April Rising — Corene Lemaitre

With hilarious twists and eccentric turns, this zany adventure among the rich and comfortable returns twenty-something Ellen Kaplan to her native Philmont, Pennsylvania, after a two-year jaunt in Europe. It confronts her, too, with the rather declasse fact of April, who has taken up residence in Ellen's bedroom as well as in the bosom of the Kaplan family. Besides which, this April person, who scarfs down junk food and wears nylons, has also managed to convince Ellen's beloved - and now evidently bewitched - big brother to jettison his work on a Berkeley Ph.D. in philosophy. And she's virtually altered the personalities of the senior Kaplans, for the baby-boomer suburban power couple has begun acting like Ward and June Cleaver. Aghast at April's usurpations, Ellen sets out to evict the intruder in the Kaplans' midst before the upstart morphs into an in-law. In the process, Ellen comes to some surprising realizations about her family and herself - not least the mortifying possibility that her arch rival may indeed be a soul sister.