Hello, Sunshine

June 5, 2017
After focusing on wine in her previous novel, Eight Hundred Grapes, Dave’s new novel centers on food, following a disgraced YouTube chef forced to confront her (in)authentic self. On her 35th birthday, Sunshine Mackenzie wakes up on top of the world: she has a successful online cooking show and several cookbooks to her name, not to mention a lucrative Food Network contract. But when a hacker reveals on Twitter that Sunshine’s entire public persona—from her culinary chops to her picture-perfect marriage to her down-home upbringing—is a fraud, she quickly discovers just how fragile and fleeting success can be. Fleeing scandal by retreating to Montauk and her estranged sister’s strained good graces, Sunshine desperately casts about for a new beginning; soon enough, however, she realizes that starting over isn’t easy when you no longer have any idea who you really are. In Sunshine, Dave reveals her skill at crafting deeply flawed yet sympathetic characters and avoids easy resolutions in favor of realizations hard won by the heroine. The settings—both the glamorous Manhattan and Hamptons environs and the restaurant-kitchen intrigues—are engaging, but ultimately Sunshine’s journey to define herself apart from her Instagram filters and YouTube followers is where the novel shines. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME Entertainment.

May 15, 2017
A flashy heroine who falls from grace, a child who helps her regain perspective, an estranged sister to reconcile with, and a couple of handsome and successful male foils--this novel has all the ingredients of a tasty beach read.Sunshine Mackenzie is a YouTube sensation who's about to become the next Food Network star--until a hater hacks into her Twitter account and outs her as a fraud. Not only does this celebrity chef not know how to cook, but she doesn't even have an authentic biography--her whole Southern farmer's daughter persona was created by a TV producer looking for just the right face to front a food show. When she loses everything, she slinks back to her real childhood home, which happens to be in Montauk and where she has an angry sister she hasn't seen in years. But Sunshine isn't one to let life knock her down without getting up again, so Dave (Eight Hundred Grapes, 2015, etc.) provides a few paths to redemption: Sunshine bonds with her young niece, makes an actual friend, and tries to win her way back into the food world by doing her own work, this time in the kitchen of a demanding, Thomas Keller-like chef. Dave tries to juxtapose authenticity, privacy, and reality with extremes of exposure and fakery in both the virtual world and the real one, but the book never really takes off with these themes. Still, Sunshine doesn't go entirely unredeemed, and the story is fun to read in the same way cooking shows are fun to watch. Nothing terribly fresh here, but it goes down easily.

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July 1, 2017
Sunshine Mackenzie has it made; she is a YouTube culinary star, lives in a designer apartment, and is married to a most charming man. But on the morning of her 35th birthday, she gets hacked. With the hashtag #aintnosunshine, her Twitter account goes viral as her millions of followers learn secrets and view photographs that expose Sunshine for the lies she has built her life upon. With the click of a mouse, both her career and her marriage are ripped to shreds in less than 24 hours. She packs her car and goes back to her roots, squatting on her estranged sister's couch, begging (and lying) to get a job, trying to rebuild all that she so quickly lost. However, Sunshine learns that rebuilding takes much longer than rising to the top ever did. Dave's fifth novel (after Eight Hundred Grapes, 2015) will pull readers in from page one, and Sunshine will have readers in her corner, rooting her on as she uncovers what makes her special in a way that her celebrity life never could.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2017

In this follow-up to Eight Hundred Grapes, a No. 1 LibraryReads pick, Sunshine Mackenzie is a beloved, media-savvy cooking and lifestyle authority--a Martha Stewart-like celebrity, only nicer. But she's hiding her past, and when her secret comes out, she plummets from grace. With a national tour.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017

Sunshine, 35, is a YouTube star famous for her cooking show; when she is set to make the transition to the Food Network, her culinary skills and persona are exposed as a sham. With her career and marriage in crisis (also exposed was her infidelity to her husband), she goes back to Montauk, NY, where she grew up, to beg a spot on her sister's couch. Finally out of the limelight and without pressure to keep up appearances, Sunshine has the opportunity to reconnect with her sister and with herself. She seeks out a chef who is genuinely passionate about the work, not fame and fortune, and starts to find answers. Putting some of the blame of Sunshine's past mistakes on society's expectations of success, Dave (Eight Hundred Grapes) creates a resilient, likable heroine whom readers can sympathize with and root for. VERDICT Sunshine's journey is full of warmth, heart, and enough surprising twists to keep the story fresh. This upbeat, engaging exploration of finding one's authentic self is sure to make some of the "Best of Summer" book lists. [See Prepub Alert, 1/4/17.]--Sonia Reppe, Stickney-Forest View P.L., IL

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.