Best Staged Plans - Couverture souple

"[A] crowd-pleaser for empty nesters."―Publishers Weekly

"Fans of HGTV and of Cook's previous charming fiction (Seven Year Switch; Must Love Dogs) will adore this light, funny read."―Library Journal (Starred Review)

"Ms. Cook's writing only gets better with each new book."―New York Journal of Books

"Addicts to HGTV marathons will drool . . . well paced all the way to a genuinely delightful conclusion."―Booklist

"Cook knows the territory of secret longing and snappy dialog."―Publishers Weekly

"Claire Cook's characters aren't rich or glamorous--they're physically imperfect, emotionally insecure, and deeply familiar."―Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children

"Reading Claire Cook might be the most fun you have all summer."―Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Castaways

"Claire Cook has an original voice, sparkling style, and a window into family life that will make you laugh and cry."―Adriana Trigiani, author of Big Stone Gap

"Charming, engagingly quirky, and full of fun, Claire Cook just gets it."―Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries

"Claire Cook has knocked it out of the park with BEST STAGED PLANS! Everything she has written previously has been entertaining, fun, and funny, but this novel made me cry as well, then laugh again. Every page of this story of an almost-empty nester "Home Stager" trying to sell her own home is filled with humor, warmth, insight and humanity. Plus great tips and tricks! ... And a homeless woman named Naomi will steal your heart. I loved it!"―Joan Lang, Front Street Book Shop, Scituate MA

As a professional home stager, Sandy Sullivan is an expert at transforming cluttered rooms into attractive houses ready for sale. If only reinventing her life were as easy as choosing the perfect paint color. She's eager to put her family's suburban Boston home on the market, to downsize, and to simplify her own life. But she must first deal with her foot-dragging husband and her grown son, who has moved back home after college to inhabit the basement "bat cave."

After reading them the riot act, Sandy takes a job staging a boutique hotel in Atlanta recently acquired by her best friend's boyfriend. The good news is that she can spend time with her recently married daughter, Shannon, in Atlanta. The bad news is that Shannon finds herself heading to Boston for job training, leaving Sandy and her southern son-in-law, Chance, as reluctant roommates. If that's not complicated enough, Sandy begins to suspect that her best friend's boyfriend may be seeing another woman on the side.

Filled with characters who are fresh and original, yet recognizable enough to live in your neighborhood--plus plenty of great tips and tricks for fixing up houses, and lives--this is a wise and witty story of letting go and moving on. Best Staged Plans is Claire Cook at her most humorous and heartfelt.