Reviews

Both witty and gripping, this is ultra-sleek storytelling, with two delightful investigators.”

[Isaacs] has us chasing Corie all over the map, charmed by this motormouth sleuth’s snappy wit and awed by her courage.”

What is it that makes Susan Isaacs' books so delicious to read? She’s funny, for starters. And that humor combined with romance and old-fashioned murder mystery tickles every feel-good bone in our bodies. Her characters are whole and flawed and lovable, and you want only the best for them, even as you ardently wish to find them in danger repeatedly along the way.”

Ms. Isaacs is a witty author, but comedy gives way to terror as Corie’s inevitable confrontation with her dangerous quarry nears. All the foreshadowing and presaging pays off in spades, and the scenes that tie up loose ends are a pleasure to read.”

Takes One to Know One is “a good one….Turns out, [ex-FBI agent turned suburbanite] Corie’s still got it, but it leads her straight into a deadly trap. Corie’s combat skills and investigative prowess are still up to snuff, but her snarky commentary and hilarious interactions with her father are the real page-turners here.”

Isaacs’ writing is clever and funny, with laugh-out-loud moments and strong character development. Her descriptions of people, activities, and Corie’s thoughts are witty and unexpected, making each turn of the page fun and anticipatory. The story moves quickly, the characters’ actions seem organic and realistic, and the climax of the book is satisfying. Highly recommended for anyone who likes fast-paced storytelling, quirky and interesting characters, and a plot that keeps you guessing right along with the protagonist.”

Isaacs is a master of witty fiction with an undercurrent of emotional truth.”

At the heart of it is Gloria Goldberg Garrison, an ice-cold business tycoon who’s as elegant as any grand dame and literature, but nastier than a feral mutt with his teeth in your leg.”

…a deliciously wicked tale of family dysfunction”

Susan Isaacs writes wonderful books. They’re loaded with wit, crammed with memorable characters, endlessly entertaining and beautifully written.”

Wonderfully funny, deliciously mean.”

An impeccably constructed mystery… Wickedly subversive wit and a crackle of one-liners… Great fun.”

A clever satire of suburbia wrapped around a mystery… Full of interesting and funny characters.”

A big winner.”

Zippy… wildly entertaining suspense comedy.”

A froth of a book. Clever, deft… and very funny.”

A risible romp throughout…Delightful…witty…astringent and candid — the snappy dialogue yielding up laughs on every page, the love story tender and satisfying, the plot pulsing with adrenalin.”

When Rhett swept Scarlett up the stairs, women had their ultimate fantasy. No more. Thanks to Susan Isaacs and Close Relations, we now have a wonderful new fantasy to titillate ourselves with. He’s smart, funny, rich, handsome and ardently sexy.”

Delectable.”

Hilarious one minute…intensely erotic the next.”

The novel that gets better and better and better. A book with three happy endings.”

Delightful.”

Superb, frequently hilarious…A lively diversion.”

An exhilarating high….Where does one go next to find characters like Marcia, with her endearing, brittle-brave commentaries, with her wit and honest observations?”

[Susan Isaacs is a] witty, wry observer of the contemporary scene.”

A good read…The serious novel featuring realized characters caught in a real-life dilemma is hitched up with the multi-generational saga: long, sexy, historically spiced…Isaacs can tell a story.”

Ms. Isaacs has created real people…. By the time the protagonists face problems, the reader knows the three hundred year route that has made Jane and Nicholas what they are, and has deep insight into their psychological make-up. Susan Isaacs has a fine sense of suspense. Until the very last pages there is no hint of how her story will end.”

A multi-generational family saga that’s different from the recent spate of similar stories; it’s not merely interesting, it’s literate as well. Isaacs has fleshed out her characters with great skill, and has a fine eye for period detail. She has also been wise enough to avoid the pat ending such novels usually have. The result is a well-written, moving story that will keep the reader engrossed all the way.”

A twentieth-century fairy-tale… A sprawling, three-dimensional family saga with a distinctive American touch… This long, colorful novel will undoubtedly engross soap-opera fans…. Readable and diverting.”

Almost perfect… A big, wide, wonderful way to spend a couple of long winter nights… Susan Isaacs… is one of the more appealing analysts of the contemporary scene. There’s something downright delicious about her nervy, witty treatises on marital and extramarital adventures and deep inside something pervasive and even profound. Isaacs' rare freshness, her perception of the modern woman, and her earthy imagery carry the day.”

A totally enthralling read… Always a witty, wickedly observant writer, Susan Isaacs in this new novel gives us more than ever before: three generations of characters so involving, so waywardly alive that their passions seems as urgent as our own.”

The reader races though, devouring every twist…. Isaacs has another blockbuster here…. The plot is riveting, the characters surprisingly real… and the author has a wickedly funny eye for detail.”

Every detail is correct: the dialogue, the settings, the characterizations…. In Susan Isaacs' hands, the story practically jumps off the page into real life.”

An irresistible story… Isaacs captures both the comedy and heartbreak shared by Jane and Nicholas Cobleigh throughout their twenty years of marriage…. With wit and charm, Isaacs writes Almost Paradise from the heart, producing a delightful, compassionate, surprising novel.”

A novel that has everything…. An intimate, extensive family saga, probing the anatomy of a marriage between two larger-than-life, yet immensely likeable people, and, above all, creating one of the most interesting heroines ever to surface in a blockbuster… Susan Isaacs is a witty, insightful and elegant writer.”

One of those immensely readable stories that keeps the pages turning- never mind eating, sleeping or other unnecessary rudiments of daily routine…. Told with warmth, humor and a sure sense of drama, Shining Through is a thoroughly engaging book.”

Isaacs the master storyteller shifts into high gear and virtually hurls us out of our seats, mingling scenes of breathtaking suspense and vivid evocations of wartime…. Reckless, wisecracking Linda Voss may just be one of our most memorable fictional citizens.”

Clever, witty and thoroughly charming.”

I can’t think when I liked a ficitonal character as much as I liked Linda Voss in Shining Through…. In an era of neurotic characters and distasteful situations, this is a feel-good novel. Susan Isaacs has created people who are comprehensible and likable…. We do have a well-written and entertaining story about a nice woman. She’ll come shining through for you.”

Extravagant…. As witty as she ever was, but her imagination has gotten wilder, and the story she tells is bigger.”

A down-to-earth Cinderella story that is a totally captivating and unexpected blend of action, adventure, romantic fiction and spy thriller…. Keeps readers hooked from the first page to the last…. The wonderfully wrought characterization of Linda Voss shines throughout this novel. Isaacs has hit her stride.”

Laced with heartbreak, drama and thrills… Marvelously readable…_ Shining Through_ is a dandy book, with a smile, a tug at the heartstrings and an insight on every page. But this reader is left with a longing? Where is Linda Voss… when we need her most?”

Susan Isaacs can sure kick-start a novel…. A witty, literate soap opera with some nifty derring-do… A feisty heroine, a reluctant lover, the girl you love to hate and an intriguing older man playing out their personal dramas as the world goes to war.”

Sizzling… Shining Through explodes more than one myth about being as American as apple pie.”

Snappy plot.”

The same witticism-wrapped… center that always drives Isaacs’s fans dotty.”

Elegantly funny and original… Long after the handcuffs are snapped shut you’re likely to find yourself smiling fondly at the memory of Susan Isaacs’s one-of-a-kind characters.”

A novel that keeps you guessing, raises your eyebrows, races your motor and makes you laugh out loud, only to bring you, in the end, close to tears. Magic Hour is a hats-off achievement.”

Good news for Isaacs’s fans: She is back in top form… again exhibiting her wickedly observant eye and flair for ricocheting pitch-perfect dialogue.”

A witty and sexy page-turner.”

Holds its edge.”

If you’re in search of pure entertainment, pick up a copy of Magic Hour.”

Magic Hour does exactly what it’s supposed to do - entertain.”

A wonderfully rich, sensual sort of novel… The dialogue rips along with panache, with sharp and surprising turns, always funny, always fun.”

Clever, unexpected, drum-tight… The plot is streamlined and the time-frame is short and the voice we hear is witty, and coming-at-us real.”

Vintage Isaacs… Magic Hour is like polishing off an entire box of chocolate-covered chocolates… Fun.”

A delightful blend of obsession, comedy, romance, movies and murder.”

Pure fun.”

Once again Isaacs proves a dab hand at rattling skeletons in the closets of Suburbia – here murder and adultery are skewered with this author’s typically savvy wit.”

You gotta laugh…Susan Isaacs has always done awfully well in her entertaining fiction, and she’s done it again in After All These Years”

Isaacs is once again at the top of her satiric form in After All These Years.”

Isaacs scores again with this relentlessly funny…entertaining and imaginative mystery.”

The jauntiness and frothy exuberance of Susan Isaac’s style in her eighth novel carries you along as if on a wonderful joy ride. She is superb at quick character sketches, the deadly battles between fathers and sons, family frictions and generational antagonisms. Her effervescence convinces you that everything will turn out all right in the end. Which it does. But just barely.”

Two long-separated strands of a remarkable Jewish family reunite in Red, White and Blue. Alive with eloquent, fluid language and salted with fitting doses of earthy humor, Isaacs’s newest novel is a triumph.”

Both on the large scale and the small [Red, White and Blue is] an absorbing chronicle of the American character.”

Isaacs delivers the goods with Red, White and Blue. With her usual blend of wry wit and sardonic insights, Isaacs skillfully weaves clever bits of Americana in and out of a tale laced with anti-Semites who claim to own America, true-blue Americans who take up the good fight and all those searching for the American dream.”

With Isaacs' wry characterizations and unabashedly patriotic…finale, Red, White and Blue should earn the allegiance of her countless devoted fans.”

Isaacs’s latest is entertaining, yet in examining antigovernment paranoia and the politics of hate, it poses deeper questions about what it means to be an American.”

On one level Isaacs has created a pitch-perfect social satire…on another…she has written a psychological thriller whose portraits of an amoral conman and his mate, of the dehumanizing effects of the prison system and of the state of criminal investigation are rendered with snappy authenticity.”

A well-written, moving story that will keep the reader engrossed all the way.”

Lily is a funny, nervy survivor of some major betrayals…one house guest you’ll wish could stay longer.”

Not only an entertaining legal drama, but a chilling account of family scapegoating… Reading this smart, sassy book on the beach will be the very picture of civilization and its contents.”

Isaacs delivers witty, wicked satire from beginning to end.”

Lily White is a winner… with wit, insight, and enough twists and turns to keep the pages turning.”

Shiny fun, jam-packed full of story.”

Touching, funny, and fast-paced.”

Stunning… [Isaacs] has created an ingenious novel that breaks out of the mystery genre. In fact, it sets the genre - in which, typically, the killer is brought to justice - on its ear.”

A one-volume vacation reader.”

The ingredients for another bestseller.”

Riveting… Best of all is the character of Lee, smart and sassy… self-deluded at the same time. Her good-humored, self-knowing, self-mocking voice is a treat for the ear.”

Her richest book yet.”

Murder, sex, and humor make for a wickedly entertaining combination.”

A big, fat, happy feast of a book… [Isaacs’s] most confident and appealing… [She] is both funny and piercing, a highly satisfying combination.”

Bestseller Isaacs draws on tony Long Island, gritty New York City, and a tabloid-friendly murder for this smart-alecky whodunit/surprisingly sweet love story. Susan is left alone with her three boys, big suburban house, and nagging questions when plastic surgeon hubby Jonah Gersten turns up dead in a hooker’s Upper East Side apartment. Though the police and prosecutors wind up their case against call girl Dorinda Dillon, it’s far from settled for Susan. It simply didn’t add up, in either my head or my heart, she confesses. And what better sidekick to track down the truth than Susan’s rogue granny, Ethel. What follows is an intricate and fascinating dissection of Susan’s marriage, family, husband’s medical practice and partners, and the unwitting call girl at the center of it all. Isaacs (Past Perfect) brings it all together in this fast and furious ride through wanton greed, fragile relationships, and love worth fighting for.”

I can think of no other novelist - popular or highbrow - who consistently celebrates female gutsiness, brains and sexuality. She’s Jane Austen with a schmear.”

…what made Judith such fun in the first place were her wit and her wiles, and the years have been kind to both.”

The kind of book you follow people around with, saying “Wait, wait! Just listen to one more line. Listen to this!” Intimate, irreverent and revealing, this is girl talk at its best. You don’t need to have read Compromising Positions to love this book.”

This long-awaited sequel to the best-selling comic mystery Compromising Positions (1978) reintroduces feisty Long Islander Judith Singer…A gripping plot with skillfully rendered secondary characters and plenty of tart humor make this sequel every bit as entertaining as its predecessor.”

Old friends, a former lover, and some quirky new characters populate Judith’s world and showcase Isaac’s sharp, often satirical style. The familiar mix of murder, humor, and wry social observation will delight her many readers.”

Hilarious satire of suburbia.”

Jam-packed with witty exchanges of dialogue, wry observations and Judith’s entertaining foibles, the book is good fun. Crime in the suburbs of Nassau County may never be the same again.”

The 20 years between Isaac’s bestselling Compromising Positions and this second book to feature amateur sleuth Judith Singer have not affected the author’s talent for snappy dialogue and astringent assessments of cant and pretension.”

Isaacs does it again: skewering the pretensions of upscale suburbanites and in a tender, funny romance.”

“Women’s fiction with a tangy, contemporary bite.””

Any Place I Hang My Hat is a clear-eyed look at a generation in flux.”

Engrossing, unpredictable and deeply affecting.”

Any Place I Hang My Hat is full of snappy dialogue and witty comebacks, but it’s a book with substance and a big heart—a rarity these days in women’s fiction.”

Isaacs is a talented scene-setter and teases the plot at just the right tempo.”

Isaacs is a social anthropologist with a wicked sense of humor.”

Nobody does smart, gutsy, funny, sexy women better than Susan Isaacs.”

Well-written, very funny, and incredibly smart.”

I love Susan Isaacs! Her books come straight from the heart, and her characters are smart, funny, and feisty enough to be your best girlfriend - not only for three hundred pages, but for life. Past Perfect introduces Katie Schottland - a terrific galpal who packs her kid off to summer camp and sleuths as a CIA analyst with equal style. Put simply, Past Perfect is perfect!”

There has to be a name for the literary form Susan Isaacs has invented: the funny scary book. The woman who made us laugh as well as shiver in fear over a murder investigation in Compromising Positions has done the same thing for the CIA and international espionage. Past Perfect made me laugh, but it also kept me jumping out of bed every time a floorboard creaked in my old house.”

Susan Isaacs has an incredibly good ear for dialogue and a very sharp eye for the silly and stupid things people really do. Picture yourself laughing out loud while sitting on the edge of your seat and furiously flipping pages. The clever plot, the quick pace, and the pitch-perfect writing are good clues that Past Perfect was written by a master storyteller.”

Katie Schottland, the protagonist of Susan Isaacs’s new book Past Perfect… is clever, funny, entrapment - a woman you want to root for. In short, she’s the quintessential Isaacs character…. Isaacs knows how to write women you love to love, and she’s got 10 best-selling books to prove it. From Judith Singer in Compromising Positions (1978), through Jane Cobleigh in Almost Paradise (1984), Linda Voss in Shining Through (1988), the title character in Lily White (1996), right up to Katie Schottland, Isaacs has defined herself as a champion of smart, plucky heroines.”

The story moves buoyantly thanks to sharp dialogue, brisk plotting, and an eminently likable protagonist.”

Katie is vintage Isaacs, a sexy, successful woman with all her insecurities up front and no illusions about our own failings.”

The best part of this novel is Isaacs’s Katie - glib, funny, discursive, semi-paranoid, smart, and blessed (or cursed) with a knife for detail.”

Isaacs is so good at what she does that her deservedly loyal fans are bound to be charmed.”

Feisty, funny, and smart.”

We have a great book for you…things, and spouses, are not what they seem in this rollicking caper.”

With her usual keen eye for detail and humor, Isaacs takes a hard look at the sometimes impenetrable, often absurd social politics of upscale New York. Susie is a winning heroine: wry, smart, and self-deprecating. Fast paced and immensely satisfying,_ As Husbands Go_ is a novel about a woman trying to prove that her charmed life was no fairy tale, and in the process learning a lot about herself.”

Nobody but nobody skewers vanity with the daring yet big-hearted wit of Susan Isaacs. As Husbands Go is mandatory reading for anyone who’s married, not married, was married or is thinking of getting married. I laughed my head off. And I was profoundly moved. That’s what Isaacs does. And she does it better than anyone else on earth.”

Isaacs' latest Jewish-gal-under-stress adventure purrs along perfectly sharply funny, all-knowing, and marvelously diverting.”