Something we’ll all be laughing about a year from now.

“It’s true. There are … pictures,” she says. “I’m so sorry. It was probably bound to come out, one way or another.”

“Pictures?” I sit straight up in bed, gripping the phone so hard my fingers began to go numb. What the hell? Was I a serial killer, or a door-to-door magazine salesperson in a past life or something? Outrage and humiliation sear my every thought.

Disconnected sounds dribble from my lips, but my mouth can’t form any more words. Like I’ve been Tasered. Actually, I’d rather be Tasered. At least when you’re Tasered things go back to normal after the 18 million volts of electricity hit your heart. You lose your breath, your body seizes up, you twitch around on the floor, you drool, maybe you pee yourself. But you probably recover. There is no way I’m ever going to recover from this.

“Yes, pictures,” she says. “Listen to me, you do not want to get involved in this mess. There are plenty of reporters who will be happy to agree you’ve been wronged and that Michael is a bastard. And then they’ll put your puffy face and bloodshot eyes on camera and the story will last a week or a month instead of a couple of days.”

“I’m going to kill him,” I say.

“No, you’re not,” she says. “Don’t answer any calls on your cell that aren’t from people you know. Do you guys still have a landline?”

“What am I, eighty?” I ask.

“Lay low, stay home, order food, or rearrange your medicine cabinet or something. Don’t watch TV. Don’t surf the Internet. Don’t even think about googling ‘Craigslist hit men’ or ‘how to poison my husband with leftover pizza and household chemicals.’ Call your web designer right this minute and tell her to put a home page up on your Web site that says it’s under scheduled maintenance. Do not speak to any reporters. The last thing you want to do in a firestorm is add oxygen. You need to lay low and hope it’s not a slow news day.”

“On camera? Is this really going to go that far? Michael isn’t Steve Phillips, he’s just a college basketball announcer. Oh God. I just heard myself.”

“Yes,” says Darcy in her most soothing voice. “He’s a college basketball announcer who’s screwing one of the top college players in the country. Not exactly some unknown intern.”

I put my head in my hands. Darcy kept talking but I couldn’t focus on the words.

“I can’t handle this,” I say. “What am I going to do?”

“Yes, you can,” Darcy says firmly. “Just break out the liquor and pray for a natural disaster.”

Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Daily

My Review

Single Minded
Lisa Daily 

Daily’s latest novel is a rare find, a feel good rom-com page-turner that’s out of this world real, real funny, real heartfelt and real amazing. Her laugh out loud witty narrative softens the blows of her at times sober plotline and her promotion of the Sarasota sights and sounds will make readers want to book a flight. Her costars, from her octogenarian pot loving retired circus performer to her star’s hilarious yet loyal besties, are awesome and her introduction to environmental psychology 101 is highly educational and absorbing but its her unsinkable, unforgettable, incredible star, Alex that rules every page of this can’t put it down, keeper shelf bound, must read. Brava!

SUMMARY:
Dr. Alex (Alexandra) Wiggins was so busy living her carefully (control freak) planned “perfect” life, being a successful environmental psychologist, married to an ESPN sportscaster her lifelong love and BFF since Kindergarten, and getting ready for their 1.5 children that she totally missed the fact he also happened to be gay. That was until the scandal of him and an up and coming basketball star made national headlines and worse after his fall from grace was made public was the fact that apparently she was the only one of her family and friends who wasn’t aware of his sexual orientation. So she turns to her two best girlfriends, a political spin-doctor and a mercurial yoga studio owner plus her (okay sue her, but he does know her best) ex for help. But can they really help a thirty-one year old gay-husband virgin whose clock is ticking on her dying ovaries have it all? Is she too old to find someone to love her? And more importantly can she ever trust her judgment (because she’s obviously got no gay-dar) in men?

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Praise:

"Lisa Daily weaves a gut-wrenching yet hilarious send-up of love, betrayal and redemption.
A terrifically fun, emotionally-packed story in which I anxiously turned the pages rooting for our heroine to get her groove back.” —Jenny Gardiner, USA Today bestselling author of Slim to None and the It’s Reigning Men series

“Pack this book in your beach bag. Every person who has navigated the singles scene (or watched horrified on the sidelines) will find plenty to make them laugh out loud in Daily’s Single-Minded.” —Eileen Cook, bestselling author of With Malice, and Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood

“Single-Minded is funny and full of charm—Lisa Daily crafts her stories with heart and humor.” —Mia King, bestselling author of Good Things

“Quirky and uproarious and sexy as hell, Single-Minded is as much fun as you can have sitting down. The premise is a howler. And it has MOVIE written all over it.” —Michael Alvear, bestselling author of Men Are Pigs But We Love Bacon and Alexander the Fabulous, and cohost of HBO’s Sex Inspectors

“Look no further—you've found your latest and most essential beach read. Lisa Daily knows exactly how to mix hilarious with romantic, topical with heartwarming, and pain with extremely satisfying vindication. With a fantastic group of characters who leap from the page, and a fast-paced, emotional journey that will keep you chuckling and cheering, Single-Minded is a winner.” —Danielle Younge-Ullman, author of Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined

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Meet Lisa:

LISA DAILY is the love and relationships expert on Daytime, a nationally-syndicated morning TV show, and has appeared everywhere from MTV Live to Entertainment Tonight, and been quoted by the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Men’s Health, Christian Science Monitor, and US Weekly. She is the bestselling author of seven books, including Stop Getting Dumped!, Fifteen Minutes of Shame, How to Date Like a Grown-Up, and Beauty.