Love Handles

When sex meets sweat, seams part.
Serenity Spa is a one-stop resource for its lady clients. Has your husband lost interest in sex? Serenity’s handsome cadre of instructors will fill the emptiness. Has surgery destroyed your body image? Serenity will restore it. Has your husband had one affair too many? Revenge is sweetest when taken slowly. Can a well-loved local studio survive when a fierce chain comes to town to crush it? Only if you’re clever and a bit nasty. A wonderful cast of characters you probably know from your workouts… but are afraid to admit to. Lots of laughs. An occasional tear. Come along for the ride.

AZ Daily Star REVIEW:

"Billed as 'an insider's undercover exposé of a particular Tucson ladies' spa,' fictional 'Love Handles' plays around, romping between Pilates classes and massage beds. Serenity Spa caters to well-fed wives of fat-cat husbands. It offers handsome trainers who address wives' needs and obviate husbands' obligations. The business continues swimmingly until a greedy spa corporation comes to town and a pretty reporter dons lesbian motorcycle gear and goes undercover to investigate.

Tension then becomes palpable: Can Mike hold onto the spa he's worked so hard to build? Will the reporter get her story, and snag the virginal farm boy? Will Mrs.

Atkins and Mrs. Fulman finally lay off the peanut butter-cream Kit Kats? No, 'Love Handles' doesn't take itself seriously.

Around what amounts to a love story, the novel goes raunchy with excesses of the graceless rich, a spa-centered lifestyle, and casual business corruption. There's a lot of sex in this book, but it doesn't try to be erotic, and it actually feels more locker room than a nail salon. Worth noting is that the prose of Esmeralda La Court, is deft, informed, and bawdy. That makes it not unlike the deft, informed, and bawdy prose of another writer published by this press - Jon Court.

- Christine Wald-Hopkins

review posted to web comment:

Review posted by GLawson on smash: "Love
Handles is as smart as it is funny. This is an
underdog story with twisting relationships, gritty
humor, sexual exploit, and hilarious prose!
Esmerelda is a gem of a writer. Serenity spa
sounds like my kind of place. I recommend this
book for anyone looking for a unique story with
solid characters and story."