Sex Toys of the Gods

If you liked Glamourpuss, you'll love the hot sex and irreverent humor in TV writer (Married with Children) McLaughlin's second novel of the vertically integrated, happily mindless Hollywood of the 1990s. Recent college grad Jason Dallin dreams of being in the music business, developing talent and making music videos, but he's working in a ratty L.A. video store, Video Xplosion. Not until wealthy would-be star Fawn Farrar gets Jason to house-sit her Bel Air mansion does his life turn around, all thanks to next-door neighbors Marina Stetson, of the 1980s girl group the Pop-Tartts, and her hunky banker husband, Hank Rietta. Marina is about to release a new album, and Jason artfully helps make her a hit again, while he deploys other, less practiced skills in an affair with handsome nice-guy Hank. Subplots abound, most of them dirty and silly. The book's a soap, but the characters are sweet and human, not cardboard props, and McLaughlin doesn't take anything too seriously, except the food (L.A.-continental) and the sex. In the end, the losers lose, the youthful strivers win and we can't help but cheer. (Oct.)