Coffee-Stained Nightstand: Next Up

In keeping with my two-books-a-month goal, I'm starting another book for February, which should give me more than enough time to finish it.  It's one that intrigued me when I first saw it on the shelves, so when I saw it on the bargain books rack yesterday, I picked it up and brought it home.

This evening I'll be starting The Heroines by Eileen Favorite.  According to the inside cover:

Although a true lover of books, Anne-Marie Entwhistle perfers not to read to her spirited daughter, Penny, especially from the likes of Madame Bovary, Gone With the Wind, or The Scarlet Letter.  These novels, devoted to the lives of the Heroines that make them so irresistable, have a way of hitting too close to home--well, to the Homestead, actually, where Anne-Marie runs the quaint family-owned bed and breakfast.

In this enchanting debut novel, Penny and her mother encounter great women from classic works of literature who make the Homestead their destination of choice just as the plots of their tumultuous, unforgettable stories begin to unravel.  They appear at all hours of the day and in all manners of distress.  A lovesick Madame Bovary languishes in their hammock after Rodolphe has abandoned her, and Scarlett O'Hara's emotions are not easily tempered by tea and eiderdowns.  These visitors long for comfort, consolation, and sometimes for more attnetion than the adolescent Penny wants her mother to give.

Knowing that to interfere with their stories would cause mayhem in literature, Anne-Marie does her best to make each Heroine feel at home, with a roof over her head and a shoulder to cry on.  But when Penny begins to feel overshadowed by her mother's indulgence of each and every Heroine, havoc ensues, and the thirteen-year-old embarks on her own memorable tale.

Being a lover of Fforde, the idea of these heroines escaping their own drama definitely caught my eye.  I'm beginning this book with great interest, and hopefully, I won't be disappointed as I was with my last literary endeavor.