Head over Heels

Like chocolate and peanut butter, it's a natural match%E2%80%94chick lit and yoga%E2%80%94with a hot L.A. setting, fictional celebs, and a host of complications for its five heroines, yoginis all. There's super-teacher Lee, building a new studio and beginning to date after a divorce, and her friends/co-workers/clients: dancer and abuse victim Graciela; Katherine the sober masseuse; reluctant lesbian and rising screenwriter Stephanie; and Imani, an actress coming back after a pregnancy. This sequel to Tales from the Yoga Studio stands on its own, and given the number of story lines and the recent yoga boom, it's clear that Mitchell (a pseudonymous Stephen McCauley) has the makings of a series, and not a half bad one, as the women genuinely like each other and only a Pilates scrooge wouldn't wish them well. Perhaps in the next iteration, Mitchell can ease up on plot (some urgency dissipates as we're torn away from Graciela's rescue for Lee to interview yet another teacher and Katherine to worry about her new apartment) and show a bit more of what B.K.S. Iyengar calls the donkey work of yoga. Until then, it's a frothy blend of female bonding and bending, depicted as the twin tonics for whatever ails you. (Apr.)