Do Me, Do My Roots — Eileen Rendahl

It's about healing.

After a couple of rough years, Emily is finally getting things back together. She doesn't need to re-do everything at work three times, her young daughter's soccer uniform is almost always clean the day of a game, and meals are pretty darn reliable, too. But hey, becoming a widow at thirty-three kind of knocks the starch out of you.

It's about family.

Then Emily's dad has an Event (only her mom would call a minor heart attack that -- what is it, a bar mitzvah?). Next, her sister Claudia's ex-husband starts stealing their kids' Ritalin for the high -- and wouldn't you replace it with The Pill to teach him a lesson? (His unexpected, uh, frontal development was just a howlingly funny bonus -- honest.) And then Emily's relentlessly sensible oldest sister, Leah, dumps her businessman fiance for a rock musician.

It's about never letting them see your gray.

Now Jake, Emily's best friend, seems to be spending a lot of time at her house. Which she likes way too much. Which is kind of confusing. So what's a girl to do, but call an emergency meeting of the sisters' monthly hair-color-and-gossip session, to make the world seem sane again?