Bad Heir Day

One shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but the title of this superficial second novel by Holden (Simply Divine) suggests all one needs to know about what lies within. Awkward puns, shallow characters and predictable plot lines do little to prolong, much less provoke, interest. Struggling writer Anna Farrier knows that her handsome London live-in boyfriend, Sebastian Lavenham, is a womanizer, but his promiscuity becomes inescapably obvious when she realizes he has slept with most of the female guests at a wedding reception at Dampie Castle on the Island of Skul off Scotland. Anna makes a friend herself at the wedding, though, and gutsy Geri gives Anna some much-needed career advice. Thinking she is to be a writer's assistant to bestselling romance novelist Cassandra Knight, Anna leaves Sebastian and moves into the Knights' exclusive Kensington home. In actuality, the job requires playing nanny to alternately spoiled and neglected eight-year-old Zachary, whom Cassandra believes can do no wrong. When she isn't deluding herself about her supposedly gifted son or drinking excessively to drown the pain of writer's block, Cassandra engages in screaming matches with her aging rock star husband, Jett St. Edmunds. He is in the habit of shagging the nannies and practicing with his band Solstice, which he insists will prove popular again. Anna must humor Cassandra, control Zachary and avoid Jett if she is to survive this especially dysfunctional household and escape with one of the Scottish suitors she finally attracts. Flat rather than frothy, this soap opera-ish confection never quite takes off, and what should have been a guilty pleasure devolves into forgettable farce. (Mar.)