The French Revolution

Stewart's whimsical debut (originally published on Twitter as 3,700 tweets) finds vague inspiration in the French Revolution and begins in 1989 when former pastry chef Esmerelda Van Twinkle, through a series of wacky events and coincidences, becomes involved with a coupon vender named Jasper Winslow. They have two kids—Marat and Robespierre—and after Jasper disappears, Esmerelda and the kids move in with her drunken mother, whose house has been "in boiled suspension" since her husband disappeared at sea. Despite an unpleasant stay, Esmerelda's kids are smart and determined: they put their obese mother on a diet and make their own way in the world—Robespierre in politics; Marat in the criminal underworld, then the military, and later back to the first. From Esmerelda's return to kitchen glory to Robespierre's serendipitous series of political victories, everything works out just fine. Esmerelda isn't wrong when she says that her family has gone from "ruffians to royalty in the blink of a decade," but Stewart would have done his characters and readers a favor by making the trip a bit rockier. (July)