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So, remember how I said that there was going to be a really fun reading/signing for THE SWEET LIFE OF STELLA MADISON at the Borders in Christiana (DE) on Saturday, August 8, at 2 p.m.? And remember how I said there were going to be cupcakes? Well, not only are there going to be cupcakes at the celebration, there are going to be the BEST CUPCAKES IN DELAWARE.

That's right - Concord Pike's own Cupcake Heaven is providing 120 of their delectable goodies in an assortment of flavors. Have you DE locals visited Cupcake Heaven yet? If not, you need to get your butt over there STAT. When I say they have the best cupcakes in Delaware, I mean they have the BEST cupcakes in Delaware. You may have heard me rant about icing in posts past; I tend to be super picky about it because most buttercreams taste like Crisco to me. But their icing - oh my WORD. Not too sweet, not too fatty, just the right amount of deliciousness.

The perfect way to celebrate a book with the word SWEET in the title, yes?

Speaking of "sweet" - don't forget that about the 50 BOOK GIVEAWAY I'm running through midnight, August 8th!

In other, more random news: I've been getting a lot of fan e-mail from readers abroad. Seems the Dutch translation of TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET - or, DESIGNERJURKJE VS SPIJKERBROEK as it's known in the Netherlands (Babelfish seemed to think this mean "Designerjurke the US Nail Trousers," but a loyal Dutch reader informed me that it really means "Designer Dress vs. Jeans") - anyway, apparently the Dutch LOVE Morgan Carter, which I find both fascinating and really, really cool. A French translation of STARLET is due out soon - I'm going to be posting the covers of all of the foreign translations on my site at some point in the near future, because they're adorable and I still think it's hysterical that teens can read my words in other languages.

Another fun STARLET factoid: earlier this summer, when I was working on content for the new web site, I came across a Wikipedia entry for the Lifetime adaptation of STARLET that claimed mysterious "sources" had "confirmed" that a sequel to the movie was in production, and that JoJo was set to star. I e-mailed the Jody, the film agent for the project, and he directed me to Barbara Lieberman, the original movie's producer. She confirmed that there wasn't a sequel in the works (though she said she wished there was, which was nice of her to say). So, I made my first-ever edit to a Wikipedia page, under the section titled "Sequel," which you can read here. (The plot synopsis is NOT my handiwork, and I'm embarassed to say it's riddled with spelling errors and just plain bad writing. Of course, this is coming from a girl who barely remembers to spell-check her own blog, so ... take my criticism with a grain of salt.)

ANYWAY, I must return my full attention to STELLA. And here's where I pose a question: for those of you who have already read the book, do you have any thoughts on which scenes I should do at the reading? I'm thinking part of the first chapter, part of the party scene, and definitely the gnocchi scene (because seriously? I know I shouldn't say this about my own book but I think the gnocchi scene is HOTT).

Up tomorrow: a very special episode of RECIPE OF THE WEEK! (Hint: it may have something to do with gnocchi ...)

Oh, what's that, you say? You didn't notice I was MIA? Can't say I blame you.

Here's the deal: 2009? Hasn't been exactly kind to me and my family. I'm not complaining here; I'm just explaining why I kept disappearing for long chunks of time.

THE SHORT VERSION (no, really - this IS the short version):

January - Went back to teaching at UD for the first time in a year, and more importantly, the first time since my gastric bypass surgery in Sept. 1998. It was winter session, which at the University of Delaware means cramming an entire semester's worth of work into literally five weeks. It was also E110, which is what we call the freshman comp class, and every year I can't understand what possesses a kid to take E110 over winter session. It's kind of a suicide mission, because department guidelines dictate that you have to write a certain number of pages in essay form. Plus, this winter I had a group of largely apathetic kids who took the class because someone told them it was a cake walk. Me: "They lied." Fortunately, I had a couple of really awesome students in the mix, who helped remind me of why I love to teach (thanks, Erin & Kelsey!). Plus, I started teaching adult creative writing classes at the YMCA on Monday nights. So, I went from zero to 99 in like six seconds, and by the end, I was exhausted. Oh, and somewhere in the middle of the month, my dog broke his junk from humping a new stuffed animal my mom had gotten him for Christmas. The running joke was that the bear gave him an STD. The non-joke? The cost of the vet bill and the meds he had to take as a result. One of them was a steroid, which left Scouty eating everything that wasn't nailed down. He also put on two pounds, which for a little guy like him, is a lot. Oy.

February - One of the drawbacks to teaching winter session is that spring semester starts literally right after winter ends. I think I had three days between my last winter class and my first spring one. The good news: I got to teach a fiction writing class for the first time at UD. I wasn't sure what kind of writers I'd end up with, but I have to say - some of the talent in that class really blew me away. There will be published authors (in fact, there already is one - but more on that later). AND my freshmen? So good. Every class discussion was lively, and that makes teaching fun. Plus there were some real characters, like a computer hacker who was super pissed off about the marketing of the "green" movement. So in that way, the semester got off to a great start. On a personal level? My car broked down right before Joe and my mom were going to look at a venue for the wedding reception, and we had to have it towed to the shop. Then, after getting my car back (with a hefty bill), we had to put Joe's car in the shop (another hefty bill). Then, two weeks after we got his car back, it broke down AGAIN, this time requiring a tow (and an even heftier bill). Oh, and our heating oil ran out. So the shortest month of the year ended up being one of our most expensive. Go figure.

March - This was when I really went missing, and here's why: early in March I started to get sick. I'm on a medicine for my psoriasis that lowers my immune system, so sniffles turn into major colds quite quickly. Only, I didn't think to stop taking my psoriasis meds (an injection I give myself every other week). So the cold hung on. Then, the third week in March, I flew to St. Pete's Beach with my friend Wendy, where I was her plus-one for the wedding of her friends Amir and Pepper (her husband hates to fly - as in, even heavily medicated, he can't do it). The beach was awesome, the wedding was beautiful, and I never wanted our mini-break to end. I came home happy, relaxed, sunburned ... and just a wee bit behind on my grading, because I'd been sick the two weeks before we left. Then, to add insult to injury, I got sick AGAIN. Literally, the day after I got back. This time it was flu-like (the non-swine variety, even though I'd gotten my flu shot and even a pneumonia shot like a good girl in the fall). As it got progressively worse, we realized that I had to stop taking the psoriasis meds so I could get better. But by this time, I had a head full of snot and a crazy-high fever of like 102 - so bad that Joe wanted me to go to the hospital. Fun!

April - The cold/flu wore on, and by this time, I'd managed to give it to Joe, who's a typical guy in that he's a pain in the butt when he's sick - a total whining baby. Plus, he refused to take any real time off from work to recover and kept working crazy hours from home. Meanwhile, I'm getting my freshmen prepped for their research papers while still grading their second essays that they turned in while I was in Florida. I had to skip another psoriasis shot, so my feet were cracking like crazy and I was back to the gel bandages to keep my feet workable. I had a couple of speaking gigs at the beginning of the month, while I was still grappling with the flu, one of which was for the Eastern PA's SCBWI mid-winter retreat (an awesome conference - we had such a great time!). But overall, April was NOT a good month at Casa Zeises/de Loza.

May - Things took a turn for the worse. I'd just gotten caught up on my grading and made it through two Mother's Day celebrations - Joe's grandmother on Saturday, where we made a huge brunch for the family, and my mom on Sunday, where we got to see a private screening of the new STAR TREK (thanks, Em!) and had Chinese food. The Monday after, I had a sore knot on the bottom left quadrant of my back, so I thought I'd go to the gym and workout, thinking that would loosen my muscles up. BIG MISTAKE. Afterward, as I got back into the car, I knew something was wrong, because it hurt. Like, bad. I won't go into major detail, but let's just say that by mid-week, I was crying every time I had to put on pants or go to the bathroom. Meanwhile, the dog somehow broke his junk AGAIN (this time, we're not sure how, because we'd confiscated all humpable toys), and that ran us another $200. This in the middle of the back injury pain, which by the end of the week was so excruciating that our doctor sent us to the ER. And because Christiana Hospital was still reeling from the swine flu epidemic, we actually got chastised for going to the ER. So the next day we ended up in St. Francis's ER, where we actually got some care. Within a couple of days, I was back to walking again. Which was great. But of course, that's when we found out about Pop.

Pop is Joe's grandfather, who along with his grandmother, helped raise him after his mom passed away when Joe was 12. So he was more like a dad to Joe than anything. And we'd just seen him Mother's Day weekend, and he was making all of these plans with us, like to go see the new Harry Potter movie, and to go to the Poconos over 4th of July weekend, and to go to the shore with them in early September. When we said goodbye, we didn't realize it would be the last time we'd see him. Pop passed away rather unexpectedly - we're pretty sure it was a heart attack - the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. Needless to say, this was a very devastating time, and not just for Joe. I'd only known Pop for a couple of years, but his death hit me hard. Plus, watching Joe and his family grieve was excruciating. It's always hard to see the ones you love in so much pain. We spent the next 10 days shuttling around to Bethlehem and back. In the middle of this, my stepfather's uncle lost his long battle with cancer. My semester at UD was wrapping up, and through all of this I was trying to grade research papers and magazine projects and writing portfolios. The Sunday after Pop's memorial service, I pulled two 14-hour marathon grading sessions, so by Tuesday (this would be last Tuesday, the beginning of June) I was crispy fried.

June - Both Joe and I were struggling to find normalcy in our lives, and in doing so, we completely forgot our two-year anniversary. What a wake up call. I spent all of last week running expensive errands, like the three-hour trip to the Saturn dealership that cost $420. Joe was pulling some marathon work sessions of his own, so that he could take a much-needed vacation. Between last Thursday and Friday he worked 36 hours straight, with no sleep, and finally started his vacation around 8 p.m. Friday night.

So, there you have it. Now Joe's on vacay - our "staycation," I keep calling it, because I often like trendy buzz words and am still annoyed that we can't find a Brangelina type nickname for ourselves (Loe? Jara?). But it's hard. Between my back injury and losing Pop and both of us overdoing it on the work front, we're barely treading water. Joe spent the weekend writing a computer program for himself, and I spent it glued to HARVEST MOON on the Wii. There was a short stint Saturday night where the two of us performed surgery through TRAUMA CENTER: NEW BLOOD, but for the most part, we've been trying to process on our own.

And now, because I can't stand to end this post on a sad note, I figured I'd recap some of the good stuff that's happened:

• Joe made my January birthday super special this year, and without spending much money;


• We had the awesomest Valentine's Day ever, starting with getting a family portrait with Scout at Petco, followed by Scrabble in front of the fireplace at Panera, and finishing with an entire weekend of gourmet cooking;


• In March, the Lifetime adaptation of TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET came out on DVD;


• We booked the Fair Hill Inn for our wedding reception, which is a dream come true AND will cost several thousand less than what the wedding factories wanted to charge us;


• There was that whole trip to Florida thing, which was so so so so so much fun, and the great SCBWI conference experience;


• My best friend gave birth to a healthy baby boy at the beginning of April, and he's not only adorable, but he's given us MAJOR baby fever;


• When I was recovering from the flu, I watched the entire third season of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS on DVR, and it was so good it warrants its own line here;


• Six words: PRIVATE VIEWING OF STAR TREK ROCKED. (Did I mention that Emmett's wife made cupcakes frosted in the colors of the original TV show's uniforms, with flavored cake to match? She's so freaking cool.);


• My friend Cindy sold her first book (we met during the very first round of adult creative writing classes I taught at the Y), and Cassie, from my fiction writing class at UD, just had one of her workshopped stories accepted into an anthology;


• I've lost a total of 145 pounds (and no, I don't have new progress pictures, because we took the last round when I got back from aerobics and I'm all red and sweaty and ugly, but we're planning on doing more soon);


• and finally, I got my first review for THE SWEET LIFE OF STELLA MADISON, which I posted last week, and it was good and gives me hope that this book - the first book I've published under my own name in almost four years - will do well.

Just popping in quickly to say that Lifetime's adaptation of TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET is now available on DVD! It's still so completely surreal to me. I mean, it was just under two years ago that I got a call from my agent telling me that it was likely that Lifetime was going to move on the option. Then, six months after that, we were in Toronto to watch the filming. Nine months later, a Lifetime Original Movie was born.

I get a lot of e-mail from readers asking me if/when there will be a third installment to the STARLET series, and the truth is, I don't know the answer to that question. I've had a sketch of the story in my head for years, back when my STARLET editor, Kristen Pettit, still worked for Razorbill. But there's this other Lola Douglas project in the works, and there are some unrelated issues that need to be worked out, so ... yeah. "I don't know" is the best I can offer right now. Sorry!

Back to Lifetime Original Movies: in case you missed it (and I did, until I was scanning a recent issue of EW), a Lifetime adaptation of E.R. Frank's AMERICA recently debuted. Rosie O'Donnell produced and starred; an encore airs tonight at 9 p.m. on Lifetime. Set your DVRs - I know I did!

Ian Nelson, the cutie who played Eli in TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET, had a small guest-starring role on last night's episode of THE PRACTICE. And there was recently a gossip mag item about Shenae Grimes, who played Marissa, that referred to her as "the TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET cutie," even though she's currently starring in the 90210 reboot. I'm not completely into the new 90210 - I think the coolest moment for me, so far, was finding out which original "bro" was Kelly's Baby Daddy. (Despite the fact that they cast Sammy as a small blonde with a big ol' white boy fro, it turns out he's NOT Steve Sanders' offspring.) I'm about one episode away from being over it entirely.

My DVR is already at 60% capacity and I'm having less and less interest in watching ... well, just about anything. Last night Joe and I sat through about four minutes of MAD MEN before deciding we'd rather read before bed. Shows are stacking up at an alarming rate, yet I keep turning the TV off. It's liberating, in a way. Don't get me wrong - there are still a lot of shows I love. PRIVILEGED, for one. But now instead of devouring it 15 minutes after it starts to air (the standard lead time you need to be able to fast forward through every commercial break), I save my DVR'd PRIVILEGED episodes for a few days. They're like a special little snack that you hold onto until you're ready to savor every single bite.

The absolute best part about my declining interest in TV is the number of books I'm able to read, and when I'm able to read them. I'd been falling asleep to TV for the past six months or so. Now the set is off way before bed time, and I can read until I'm drowsy. I've missed that a lot. Drifting off with a great book, instead of power-loading chapters while you're waiting for your next doctor appointment.

Methinks I'll keep tuning out and turning off for a good, long while.

P.S. If anyone knows how to download Season 3 episodes of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS - you know, the ones that are only airing on Direct TV - then please let me know. Because, um, even though I'm into this whole "tuning out and turning off" thing, I could really use a couple of doses of FNL. Thank you.

So I haven't posted since Lola Week ended, and I'm pretty much all Lifetime-movied out but I will say this:

Having one of my books adapted into a TV movie was one of the coolest things that ever happened to me. And while yes, some of the novel's characters were cut, and some of the plot was chopped out, and while JoJo looks way more like LiLo's distant cousin than how I pictured Morgan Carter, I honestly enjoyed the hell out of the movie. I thought JoJo did a really good job as Morgan, and I loved Valerie Bertinelli's take on Trudy. Even more than that, I loved their dynamic together. So while the actors may not have been obvious choices to me, in the end, I think the casting was brilliant and helped bring even more viewers to the film. And of course, as an author it's really encouraging to see the spike in fan e-mails, especially by people who ran out and bought the books AFTER watching the movie.

Pleased? Why, yes, yes I am.

Now, the reason behind the non-posting: I've been sick. It's a weird kind of sick that started in the beginning of last week but manifested itself not as sickness so much as extreme tiredness. There were a couple of days where I slept 12-14 hours, which I never do - normally, if I get six or seven, I'm good to go. And then I started to get the heavy headed feeling and the post-nasal drip and then WHAM! Full-on grossness. By Saturday, my illness had struck Joe down, too, which meant our weekend was spent not working on projects and cleaning up around the house but camped out in the living room having a major movie marathon.

This is the upside to being sick the same time as your honey. You get to have guilt-free chill time where you can catch up on all sorts of DVR'd flicks, take as many naps as you want, and fight over who gets to cuddle with the dog next. As for the movies themselves, I should mention that I'm one of the only people I know who no longer have a Netflix account. I canceled it a year and a half ago because I was too busy to get through two to three movies a week, plus I have a pretty hefty cable package. So, now I wait for stuff to come on cable. Which means that I only just got to see ZODIAC, which was two and a half hours long but didn't feel it, not for a second. It totally made me want to watch SEVEN again, but more than that, it reminded me why I adore Robert Downey Jr., who was fabulous as the increasingly erratic Paul Avery. Yeah, I know everyone went nuts for him in IRON MAN; I personally wasn't as impressed.

After ZODIAC we queued up GONE BABY GONE, which is one of those movies that is so harrowing to watch you almost wish you'd avoided it. I started crying early on, when the mother of the missing girl starts talking about how hard it is to raise a child on her own (not because I sympathized with her, but because I was so disgusted by her self-righteousness). I felt sick to my stomach through most of it, and kept turning to Joe and saying things like, "This is a hard movie to watch." After it was over, the two of us were so depressed that we vowed we'd make up for it by watching a feel-good comedy the next day.

Unfortunately for us, we were under the misperception that NO RESERVATIONS, that Catherine Zeta-Jones/Aaron Eckhart rom com about two chefs and an orphaned Abigail Breslin, would fit that bill. Well, I should say unfortunately for me, because Joe actually LIKED IT. (I teased him mercilessly the rest of the day.) Breslin was cute in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, but she now suffers from that Dakota Fanning fate of getting by on cliched preciousness. People, it's not cute, and those of you who encourage this kind of cloying behavior should be shot. I normally adore Catherine Zeta-Jones, if for no other reason than she's gorgeous to look at, but here I found her annoying and unbelievable. Plus, every moment of this film was totally predictable. Here's me: "If she's in there watching home movies, I'm going to scream" (she was). "If feathers fly out of those pillows I'm going to scream" (they did).

After that train wreck, Joe napped and I watched Sofia Coppola's MARIE ANTOINETTE, which was very pretty in a sugar-spun candy confection kind of way, and an amusing look at the dysfunctional sex life of two royal teenagers who married before they knew what to do with a boner (or maybe even what a boner is). But after a while it devolved into a series of slo-mo shots of Kirsten Dunst twirling in a field of daisies and the footage looked like it could've been outtakes from THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. Plus, it ends before the beheading, so it feels anti-climactic in a sense.

Finally, we watched NOTES ON A SCANDAL, which was brilliantly acted and so full of pathos that I wanted to squee the entire time I watched it. No, it wasn't a gut-busting comedy, but hey - when you're sick the last thing you want to do is venture out into the real world to watch PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. Besides, good British drama feeds the soul in a super-nourishing way and can remind you what good filmmaking is all about.

It would've been a lovely end to an otherwise uneven day of movie viewing, if my cold hadn't suddenly veered into stomach flu territory. So I ended the evening clutching a trash can and bemoaning the fact that my dinner ended up on loan and not for keepers.

I have a long, long week of work ahead of me, but I'm still so completely drained and not up to any of it. Hence the subject line calling for a caffeine jolt. To brew or not to brew; that is the question.

NEXT UP: Two GCC tours.

In typical Lara fashion, nothing amazing can happen in my life without something not-so-amazing to keep me humble. Yesterday morning, I was walking out of a doctor's office, missed a curb, and landed my full weight on my left ankle. It promptly swelled to twice its size and hurts something fierce. I can barely walk; today I managed to get around the house in my office chair, propelling myself forward with my good foot.

Now I'm at my Mom's, eagerly awaiting our viewing partners. Veggies have been cut, eggs have been deviled, and my ankle's been wrapped with a nice Ace bandage. As soon as Amy gets here with her hot dog casserole, I can take some yummy Naprosen and let the de-swelling begin.

Only 36 minutes until the movie!

T-minus ONE DAY until the premiere of the Lifetime Original Movie, TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET! (Saturday, August 9th @ 9PM, with encores on Sunday at 7 PM and Monday at 9 PM, in case you don't have a DVR and won't be home on Saturday.)

MORE PRESS:

The Hollywood Reporter calls TRUE CONFESSIONS "a little gem of a movie," and advises viewers to pay attention to "the funny dialogue." Those of you who've read the book will recognize that a nice chunk of that dialogue came DIRECTLY FROM THE NOVEL ITSELF. This is not to discredit the screenplay's awesome writer, Elisa Bell, who came up with some seriously funny bits that I never would have thought of in a million years.

Another profile - this time from the New York Daily News - about how JoJo would never end up like Morgan Carter.

MORE GCC STOPS:

The inimitable E. Lockhart asks me about my prankster past.

And today's birthday girl Shanna Swendson asks me about the process of seeing my book turned into a movie.

THE LOLA STORY

So, the story of how I became Lola isn't as sexy as you might think. In fact, it's a little embarrassing. See, I never set out to be Lola. What happened was this:

When I moved back to Delaware in Dec. 2001, I couldn't find a full-time job. But I was offered a part-time teaching gig at UD. That first semester I had exactly one class and was doing a lot of freelance work for Allyn & Bacon, the company I'd worked for in Boston before I moved home. Then I sold a couple more books (under my name) and got a few more teaching gigs, and suddenly going back to work full time didn't seem like the best idea. After all, I teaching left me with summers off and a few days each week free to do school visits and stuff.

But as any author knows, contract advances can only be stretched so far. And adjunct teaching gigs are unpredictable; some semesters I'd have three classes, and others I'd only have one again. I remembered reading this article about how Rob Thomas, he of VERONICA MARS fame, used to support himself by ghostwriting crappy series fiction. You bust out a novel that's already been meticulously outlined in a handful of weeks, and voila! Five grand easy. So I talked to my agent and asked him if it was possible for me to do this, so that I'd have more money in the bank and less fiscal worry.

Long story short: he introduced me to the editor at a book packaging company, who pitched me one idea that I had absolutely no idea how to write. (It was a very New York City kind of book, and I'm allergic to NYC and wouldn't know how to write about it like an insider even if I spent a year reading up on it.) So then she asked me what kind of book I wanted to write, and I told her that I was dying to do a diary format novel. She asked me whose diary I'd like to read, and I didn't know what hadn't been done already. She told me to think about it and get back to her.

On the ride home from New Jersey (I'd taken the train in from Princeton), I was trying to answer that very question. Drew Barrymore came to mind. Very quickly, I had this idea of a Drew Barrymore-esque young actress getting out of rehab and being sent to Fort Wayne, Indiana to continue her recovery incognito. Then I said, "God, that's such a far-fetched, movie-of-the-week plot." Then I thought, "Well, what if I acknowledge that the plot sounds like it comes from a bad movie-of-the-week? Could I make it work well enough for readers to suspend disbelief?" (Nowadays we call this the "Hannah Montana Effect.") At home, I titled the proposal "Diary of a Teenaged Has-Been" and sent it off to my agent soon after. Two editors were interested in the project; we went with the one whose vision more closely matched my own.

So why didn't I write this under my own name? Well, I already owed my primary publisher, Random House, another book. Contractually I wasn't allowed to write YA for any other publisher except for them. So when we accepted the offer on the proposal, one of the stipulations was that the book would have to be published under a pseudonym. As for the name itself: Lola was a nickname a friend of mine had given me in college. When it came to her last name, I told my new editor I just wanted to move up in the alphabet. I gave her an A name, a B name, a C name, and a D name. She chose the D name, which also happens to be the first name of Douglas Coupland, whose early fiction made me want to be a writer to begin with.

As much fun as I have being Lola, I am still very much me. As in, Lara-me. And I'm so super-psyched about my next project for Random House, which used to be called WHAT'S COOKING WITH STELLA MADISON? and was recently renamed THE SWEET LIFE OF STELLA MADISON. Here's the jacket copy for it:

It’s not easy being the daughter of a famous chef and a restaurant owner when your idea of a great meal is the kind served via a drive-through window. Harder still when your food-loving parents, who have been separated for years, are still as sweet to each other as can be. When their connections help seventeen year old Stella Madison land a summer job at the local newspaper, the salary is hard to resist. There’s only one catch: she’s expected to write about food.

Now Stella needs all the advice she can get to complete her assignments. Luckily she has Jeremy, the hot new intern at her mom’s restaurant, who’s more than happy to help. Soon Stella can’t stop thinking about Jeremy--but where does that leave Stella’s boyfriend, Max, who recently dropped the L-word? If that’s not confusing enough, her dad’s interest in the pretentious programming director for the Food Network seems to go beyond the culinary, and now it looks like her mother might be cooking up a romance of her own …

The Sweet Life of Stella Madison is a warmhearted, delectable novel about what it means to love and be loved, especially when there are a few too many cooks in the kitchen.

It's got an absolutely adorable cover, too - but that's for another post entirely.

Thanks for tuning in during Lola Week! Hope you guys watch (and enjoy) the movie ... and don't forget to check my blog during the Saturday premiere to find out all sorts of juicy tidbits!

It's "Fallen Angels Week" on Lifetime, which I'm assuming is a tie-in to the Saturday night premiere of Lifetime's film adaptation of TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET (August 9th at 9 p.m.). Well, here on "Girl Uninterrupted," it's "Lola Week" - all Lola, all the time. Be prepared to learn more than you ever wanted to know about the movie, how and why I became Lola Douglas to begin with, and what's next for my alter ego.

But first, something really freaking cool:

You know how ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY has its weekly "What to Watch" column, now penned by the lovely and talented Jessica Shaw? Well, this week's ONLY pick for Saturday is TRUE CONFESSIONS! EW's Leah Greenblatt, who is also very lovely and talented, writes, "Despite some yawning plot holes (superfamous blond actress + brunet dye job = total undercover stranger! who knew?), it's surprisingly self-aware fun."

In my defense, Morgan's transformation into Claudia Miller involves more than a dye job. Book Morgan gets a nose job and a breast reduction, puts on a significant amount of weight, and wears glasses in addition to turning her golden locks mousy brown. AND people notice that Claudia resembles Morgan, though the lack of boobs and excess booty, in addition to the Everygirl Target wardrobe, makes them all think, "nah." Yes, it's still far-fetched, but not QUITE as far-fetched as it is in the TV movie.

Anyway, Leah G gives the movie a B overall, so I ain't complaining.

MORE MOVIE GOODIES:

Win a copy of Valerie Bertinelli's juicy autobiography, LOSING IT!

Check out a newly blond JoJo discussing "Hollywood's Temptations."

ReadSlate's take on "The Lifetime Original Movie 2.0" - great article but contains two factual errors (1. Morgan DOES complete a successful stint in rehab and 2. Even though Valerie Bertinelli's TV movies may have appeared on Lifetime previously, this is actually her very first ORIGINAL Lifetime TV movie.)

In fact, Valerie discusses this very thing here. One more correction: sorry, Jacqueline Cutler, but despite your assertation that "Morgan [is] a thinly veiled Lindsay Lohan," she's totally not. I BASED MORGAN ON A YOUNG DREW BARRYMORE YEARS BEFORE LINDSAY STARTED TRAIPSING IN AND OUT OF REHAB. However, Jacqueline, your assessment that JoJo is "terrific" as Morgan is 100% correct.

Something I knew: JoJo turned down the role of Hannah Montanna. Something I didn't: she almost turned down the role of Morgan Carter.

BACK TO THE BOOK:

TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET is a Readergrlz recommended read for August! This month's theme is body image. And, because this also happens to be the month the movie premieres on Lifetime (this Saturday! August 9th! At 9 p.m.!), we're giving away autographed copies of the book! Just check out the Readergirlz forum on MySpace on August 9th and leave a comment under the thread "True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet Giveaway"!

Next Up: links to my recent GCC tour stops!