Fiction
Women Full Blast
American Girls About Town (Downtown Press, $13.00)
Some of the best known (and bestselling) female writers in America contributed short stories to this collection which will raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation in the U.S. and the U.K.
This is the third "Girls About Town" story collection to raise money for a good cause. Irish Girls About Town and Scottish Girls About Town also raise money for charity.
The 17 stories run the gamut of modern life for women at every stage of life, married, single and in-between and are funny, sexy and smart. There is not a false note or a bad tale in the bunch.

Some highlights: In the titillating Leaving a Light On, Claire LaZebnik writes about a woman who goes to a bar with a mission that is more than what it appears to be; Sex and the City writer/producer Cindy Chupak writes with unexpected humor about what happens when one woman's husband makes a stunning announcement that ends their marriage; expatriate Brit and crime novelist Lauren Henderson writes a scathingly funny look inside the shallow mind of a Manhattan Yoga Babe that will leave you howling and in recognition; Nancy Sparling concocts a sparkling fairy-tale in Just Visiting, in which a woman's lies about her life are about to be exposed. Judi Hendricks writes movingly of a young widow who escapes to Paris in Andromeda on the Street of Ducklings.

A great book to escape the chill with.