"Felicity 'Fizzy' Chen is lost. Sure, she's got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she's asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn't been practicing what she's preached. Fizzy hasn't ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can't-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she's spent...

Lyla Santiago and Nico Reese have been dating for more than two years, and she's beginning to feel like their relationship may be hitting a wall; she loves him, but his main focus at 28 is on his acting career, while, at 32, scientist Lyla is starting to dream about settling down. When Nico pleads with her to join him on a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, Lyla views it as an opportunity to see whether their relationship can go the distance--in...

Cindy loves shoes. A well-placed bow or a chic stacked heel is her form of self-expression. As a fashion-obsessed plus-size woman, she can never find designer clothes that work on her body, but a special pair of shoes always fits just right. With a shiny new design degree but no job in sight, Cindy moves back in with her stepmother, Erica Tremaine, the executive producer of the world's biggest dating reality show. When a contestant on Before Midnight...

A celebrity chef shows her friends and family the joy of fulfillment--and manages to spice up her own life at the same time.

"Four strangers and six weeks: this is all that separates Mara from one life-changing payday. She was surprised when reality TV producers came knocking at Primal Instinct--the survival school where she teaches rich clients not to die during a night outdoors--and even more shocked to be cast in their new show, Civilization. Now she just has to live off the land with her fellow survivors for long enough to get the prize money. Whisked by helicopter...

Just as Zack Dylan on the verge of winning it all on the popular TV show Fifteen Minutes, his choices lead him to the brink of personal disaster. Meanwhile, a former Fifteen Minutes winner is searching for meaning amidst her own private losses. Can she warn Zack about the real price of fame? Or will Zack lose everything he loves for his fifteen minutes of glory?

"Every summer for the past ten years, six awe-struck bakers have descended on the grounds of Grafton, the Vermont estate that is not only the filming site for Bake Week but also the childhood home of the show's famous host, celebrated baker Betsy Martin. The author of numerous bestselling cookbooks and hailed as 'America's Grandmother,' Betsy Martin isn't as warm off-screen as on, though no one needs to know that but her. She has always demanded perfection,...

"In December 2003, Luke Ryder, the stepfather of acclaimed filmmaker Guy Howard, was found dead in the garden of their suburban family home. Guy was only a child, asleep upstairs at the time of the murder. His mother and two half sisters were also in the house that night--but all swear they saw nothing. Despite a high-profile police investigation and endless media attention, no suspect was ever charged, and Guy's family has been haunted ever since....

"Hattie Kavanaugh went to work helping clean up restored homes for Kavanaugh & Son Restorations at eighteen; married the boss's son at twenty; and was only twenty-five when her husband, Hank, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Brokenhearted but determined to continue the business of their dreams, she takes the life insurance money, buys a small house in a gentrifying neighborhood, flips it, then puts the money into her next project. But that house...

"Cue the Sun is a rollicking, deeply reported story about how the early reality TV business metastasized into an industry that now dominates entertainment in the United States. Starting in 1948, Nussbaum pulls back the curtain on the cultural meat grinder that created a generation-defining form of entertainment, examining shows from The Real World to Survivor to The Apprentice. Through extensive interviews, Nussbaum follows the reality TV industry...