Scarlett Fever - Maureen Johson

This is the sequel to Suite Scarlett and I liked it more than I liked the first one. In the first one Scarlett, daughter of parents who own an old, somewhat tired hotel. Scarlett's brother is an actor, and in book 1 she fell for his friend Eric and hard! It really got to be pretty boring because it was all Eric, all the time. Me I got kind of tired of it.

This book was much fresher. There was still a little too much obsessing about Eric, but the story went i some other directions as well. There were a couple of larger subplots including one about Scarlett's scheming younger sister, a cancer survivor, and another about Scarlett's older sister with an ex and then not at all ex boyfriend who none of the family really likes. There was also Mrs. Ambrose, an eccentric old woman who in the first book came to stay at the hotel and who took Scarlett under her wing as her assistant. Scarlett continues on as Mrs. Ambrose's assistant in this book even though she has moved out of the hotel.

There are some very funny scenes in this book, and I liked it. It's not one of my top ten of the year, but it's a good, easy read. Available at the Multnomah County Library.