BILLIE STARR'S BOOK OF SORRIES

A down-on-her-luck single mom takes a job that ends up changing her life—and endangering her family—in this funny yet bitingly realistic look at small-town life.

In the town of Benson, Indiana, Jenny Newberg is having a hard time. She can’t pay her bills, her ex (and the father of her daughter) won’t leave her alone, her mother criticizes every choice she makes, and she’s always disappointing her daughter, Billie Starr, a second grader. So when mysterious men in black suits approach and ask her to do one simple job—seduce a man running for governor so they can take down his campaign—she agrees. The job isn’t as easy as she’d expected, though. The men never pay her, and the man running for governor asks her to work as his receptionist. With no better job prospects on the horizon and a debt collector knocking on her door, Jenny agrees. Soon, she finds herself fielding mysterious phone calls, getting threatening faxes, and wondering what, exactly, she’s been caught up in. At the same time, Jenny has to deal with the eccentric characters in her life—her newly engaged mother, the neighbor who’s known for wielding a crossbow in public, the annoyingly perfect moms at school, and everyone else who seems out to get her. But it’s when the mysterious callers threaten what Jenny loves most that her life really starts to spiral out of control. Kennedy excels at writing quirky characters and entertaining dialogue, but what sets the story apart is the shimmering thread of dread that runs through all of Jenny’s thoughts and interactions. Although Kennedy imbues Jenny’s life with the sparkle of humor, the quiet desperation of her sometimes-bleak existence grounds the story in reality.

A grim literary mystery and a hopeful family story, this genre-blending novel manages to be both charming and heartbreaking.