Hit Reply

Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining Tale and a Heartwarming Story
Review: Amber and Stephanie's love lives are revealed in this lively novel made up entirely of emails and instant messages. Amber's old flame, Gray, reappears in her life (mostly via email and IMs) after she finds him on ClassReunion.com. The trouble is that Gray --- aside from never using capital letters in his messages --- has a "complicated" relationship with his female roommate and her son. Is the fact that Gray paints garages for a living yet lives to write country music an endearing quality, or a sign of still more trouble? Then ambitious, handsome, wealthy Chet enters Amber's life, although his attempts at humor fall flat. Will a distinguished bird in the hand win out over the far distant presence of the musical garage painter? Mysteriously, Gray revs Amber's hormones into a tumult online while Chet can't quite manage it in person.

Amber has a cold that drags on and on. In her messages to Stevie (Stephanie), she mentions doctors' visits, which leaves her friend (and the reader) to worry about Amber's health. When Amber gets her diagnosis, she suspects that she should table romance for another time. But Gray can't seem to stop emailing, IMing, and calling Amber. What's more, he composes irresistible love songs for her. Further complications ensue when Gray's roommate enters a crisis situation, while her young son depends on Gray for stability. How can Gray ever leave the little boy he adores?

Meanwhile, Stephanie struggles with her marriage. When her husband informs her that she's not "interesting," she takes up an old love interest's offer of a consultant job working from home via her computer. She juggles her children and the work while being e-wooed by the magnetic charms of also-married Tom's steamy messages. Is her husband cheating, or is he simply a traveling workaholic? Is Stephanie herself actually being unfaithful via the computer? Will Stephanie choose the alluring man she experiences only long distance, or will she try to repair the marriage and family in which she has invested so many years?

The story opens and you think this is a superficial read, but then it goes deep. We get so much more here than standard love stories. Amber and Stephanie's strong friendship is tangible. We learn of Amber's continuing sorrow for her long-dead mother, even as her father finds a new love. Amber's co-worker and friend Julie finds her way back into the workforce and tentatively enters a relationship. Gray reveals his heartbreaking past. Despite the message format, each character has a unique voice and seems real, experiencing hard choices, regrets, joy, fear, lust, love, jealousy, and agony. The reader cares about all of them (so much so that I actually had tears in my eyes a few times).

HIT REPLY is a great, gripping read!

--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon

Rating:
Summary: Average
Review: Another entry into the chick lit genre. This one is made up entirely of email exchanges.

I found it a little confusing in the beginning to figure out which character was emailing and to whom. After a while you get use to it though.

While there was some clever exchanges, this book is a bit standard stuff for chick lit. The only exception being the bad news delivered to one of the main characters. I hate serious bad news in chick lit. I read this stuff to relax me and reading about bad stuff just stresses me out. So, this is one of the reasons I give it a 3 star rating.

Also, there are so many characters in this story that you never really get into any of it cauz you are constantly switching voices.

This is ok stuff, but don't spend your money on it. Get it at the library.

Rating:
Summary: MEANINGFUL AND THOUGHT PROVOKING CHICK LIT
Review: At once warm and witty, this book goes way beyond the average chick-lit novel and tackles issues dealt with by real women. As I read the book, I felt as if Stephanie and Amber were *my* friends - I came to care for them, to experience their joys and disappointments - and very early on, I realized I was reading something truly compelling. These are the most genuine characters I've read in a long time and I highly recommend this book for anyone who's looking for a meaningful, thought-provoking twist to their chick-lit. An utterly gripping book!

Rating:
Summary: Ctrl+Alt+DO NOT DELETE!
Review: Has Mr. Wrong ever invaded your life? Has the Mommy track lost its appeal? And what happens when you reach the end of that track and your kids are grown and on their own? The main characters in HIT REPLY face these questions and more in a new release from Rocki St. Claire.

Amber Fleece is moving up at a Boston ad agency. Still looking for Mr. Right, she registers with an online site to get the email address of the guy who stole her heart (among other things) on prom night. Should she email him? Ignore his instant messages? Does the hip, urban woman really want to get involved with a guy who paints houses for a living and writes country music, and is living with another woman? The Harvard grad she's dating seems like the perfect man (at least to her friends and family) but sometimes out-of-your-league is preferable to Ivy League, especially when something more serious than the identity of Ben Affleck's current squeeze invades your life.

Stephanie Hilliard was Amber's boss at the ad agency. But Stevie traded suits for sweats, legal pads for coloring books, and the rat race for motherhood. She adores her children, but hugs, kisses and finger paintings on the fridge are beginning to lose their luster. Combine that with her husband's heavy travel schedule and suddenly Stevie begins to think she's probably as interesting as gum on the sidewalk. And when he starts traveling with a beautiful brunette assistant, she feels threatened and scared. A job offer from left field shakes things up a bit, especially since it's from her old agency and a man she'd had a pre-marriage attraction to. She's tempted - both to take the job and renew the attraction with her old flame. But she soon has to ask herself if sexy emails are any different than what she suspects her husband may be doing.

Our third player is Julie, Amber's admin assistant. Her marriage is over, her son has left for college and she's sure that motherhood can translate into a paying job. Add in the old beau she's found via the Internet, and this once-shy woman begins to blossom and exude a self-confidence that's quite marketable.

Written completely in the format of emails and instant messages, HIT REPLY is a story first and foremost about friendship. It explores the various chapters in our lives and deals with the influence of the World Wide Web, that seemingly never-ending source of information for many people. It allows instant communication and shrinks the world to the size of a 17-inch flat-screen monitor. For every question that it answers, HIT REPLY raises another.

Rocki St. Claire is the nom de plume of romantic suspense and category romance author Roxanne St. Claire, who Publishers Weekly considers a star on the rise. HIT REPLY is cleverly written, witty and flirty without going over the top. While billed as chick lit, it's unlike the rest of the genre, which is often full of self-dithering and endless angst. The characters' ages span three decades, so this book will appeal to a variety of readers. It touched my soul, tugged at my heartstrings, and left me feeling that the world would be A-OK. St. Claire is now on my auto-buy list.

P.S. Google your first boyfriend's name. You might be surprised!



Rating:
Summary: A perfect blend of women's fiction and chick lit
Review: I've read books written in an all e-mail format before, but this was the first one that grabbed me by the throat and would not let me go until I'd finished every last page.

The two main characters of the book--Stephanie and Amber--live, talk, act, breathe and think just like many women I know. Their struggles to balance career and family ring so true for any woman who deals with those challenges today. And the humor had me laughing out loud more than once (who among us hasn't secretly called our screaming, maniacal 2 year old a devil on occasion?) Their "voices" rang loud and clear through their e-mails and I was really holding my breath to see how things were going to turn out.

Lots of fun but also thought provoking, Hit Reply is a definite must read!

Rating:
Summary: Great chick-lit!
Review: The book's cover, title and blurb caught my attention. I am not unfamiliar with novels written in the form of e-mails, but I still thought Hit Reply would make a more original chick-lit read. This is a fun novel about two long-distance friends who communicate via e-mail. Amber Fleece decides to join a sort of Missing Persons website to see if she could find her high school boyfriend. To her surprise, he writes back, but he is not the successful, unapproachable man she had imagined. He is different in more ways than one. While Amber is single, her best friend, Stephanie, is married with two children in Florida. Her husband spends most of his time traveling for work and she's afraid that he might be having an affair with a co-worker. She used to be a successful career woman and resents being a stay-at-home mother. She hadn't known how lonely she was until she starts flirting with a former co-worker via e-mail and IM. Her former flame convinces her to accept the position as consultant at the marketing firm he and Amber work for. What transpires is a funny and sometimes poignant story centered on friends, love, co-workers, and various aspects of office politics.

The e-mails and IMs make this novel a fun treat. Creating a convincing plot development and characterization that way can't be easy, but it worked out quite nicely. I admit that the e-mails and Instant Messages became a bit tiresome after a while though. I began to miss the conventional narratives and dialogue in novels. The novel has the signature wit and sassiness of chick-lit, but it also deals with some rather serious dilemmas, like infidelity and cancer. The way the author handled the development of the story centered on those subject matters impressed me. Rocki St. Claire is a great new chick-lit author. But based on the back cover details, I have the feeling that Stephanie's story is taken from the author's life. After all, she used to work in marketing and is married with two children and lives in Florida. Anyway, this is a fun book to read. It sort of reminded me of Meg Cabbot's The Boy Next Door. I recommend this entertaining novel if you're in the bargain for a good girlie read.

Rating:
Summary: powerful character study
Review: Twenty-eight years old Bostonian Amber Fleece is doing well at work but her personal life is lower than the Big Dig. Desperate and bored with the Ivy League crowd she has been seeing for eons, Amber decides to go back to her happiest moment with males: her prom night. She registers with classrunion.com seeking Gray McDermott though she learns he is blue collar.

Stephanie "Stevie Wonder Woman" Hilliard used to be Amber's boss, but became an Orlando mother of two. She loves her darlings, but is bored especially since her husband Brent is never home always traveling with his young beautiful assistant. When she receives an interesting email from Tony Markoff, a blast from her past, Stevie begins an on-line affair, but wonders if that is cheating and if so is that equal to her husband's seeming fling.

Amber's administrative assistant Julie Desmond is recently divorced while also suffering from empty nest syndrome as her son has left for college. She becomes independent as she grows on the job and meets a former boyfriend via the Internet.

HIT REPLY is a powerful character study that looks at three women in varying phases in their lives yet with similar problems and the influence of the Internet on their relationships. The audience gets a first hand look at the prime trio through predominately their email exchanges. Fans will enjoy this instant communication winner that provides focus on what the Net is doing to people as well as asking psychological questions as to whether it fosters closeness and communication or isolationism and hiding. Rocki St. Claire has provided a fabulous look at the impact of the communication revolution on her three likable protagonists.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Hilarious and Well-Written Book
Review: When I sat down to read this book, I didn't think I'd enjoy it that much because, to be perfectly honest, I don't like reading novels that consist of emails, instant messages, phone conversations, etc. Usually I find these books leave a lot to be desired, as often one character's voice doesn't sound very different than the other. However, this book was amazing. Not only did each character have their own distinctive voice, but the characters were hilarious, amusing, and realistic. The story line itself was absorbing and fun.

"Hit Reply" tells the story of many different characters in different states of their lives. There is Amber, the sarcastic yet hilarious woman living in Boston, who works at Milennia Marketing and has just reconnected with an old flame from high school. Gray, Amber's "old flame" is living in another state with another woman and her child, but is soon trading loving, tender and sweet emails and Instant Messages with Amber. Stephanie, now living in Florida, is a happily-married, stay-at-home mother of two, but lately her marriage has been on the rocks. So she accepts an outside consulting job Millenia Marketing (the same company that Amber works at). She also suspects her husband is cheating on her with a leggy beauty from his office with whom he's taken many business trips with. Tom also works for Millenia Marketing, and is married, but suddenly finds himself confessing his feelings for Stephanie via email/IM. What with the four of them emailing and IM'ing each other, sparks soon begin to fly.

Add in a disgruntled boss who is after Tom's job and determined to cause trouble as she does, a sweet, motherly assistant who is having a sort-of email romance with an old flame, a sudden secret that Amber is hiding from nearly everyone, and much more, you have yourself an irresistably funny story.

So how is it that a book of emails and instant messages can be so darn good? Well, I think it's a combination of the author being able to tell a story (or as it is, many stories) and keeping the reader hooked, filling the story with memorable characters and surprising plot twists, and causing the reader to either laugh, cry, and/or get a smile on their face that just doesn't go away until hours after they've finished the book.

Overall, this is a book not to miss!

Rating:
Summary: You won't be able to put this book down!
Review: Wow...what a great book. Zoomed through it in three days. Lost a lot of sleep and missed my train stop one day, but the book was emotionally satisfying to the last page. Rocki St. Claire really nailed it with this book about two women and their relationship that we, the reader, get to view voyeuristically through their e-mails and instant messaging. I felt like I had hacked into someone's computer and was reading all of their personal e-mail, reading things I shouldn't getting all of the delicious office gossip, who was zooming who and what was going on in these character's lives...but I couldn't stop myself. An excellent read and worth every minute spent on it. Put it in your cart...NOW!

Rating:
Summary: Smart, mature, chick lit
Review: Written in total email and IM format Hit Reply tells the story of two friends, Amber and Stephanie. The story opens with Amber joining a class reunion group so she can attempt to hook up with Gray, the man that got away back in high school. He contacts her shortly after, and they begin an affair over the internet. Amber learns that Gray is living with someone and he is very committed to the womans child, so she is trying very hard not to get her hopes up about a future with him but it is not working. They have a real connection with each other. When Amber comes down with a form of cancer, she must make a decision about whether or not to involved Gray.

Stephanie used to work with Amber before she married a hotel executive and moved away from Boston to Miami. Now Stephanie is in a marriage that is not fulfilling her life as much as she thought it would. Her husband Brent is always away and she has reason to believe that he is cheating on her. Tom, a married man that Stephanie was involved with before she hooked up with Brent contacted her about rejoining the advertising agency on a project that would be perfect for her. She could work at home and have a purpose to her life instead of just being a wife and mother. Through the constant contact with Tom, they too begin a relationship that Stephanie calls e-dultery and begins to wonder where the lines end from having some fun and actually committing adultery.

Don't let the cover, title, and genre fool you. Hit Reply is much more than your average chick lit novel. It deals with some serious issues like cancer and adultery that will leave you laughing and crying. The friendships and relationships between these people are very realistic and make for a great read. I would also like to add that even though the entire book is written in email and IM format (which I normally no not like reading) somehow works with Hit Reply.