You don't have to admit to it out loud, but how many of you have sat through at least one (or more) episodes of THE BACHELOR?  Or FLAVOR OF LOVE or maybe even ROCK OF LOVE?

If you have, I'm sure you've rolled your eyes as a group of pneumatic young women (as they were called in the 1960s) kick, scream, pull hair, get naked, frolic in hot tubs, get drunker than humanly possible, and generally make fools out of themselves...all so they can be chosen as "the one" by a "prince" (most currently), a rapper who once actually had credibility, and an aging--and I suspect balding, since his scarf and/or hat never leaves his head--rock star.

But I do wonder--how far will women go to get a man? (Aging, likely balding, rock star; pneumatic women; clothes to make Nina Garcia weep) And why?

This all leads me to Lisa Landolt's amazing debut novel GOOD MAN HUNTING.

Lisa's novel was, for me, completely unexpected.  She's a Texas-based attorney who's never published a book before.  The manuscript came to me via a colleague, who seemed to think I was "perfect" for it (hmmmm...)

Once I began reading I couldn't stop laughing. But I also couldn't stop thinking...

Would some women really kill the competition to get a husband?

Well, if you ever watch Lifetime TV movies, the answer is definitely a yes. Given the great lengths that real-life women seem to go to get husbands, I somehow suspected that some of the shenanigans in this novel weren't too far from the truth.

In GOOD MAN HUNTING, Sandra, our heroine, is recruited into "The Hunt Club", a group of ladies who, for a large future financial investment, concoct an elaborate scheme to trap your man. Any man! But there's a lot Sandra doesn't know about The Hunt Club--most of all that they are capable of killing the competition.

As for these television shows, I guess you can write these shows off as entertainment, but I find them sort of appalling. I mean, what are we teaching our daughters? That they should do anything to get the Big Prize?

I'll save my rant on that for later, but in the meantime, please read the book!