A biggish beach-read hopeful recently came in. The book has three 30-something female leads, and features a heady combination of cancer lit, affair lit and mom lit.  Here's the bio from the back:

"[The author] is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in Seventeen, the Massachusetts Review, and the Colorado Review. She lives with her husband and three children on Nantucket, Massachusetts."

All the bases are covered here: ivy pedigree means that vacationing smart ladies can pick up a lite read by one of their own without guilt.  And if they're mit strollers, the three kids are even more reassuring.  She's probably around the same age as her target audience.

The publications have a nicely calibrated high/low ratio, with Seventeen and the two high-toned Quarterlies elbowing each other.

She lives right where you'd like to be this summer. The book pubs in early July.

It's all good, but something strikes me as a little off. Even though everything in the bio implies first novel--especially the mention of only short fiction, and no book publications--it doesn't actually come out and say it.

Houses love debuts. Even though it's hard to break new writers, there's a little marketplace frisson to the firstness. I've seen cases where the first U.S. release of a seven-time U.K. novelist is a "debut novel."  I better check.

Verso from the title page, I find five other "Also by" novels (some of which actually have "Beach" and "Nantucket" in the titles themselves). I call the publicist to confirm, and find out that the obfuscation is intentional, since it's her "first book with us."

I have to smile at this, since it's so earnestly delivered. I feel a little like that Warner Bros. cartoon dog who continually catches the little kitten trying to lie down on his back, and finally gives in.