Jessica Brody

Jessica Brody is the author of two adult books from St. Martin’s Press (Love Under Cover and The Fidelity Files) and two forthcoming young adult books from Farrar, Straus & Giroux (The Karma Club and My Life Undecided). Love Under Cover, which releases on November 10 follows the life of a “fidelity inspector,” a woman hired to test men’s fidelity, while The Karma Club (April, 2010), her YA debut, tells the story of three teen girls who vow to take Karma into their own hands and get revenge on their bad ex-boyfriends, until they discover that Karma has a plan of its own.

Recently I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

As a person who can never sit still, I’m usually always reading four or five books at once. I stash them in different rooms of my house so I always have something to read no matter where I am. Here are a couple of my recent favorites:

The Espressologist by Kristina Springer. This is a debut, young adult novel that I picked up because my editor sent it to me. It’s from the same publisher/editorial team as my young adult novels. I expected it to be cute, (I mean, just look at the cover!) but I didn’t expect it to be down right amazing! It’s about a teen girl who works as a barista at a fictional “Starbucks”-esque coffee shop and has a knack for match making customers and friends based on their favorite coffee drinks. Kristina Springer is a fantastic new storyteller who is going to do great things. The writing is engaging and charming and humorous. I finished the whole book in one sitting! Quite a feat given my aforementioned restlessness.

Crossing Washington Square by Joanne Rendell. I’d be been waiting for this release for a long time. Ever since I read Rendell’s first novel, The Professors’ Wives’ Club, last year. This is such a heartwarming story about two young, female English professors at Manhattan University (think NYU). One teaches classic, literary works while the other likes to stir things up a bit and preaches the merits of popular women’s fiction like The Devil Wears Prada and Bridget Jones’s Diary. The story is not only entertaining and immediately hooks you in (especially when the two women fall for the same dashing professor), but it also conjures some thought-provoking questions about literature, women, and the books we love to read.

Watch Brody's award-winning book trailers and visit her online at www.jessicabrody.com.

--Marshal Zeringue