From the Publisher

Twenty-six-year-old Heaven Albright is a failed PR executive turned embittered waitress. Twenty-nine-year-old Brady Gilbert is a struggling independent music producer with no bands and a get-rich quick product idea: "Cinnamilk"--a delicious beverage derived from leaving cereal in the bowl too long. What do these two people have in common? Not much--except for a shared dislike for one another as neighbors. You see, Heaven has an annoying habit of opening Brady's mail. The tide turns, however, when she rescues Brady from an awkward encounter with his psycho ex-girlfriend, sparking an unlikely friendship and a united quest to pitch Cinnamilk to the founder of America's biggest coffee chain. But will Brady and Heaven's fortune-seeking adventures also brew romance?

Author Biography: CAPRICE CRANE divides her time between New York City and Los Angeles, California.

Publishers Weekly

This funny duet pairs two New York City 20-something neighbors: Heaven Albright, whose reversal in fortunes transforms her from uber-PR exec to bumbling waitress, and Brady Gilbert, an aspiring music producer with problems navigating the bright lights of the big city. The story of their personal and professional travails unfolds in alternating chapters, appealingly narrated by zany Heaven and wry Brady. The two meet-cute downstairs at the deli, and even if the novel's arc is familiar (it's instantly obvious that Heaven and Brady's initial distaste for each other can never last), Crane's giddy, playful prose feels fresh. When Heaven inevitably gets fired from the restaurant, she joins Brady on a trip to Seattle, where he hopes for a face-to-face meeting with Starbucks founder Howard Schultz to pitch him an idea for Cinnamilk (the flavor left after you've eaten cinnamon cereal). The adventures that play out from New York to Seattle as the two pursue their idealistic dreams prove so much fun that a touch of predictability hardly matters. TV writer Crane heavily spices her debut with pop culture references from the '80s to the present day and keeps the story moving with snappy dialogue, a combo likely to entertain legions of (gum-popping) readers. (May 12) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Two 20-something New Yorkers squabble and flirt their way across the country. A laid back, music-obsessed dreamer in the Nick Hornby mold, struggling indie-rock producer Brady Gilbert is reasonably sure, after losing his rent-controlled apartment in a breakup, that a girlfriend is the last thing he needs. Still, he is intrigued when he moves in next door to Heaven Albright. Lissome, quirky and frequently obnoxious, Heaven pops into Brady's apartment unannounced, opens his mail and generally finds ways to both fascinate and annoy him. A former PR flack and woefully inept waitress, Heaven is tossed from the hipster Asian restaurant where she works after one of her jokes goes too far. With time on her hands, she cheerfully oversteps all of Brady's boundaries and insists on accompanying her new neighbor on a trip to Los Angeles, where he intends to check out and sign a talented high-school rock band. In L.A., Heaven crosses paths with her ex, a smarmy A&R rep for a big record company interested in the same band as Brady. After Heaven spends the night with his rival, Brady cannot decide what is worse, losing his band, or losing Heaven. The not-quite couple then stop in Seattle, where Brady hopes to present his improbable but inspired entrepreneurial idea-Cinnamilk-to Starbucks mastermind Howard Schultz. Good intentions, combined with poor judgment, result in the two getting arrested outside a vigil commemorating the death of Kurt Cobain. With a title taken from a Nirvana song and Brady's fixation with obscure bands and even more obscure snack foods, Crane's basic boy-meets-girl story is at times a bit too enamored of its own caffeine-fueled pop-culture cred. Crane's witty romantic comedy debutwill be best appreciated by those raised on a steady diet of MTV.

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Product Details

• ISBN: 0641914393
  
• ISBN-13: 9780641914393
• Format: Paperback, 336pp
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Pub. Date: May 2006
• Edition Description: Bargain

• Read a Sample Chapter

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Stupid and Contagious

5 SPOT

Chapter One

My name is Heaven Albright and my husband of two years is cheating on me. I'm only twenty-five and you can argue that getting married at twenty-three is young, but I'll argue right back that people marry out of college and even high school, so considering that, it's not so young. Anyway, young or not ... the bastard is cheating on me. After I gave him the best years of my life.

He's cheating on me with someone he works with. A girl from his office who he didn't even think was cute at first, but after months of working long hours together and cultivating inside jokes, and commiserating over bad cafeteria food ... they're bumping uglies. It sickens me to even think about it. He'd always be so happy when he came home late from work, and you'd think I would have caught on because nobody's happy when they have to stay late at work. But I thought he just really enjoyed his job. Or maybe he was pissed off, but the minute he walked through the door and saw me, his bride of two years whom he loved and adored, all the day's annoyances would disappear. Poof.

But no. He would come home all smiles because he'd just gotten his rocks off with some little skank who probably wore twinsets and laughed like a hyena at their stupid inside jokes. I hate twinsets, with theirmatching fabric and color coordination and phony reserve. It's a known fact that twinsets are one of the most easily removed garments there is. Her name is probably Megan or Jessie, and she's probably a couple years younger than me. She's like me two years ago, but in a twinset. He's re-creating me even before I've had a chance to become the tired, old, sexually reluctant "ball and chain." I resent that. I'm not old.

Marriage sucks. People who tell you that you stop having sex after you get married are right. You just don't have it anymore. It's not like you say your I-dos and immediately stop. It takes a little time. Of course there's the honeymoon, and the first few months of playing horny housewife and helpful handyman, or slave girl and surprisingly warmhearted barbarian, or Winnie the Pooh and the Magical Honeypot. But after a while you stop shaving your legs, and he stops noticing, and it seems more practical to try to get a good night's sleep.

Brady

My name is Brady Gilbert, and I hate the window seat. Airplanes in general are a pain in the ass, and when I clearly stipulate that I want to sit on the aisle, a window seat is a personal affront that my secretary will be hearing about. If I had a secretary.

I'll just sit here and will nobody to sit in the aisle seat. That way I'll not only have the aisle seat, but I'll be able to achieve that almost-but-not-quite-comfortable sleeping position that inevitably ends up with a dead arm, stiff legs, and dried drool at the outer corner of my mouth. In front of complete strangers, no less.

Don't get me wrong ... sure, it's nice to look out a window. But at what price? Do I want to have to ask permission every time I need to take a piss? It's like needing a hall pass in school, but worse. These are strangers. And when I got a hall pass, I didn't inconvenience anyone. But to go to the bathroom on an airplane, I have to make awkward small talk and offer the obligatory apologetic shrug to a guy who's been hogging my armrest. Then he gets up just enough to let me squeeze by. He'll sigh as he gets up, not trying to make me feel guilty per se, but more like "Oh, these old bones of mine," which is crap unless he's over eighty. And he's not, he's just annoyed.

Then to add insult to injury, as I maneuver out of the "now more room than ever before" four inches of space, I hold on to the tacky fabric headrest of the seat in front of me and get a glance from that person, too. I'm making enemies left and right. Flight attendants hate me, too. Me and my devil-maycare bladder. Then when I come back, I have to do the dance all over again. Heaven help me if it's a three-seater with a middle seat. Not to mention the etiquette question of which way to pass my neighbors-crotch first or ass first?

I hate the window seat. So I wait, and I will. People are still boarding, but so far, so good. I've spotted the token hot chick that's way out of my league anywhere but in my overactive imagination. This is going to be a long flight. There is always that one hot chick, no matter where you're going, domestic or international, and never in the seat next to you. Or me.

Well, this flight's no different. In walks our token goddess of flight, and I shift all my willpower to connect her ass with the seat next to mine. Nothin'. But she smiled at me, or at least I think she did. Maybe she was smiling at the flight attendant who'd just given her an extra blanket. Just because.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Stupid and Contagious by Caprice Crane Copyright © 2006 by Caprice Crane. Excerpted by permission.
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