Love, Suburban Style

Faced with a fading Broadway career and a rebellious 15-year-old daughter, single mom Meg Addams decides to move from New York to her hometown 50 miles away. Against the advice of her gay best friend Geoffrey, she drags her protesting teenager, Cosette, to Glenhaven Park, N.Y., where shockingly high real estate prices leave her with only one option: a haunted house. Fortunately, the real estate comes with not just a ghost but also a hunky next-door neighbor from Meg's past: widower Sam Rooney, for whom she suffered an unrequited high school crush. Thrown together by their kids (he's a high school teacher as well as a soccer coach), their mutual attraction and things that go bump in the night, the pair are soon waging a futile battle against their romantic instincts. Rita Award–winning author Markham (If Only in My Dreams ), a pseudonym for Wendi Corsi Staub (Don't Scream ), provides a fast-moving, ultralight take on single parenthood, suburban sex and keeping up with the soccer moms that should please chick lit fans; anyone seeking depth should look elsewhere. (July)