"I LOVED this novel....If you have ever sung along to a hit on the radio, in any decade, then you will devour Mary Jane at 45 rpm." —Nick Hornby Almost Famous meets Daisy Jones & The Six in this funny, wise, and tender novel about a fourteen-year-old girl’s coming of age in 1970s Baltimore, caught between her straight-laced family and the progressive family she nannies for—who happen to be secretly hiding a famous rock star and his movie star wife for the summer. In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Showtunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house. The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface, Impeachment: Now More Than Ever bumper stickers on the doors, cereal and takeout for dinner. And even more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not): the doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job—helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in. Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll (not to mention group therapy). Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.

It's 1983 in Berkeley, California. Twenty-year-old Allie Dodgson is a straitlaced college student working part-time at a dress shop to make ends meet. But when the shop turns out to be a front for a dangerous drug-dealing business, Allie finds herself on the lam, speeding toward Los Angeles in her best friend's Prelude with a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine riding shotgun and a hit man named Vice Versa on her tail. You can't find a more thrilling summer read!

We think of the past as a more innocent time. But in these stories of California teenagers acting out in the last years of the '70s, it's easy to see that love, loss, and heartbreak are even more poignant when viewed through 15- or 16-year-old eyes. Surrounded by friends and family who are spinning with their own losses and heartache, these teenage girls navigate the terrors and tenderness of life in the only ways they know how. In this touching and moving pair of coming-of-age stories, best-selling author Jessica Anya Blau makes it clear that once you step over certain lines, there's no going back.Jessica Anya Blau's newest novel, The Wonder Bread Summer, was picked for CNN's, NPR's, Vanity Fair's, and Oprah Book Club's summer reading lists. It received multiple offers from Hollywood movie studios and was optioned. Her novel Drinking Closer to Home was featured in Target stores as a "Breakout Book" and made many Best Books of the Year lists. Blau's first novel, The Summer...

They say you can never really go home again. Adult siblings Anna, Portia, and Emery are about to discover just how true that is.

Could a little yellow pill be responsible for landing Lexie James in the bed of her lover—and her lover's wife? Whatever the reason for this charmingly reckless school counselor's bad behavior, you've never been on a bender like this one. In Number Seven, Zandra runs into her seventh love—of 48—in a department store.Jessica Anya Blau's newest novel, The Wonder Bread Summer, was picked for CNN's summer reading list, NPR's summer reading list, and Oprah Book Club's summer reading list. Her novel Drinking Closer to Home was featured in Target stores as a "Breakout Book" and made many Best Books of the Year lists. Blau's first novel, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, was a national bestseller and was picked as a Best Summer Book by the Today Show, the New York Post, and New York magazine. The San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers chose it as one of the Best Books of the Year.

Jessica Anya Blau, author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, delivers another darkly hilarious, heartbreaking coming-of-age novel with Wonder Bread Summer.In The Wonder Bread Summer, loosely based on Alice in Wonderland, 20-year-old Allie Dodgson has adventures that rival those Alice had down the rabbit hole. Or those of Weeds’ Nancy Botwin.Allison is working at a dress shop to help pay for college. The dress shop turns out to be a front for drug dealers. And Allison ends up on the run—with a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine.With a hit man after her, Allison wants the help of her parents. But there’s a problem: Her mom took off when Allison was eight; her dad moves so often Allison that doesn’t even have his phone number….Set in 1980s California, The Wonder Bread Summer is a wickedly funny and fresh caper that’s sure to please fans of Christopher Moore, Carl Hiaasen, and Marcy Dermansky.Review“Raunchy, poignant, and triumphant in turn--and sometimes manages to be all three at the same time.” (Booklist)Blau’s madcap chase through 1980s L.A. is over-the-top and...a liberal dose of dark humor and an oddly heart-warming ending add to the twisted ride. (Publishers Weekly)“A fun read! Even before the buzzard hits the windshield, THE WONDER BREAD SUMMER will make you feel better about your worst summer vacation.” (Christopher Moore, New York Times-bestselling author of Lamb and A Dirty Job)“A rollicking, irreverent, sweep of a novel. Blau has written another shining, no-holds barred California heart breaker.” (Deborah Reed, author of Carry Yourself Back To Me)“Jessica Anya Blau has taken the story of a young woman’s search for self and rendered it into a hilarious, cocaine-fueled thrill-ride. From its Tarantino-esque opening scene to its twisty final pages, THE WONDER BREAD SUMMER is an unrelenting delight.” (Jon Michaud, author of When Tito Loved Clara)“It’s hard to recall a debut as warm, charming and comically satisfying as The Summer of Naked Swim Parties . . . Blau conveys Jamie’s world with compelling insight and wit . . . [Blau’s] sharp observation and affectionate humor [give] surprising depth to this shimmering novel.” (San Francisco Chronicle)“This book will make you laugh and cry in public. Jessica Anya Blau has written a soaring teenage lament, perfectly pitched, containing the single saddest and funniest line of seduction ever uttered.” (Larry Doyle, author of I Love You, Beth Cooper)“A book by Blau would be disappointing without pot smoking, hilarious and sometimes grungy sex, and bickering relatives.” (Boston Globe)“Jessica Anya Blau returns with all the comedic powers of a master trickster.” (Jessica Keener, author of the nationally-bestselling novel Night Swim)“Often hilarious and lewd, and also sincere and moving, like the naughty Southern Californian soul mate of Nick Hornby.” (Matthew Klam, author of Sam the Cat, and other stories)“Blau has crafted a totally uniqu coming of age story, wrapped in a road trip, with a drug caper center. It’s a wild, exuberant novel, full of humor, heart, and a solid dose of bad behavior. I loved it.” (Paula Bomer, author of 9 Months)“No one writes like Jessica Anya Blau. Funny, tender, and outrageous.” (Michael Downs, author of The Greatest Show)“Jessica Anya blau has the gift of creating people we feel and know as familiar, and then showing us how much we don’t know them at all.” (Leora Skolkin-Smith, author of Hystera)“This novel is addictive! I was hooked the moment straight-arrow Allie steals a bread bag full of blow...You won’t be able to look away.” (Mary Kay Zuravelff, author of Man Alive!)“Jessica Anya Blau’s The Wonder Bread Summer is a lightning strike of a novel, sexy and dangerous and aglow with adventure. Allie is a tenacious and deliciously complicated heroine, and it’s impossible to resist the ride she takes you on.” (Laura van den Berg, author of What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us)“This is as fast, fun, and outrageous a book as I’ve read in a long time. But beneath all the antics is a poignant story about racial identity, fathers and daughters, and coming of age in one totally messed-up decade.” (Matthew Norman, author of Domestic Violets)“In The Wonder Bread Summer, Jessica Anya Blau sends us tumblin down a rabbit hole of youthful mistakes and heartache, alongside the unsinkable Allie Dodgson. Coming of age has never been so wickedly thrilling.” (Tania James, author of Aerogrammes and Other Stories)“The Wonder Bread Summer is the best ever! It even made me a little jealous and that doesn’t happen often.” (Madison Smartt Bell)“Picaresque, properly funny, unpredictable and altogether irrepressible...[Blau] reminds me of [Charles] Portis in a lot of ways . . . [S]he has a steady nerve, as well as a wicked imagination, and she takes her craft seriously... Top-notch comic writing.” (Nick Hornby, The Believer) From the Back CoverIt's 1983 in Berkeley, California. Twenty-year-old Allie Dodgson is a straitlaced college student working part-time at a dress shop to make ends meet. But when the shop turns out to be a front for a dangerous drug-dealing business, Allie finds herself on the lam, speeding toward Los Angeles in her best friend's Prelude with a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine riding shotgun and a hit man named Vice Versa on her tail. You can't find a more thrilling summer read!

From the beloved author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and The Wonder Bread Summer comes the jaw-dropping story of Lexie James, a counselor at an exclusive New England prep school, whose search for happiness lands her in unexpectedly wild trouble.Lexie James escaped: after being abandoned by her alcoholic father, and kicked out of the apartment to make room for her mother's boyfriend, Lexie made it on her own. She earned a Masters degree, conquered terrifying panic attacks, got engaged to the nicest guy she'd ever met, and landed a counseling job at the prestigious Ruxton Academy, a prep school for the moneyed children of the elite.But as her wedding date nears, Lexie has doubts. Yes, she's created the stable life she craved as a child, but is stability really what she wants? In her moment of indecision, Lexie strikes up a friendship with a Ruxton alumnus, the father of her favorite student. It's a relationship that blows open Lexie's carefully constructed...