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    Best Staged Plans: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Best Staged Plans: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Best Staged Plans: A Novel
    Audiobook6 hours

    Best Staged Plans: A Novel

    Written by Claire Cook

    Narrated by Janet Metzger

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    As a professional home stager, Sandy Sullivan is an expert at transforming cluttered rooms into attractive houses ready for sale. If only reinventing her life were as easy as choosing the perfect paint color. She's eager to put her family's suburban Boston home on the market, to downsize, and to simplify her own life. But she must first deal with her foot-dragging husband and her grown son, who has moved back home after college to inhabit the basement "bat cave."

    After reading them the riot act, Sandy takes a job staging a boutique hotel in Atlanta recently acquired by her best friend's boyfriend. The good news is that she can spend time with her recently married daughter, Shannon, in Atlanta. The bad news is that Shannon finds herself heading to Boston for job training, leaving Sandy and her southern son-in-law, Chance, as reluctant roommates. If that's not complicated enough, Sandy begins to suspect that her best friend's boyfriend may be seeing another woman on the side.

    Filled with characters who are fresh and original, yet recognizable enough to live in your neighborhood - plus plenty of great tips and tricks for fixing up houses, and lives - this is a wise and witty story of letting go and moving on. Best Staged Plans is Claire Cook at her most humorous and heartfelt.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJun 7, 2011
    ISBN9781455811458
    Unavailable
    Best Staged Plans: A Novel
    Author

    Claire Cook

    Claire Cook wrote her first novel in her minivan when she was forty-five. At fifty, she walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of the adaptation of her second novel, Must Love Dogs, starring Diane Lane and John Cusack. She is the bestselling author of eight other novels and divides her time between the suburbs of Atlanta and Boston.

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    Reviews for Best Staged Plans

    4.5/5

    9 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Best Staged Plans by Claire Cook is a great Chic-lit novel with a few real life situations that bring me into a happy mood while reading.Sandy is a home stager for people wanting to see their homes and sometimes people wanting to sell big buildings like hotels. She also buys old homes and fixs them up to sell which gets her into situations sometimes, with her life as a empty nest woman who takes a good hard look at her life. All the mundane things are brought to the forefront and then she meets a homeless woman who sleeps under the hotel's dumpster and stops her in her tracks.I love that Claire writes about a middle-aged woman who reinvents the fun aspects and reality mixed with a very well-written human touch. Also the story shows us to cherish and be grateful for what we have which is a great life lesson. What a joy Best Staged Plans was to read and I will be reading more of Claire Cook's books. So rewarding, So funny and so Uplifting!
    • 5/5
      Some life difficulties, some decorating, some fun reading! This was the first book I've read by Claire Cook, but it certainly won't be my last. It was a fun (and funny!) book. Great summer time reading!
    • 5/5
      Best Staged Plans is Claire Cook's best book yet. Sandra Sullivan stages homes for a living but her own life is badly in need of staging. Her husband is retired but is so busy playing tennis and running that he hasn't had time to help her get their house ready to sell. And her son lives in their basement busy with his new girlfriend. So she gives them an ultimatum "Get it done or I'm gone". Lucky for her an offer comes up that she just can't refuse. Her BFF's current beau has just bought a hotel that needs to be staged - in Atlanta, where her daughter lives. So off she flies to Atlanta - along the way finding out the BFF's boyfriend is a player, meets a homeless person, and forced to be friends her new son-in-law - and that maybe it's not her house or her life that needs to be staged but that she needs to see through the staging she's arranged.This is Cook's best novel to date. I loved the fact that she talks to inanimate objects and has a love-hate relationship with her reading glasses. The Romeo and Juliet scene was funny and the boyfriend's comeuppance is classic. The way she handled the homeless person's story was very well-done and wove into Sandra's story seamlessly. Not just a beach read it's a book anytime you want to get away from your own life for a little while.
    • 3/5
      This was a kind of fun, light, mildly humorous, but shallow beach read, set in Boston by the shore and in Atlanta Sandy's kids are grown (although one has moved back home after college to the basement, or "bat cave") and she's looking to downsize her home and belongings. She's a home stager and is looking to apply her techniques to her own big Victorian house to get it ready for sale, even if she has to strongarm her overly laid back, retired husband and apathetic son into it. She's a Type A, strong willed, take charge mom sort of person. I think I was meant to sympathize with her more. Throw in a single, free wheeling female pal for contrast, a gig in Savannah doing interior design on the pal's rich boyfriend's newly purchased & gutted hotel, hinky behavior of said boyfriend, and a friendship with a homeless Atlanta woman for more contrast and an opportunity to reflect on the blessings of life. Result: beach read for middle-aged women.The staging tips were fun.You'd think the homeless woman character would offer a chance for more depth, but no. She's just another opportunity for a lifestyle makeover, hey presto instant solution. I'm thinking she might need a therapist in addition to new clothes etc. Still, for women of a certain age who want some light summer reading, it would do the trick.
    • 4/5
      Sandy Sullivan has re-invented herself from elementary art teacher to home stager as she herself has entered those empty nest years. Itching to revitalize her own home and downsize, she has trouble motivating hubby Greg and son Luke, When the chance arrives to stage a new hotel in Atlanta (the benefit of being near newly married daughter Shannon) Sandy jumps at the chance to leave home behind. Summer is always a good time for a new Claire Cook story and I really enjoyed Sandy, her trials with her eyes and her family. This was a very short novel and I did feel some plot lines were tied up a little too neatly and quickly, but all in all, a great summer read!
    • 4/5
      Claire Cook is back with another gift for beach readers and book clubs everywhere--Best Staged Plans. This is a fun romp involving a woman trying to get her nest emptied and sold so that she and her husband can start their next stage of life (whatever that may be). Unfortunately, the son in the basement and the husband on the tennis court aren't really helping with the project. Sandy is a professional home stager (the person who pretties up a home to help it sell), but she just can't get her own house in order. So, when a big hotel job comes up for her in Atlanta, she's off on a plane, issuing ultimatum's to her husband about finishing the house while she's gone, or else. She's looking forward to spending time with her newly married daughter in Atlanta--who in fact will be leaving for a month's training for her job, leaving Sandy awkwardly alone with her new son-in-law. The icing on the cake is her client for the hotel project is her best friends boyfriend--who seems to be cheating on her friend. Mix in a homeless woman, a whole lot of shopping and several "assembled" meals and you'll find fun, heart and hilarity from cover to cover. This is yet another winner for Cook, most certainly.
    • 3/5
      Cook creates a mostly fun read with a few substantial issues: homelessness, cheating, and searching for a new midlife identity once the children are all grown up. Much of her humor will appeal to women of a certain age because its so spot on!
    • 5/5
      As usual, enjoyed Claire Cook’s humor, her rich characters, and home staging was delightful, since I am a home stager and a marketing consultant for boutique hotels, and best of all centered in Atlanta Midtown) where I lived most of my life!

      Loved the interior design and gourmet tips, as well as the quick wit of Sandy and her best friend Denise. The banter between mother and daughter and son in law was so much fun. Best of all was Sandy taking Naomi under her wing and saving her life.

      Would highly recommend Best Staged Plans (audiobook), as Janet Metzger was outstanding, as the narrator and performer. I look forward to reading more of Claire’s books as always full of humor and heartfelt stories for women-very entertaining!
    • 3/5
      best staged plans by claire cookGreat memory book. This woman is telling others what they need to do to sell their house. She tries to impleemnt the same thing in her house soher 20+ yo son and her husband will help with the manual labor and get their house ready to sell or she's leaving.She has things in her junk drawer that I also remeber having: mood ring-and she knew what all the colors meant. This is a hilarious book at timesand a serious one at times. Maps that are more uptodate online, games: go fish cards, mousetrap, etc.She's tired of not trying fun new things.she leaves her husband and son there to dismantle the kitchen cablinets to spruce them up so they can sell the house, her daughter shows up in town asshe's there on a business meeting for some time, while she heads to where the daughter lives with her husband to redo a hotel. She has a lot of fun withthat and helping her friend who arrives to try to find out if her boyfriend is seeing an old friend behind her back.What a fun and very helpful book if you want to redo your house in order to sell it. Various tips through the book and at the end tell you how to accomplish this.Ending was just right, not too much over the edge but and not dull -what you expect, either.
    • 5/5
      Home stager Sandy Sullivan is ready for the next chapter in her life. Her daughter is married, her son is out of college (but still lives at home), and her husband took early retirement. Sandy wants to sell their big Victorian and downsize – maybe move to a 55+ community. Hubby and son say they’re going to help get the house ready to sell but one seems more interested in his tennis games with his buddies and the other would rather hide out in the basement and play video games. Sandy’s tired of nagging so when her best friend’s boyfriend calls with a job offer to stage his next venture she decides to take it. She’ll move to Atlanta, live at her daughter’s home, and get the boutique hotel ready for business. She tells her husband not to call her until their house is sold.In Atlanta Sandy works on her relationship with her son-in-law, works on the hotel staging, and finds the ultimate staging opportunity in a complete stranger. With a little guidance from her GPS and some personal reflection Sandy begins to appreciate a few important aspects of her life she may have previously taken for granted.Claire Cook is in top form as she uses her typical humor and spot on truth of the human condition to tell the story of one woman that will have many readers saying “Has she been recording my life?” I loved it!