Spin

Katie Sandford, a perpetually broke freelancer, completely botches the job interview of a lifetime by showing up halfway between being drunk and hungover. After a weeklong pity party (and lots more drinking), she's tentatively hired by the parent company of the magazine where she is dying to work. The catch: she has to go to rehab to get the dish on a young actress also working the 12 steps. There are a few minor plot inconsistencies, but McKenzie's descriptive prose flows so smoothly that it's easy for readers to get drawn into her story. The characters are easily imagined and well thought out. Watching Katie realize she has a drinking problem will make her seem quite real to readers, and she's a sufficiently self-aware heroine to comment wryly on her life's likeness to a romantic comedy without seeming overly ridiculous.