Cooking the Books

Sloane Templeton inherits a Brooklyn bookstore after her mother dies, a bookstore that’s in the sights of a realty company that would love to add the land to a development project. Sloane’s urbane psychiatrist boyfriend is an improvement over her ex, a gangbanger type. Her aunt Verlene is a cooking show run amok. Not long after Sloane refuses the offer to sell the store, bad things start happening on her store’s computers, and she must deal with a rare book worth a million dollars. A lot of ingredients get thrown into Calhoun’s plot pot. Her mashup of comedy, urban fiction, romance, and suspense doesn’t hang together, and some of the comedy is juvenile (boogers, anyone?). On the plus side, Sloane Templeton is a fierce, sometimes funny voice. Harder editing would better channel it. Agent: Terry Burns. (Apr.)