Santa Monica

Undocumented Mexican domestic worker Lettie Mendoza and her half-brother, Zack Doheny—a U.S. citizen because of the Floridian father who raised him—inhabit overlapping but poignantly different worlds in the pseudonymous Lucas’s promising debut. Lettie discovers Zack’s dead body at the Santa Monica, Calif., gym where he was a star trainer popular with the ladies. Flash back to the months before. Single mom Lettie is drowning in debt from her six-year-old-son’s staggering medical bills, despite her daily marathon of cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking, and babysitting for many of the same privileged women whose pulses Zack gets racing. Things threaten to become even messier when Lettie’s down-to-earth favorite boss, a Hollywood director’s wife, tries to befriend her while simultaneously succumbing to Zack’s charms. Characters who transcend their stereotypes more than make up for a few forced plot twists. Lucas (the pen name of Julia Fierro and Caeli Wolfson Widger) succeeds in satirizing the gilded enclave of Santa Monica while also tugging at readers’ heartstrings. [em]Agents: Susan Golomb, Writers House, and Marie Massie, Massie & McQuilkin. (Oct.) [/em]