Report Abuse

“The Queen Gene ”

written by Harriet Klausner on 31/12/2006

The Queen Gene

Jennifer Coburn

Kensington, Jan 2007, $12.95

ISBN: 0758209843



Everyone loves Anjoli from the moment they meet her as she is bigger than life taking over any space she and people nearby occupy. Growing up her daughter Lucy was the envy of her friends having the hip Anjoli as a mother, but even as a kid though she loves her mom, she knew from first hand experience don't live with Anjoli as she sucks out the oxygen in a room, change that on all of Manhattan Island. Even the woman's living will has a key entry involving eyelash care.



Meanwhile Lucy and her spouse Jack open up an artists' colony in the Berkshires while raising their two years old son; distance and motherhood have improved Lucy's relationship with Anjoli though mom calls a zillion times a day with one crisis after another, mostly involving her adopted orphan, Paz the teacup Chihuahua, who needs a shrink after visiting every new age healer in the metropolis and a few neo new age practitioners. Still Lucy has problems with her "terrible two's" toddler and ghosts causing injuries to her colonists. She needs the Ghostbusters to exorcize the "demon" that possesses her used to be cute infant. With Anjoli arriving at the retreat, impish ghosts, temperamental artists, a temper-tantrum baby, a kooky cousin, the stoic puppy and a stunned in the headlights spouse seem harmonious.



The Queen Gene is a chick lit sequel that lightly satirizes the previous story (see Tales From The Crib). Though Lucy is the hub holding the spokes of the novel together, Anjoli steals the show with her offbeat neurotic behavior that will have readers wondering just who the mom is in this mother-daughter relationship. By making Anjoli the drama queen the star instead of her offspring, who confronts issues, Jennifer Coburn provides a more humorous spin to the saga of we love Lucy.



Harriet Klausner