Cover for Bad, Bad Seymour Brown
Cover for Takes One to Know One Cover for A Hint of Strangeness Cover for Goldberg Variations Cover for As Husbands Go Cover for Past Perfect Cover for Lily White Cover for Any Place I Hang My Hat Cover for Compromising Positions Cover for After All These Years Cover for Long Time No See Cover for Almost Paradise Cover for Shining Through Cover for Red, White and Blue Cover for Brave Dames and Wimpettes Cover for It Occurs to Me That I Am America Cover for Magic Hour Cover for Close Relations Cover for Compliments of a Friend
Cover for Bad, Bad Seymour Brown
(Hardcover)
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780802159069
(Ebook)
Published: May 2, 2023
ASIN: B0BKTMKJ9S
(Audio)
Published: May 2, 2023
ASIN: B0BVDDNG7K

When Corie Geller asked her parents to move from their apartment into the suburban McMansion she shares with her husband and teenage daughter, she assumed they’d fit right in with the placid life she’d opted for when she left the Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force of the FBI.

But then her retired NYPD detective father gets a call from good-natured and slightly nerdy film professor April Brown—one of the victims of a case he was never able to solve. When April was a five-year-old, she’d emerged unscathed from the arson that killed her parents. Now, two decades later, April is asking for help. Someone has made an attempt on her life. It takes only a nanosecond for Corie and her dad to say yes, and they jump into a full-fledged investigation.

If they don’t move fast, whoever attacked the April is sure to strike again. But while her late father, Seymour Brown, was the go-to money launderer for the Russian mob – a mercurial and violent man with a penchant for Swiss watches and cheating on his wife – April Brown has no enemies. Well-liked by her students, admired by her colleagues, her only connection to crime is her passion for the noir movies of Hollywood’s golden age. Who would want her dead now? And who set that horrific fire, all those years ago?

The stakes have never been higher. Yet as Corie and her dad are realizing, they still live for the chase. Savvy and surprising, witty and gripping, Bad, Bad Seymour Brown is another standout hit from the beloved Susan Isaacs.

Both witty and gripping, this is ultra-sleek storytelling, with two delightful investigators.”
— Daily Mail
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.”
— Newsday
Cover for Takes One to Know One
(Hardcover)
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: Oct 1, 2019
ISBN: 9780802147554
(Paperback)
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: Oct 1, 2019
ISBN: 9780802149411
(Ebook)
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: Oct 1, 2019
ISBN: 9780802147554
ASIN: B07V4TF8XQ
(Audiobook)
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: Oct 1, 2019
ISBN: 9780802147554
ASIN: B07YX694TJ

Takes One to Know One is the first in the Corie Geller series.

Corie Geller has plunged into the happy suburban married existence she’d hoped for: whip-smart husband, adorable stepdaughter, loveable rescue dog, free-lance work for a literary agency. It’s all exceedingly pleasant but not exhilarating–especially for an ex-FBI agent who must keep her past job in counterterrorism secret.

Then one Wednesday, at her weekly restaurant lunch with other locals who work from home, Corie’s focus is drawn to one of the regulars. That’s when it hits her: Something’s off with this guy. Okay, just a hunch, but no way can he be what everyone thinks. As with Corie herself, he has a hidden life. Or at least that’s what her training and experience are whispering to her—as well as her gut feeling—maybe because it takes one to know one.

[Isaacs] has us chasing Corie all over the map, charmed by this motormouth sleuth’s snappy wit and awed by her courage.”
— Newsday
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.”
Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal
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.”
— Booklist
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.”
— New York Journal of Books
Cover for A Hint of Strangeness
(Audiobook)
Publisher: Audible Studios
Published: Jun 5, 2018
ASIN: B07BFHG7H5
(Ebook)
Published: Jun 5, 2018
ASIN: B00UFY8CCO

The Washington Post said, ““Nobody does smart, gutsy, funny, sexy women better than Susan Isaacs.”

Add to that praise the adjective “strong,” and you’ve got Susan’s latest protagonist, Marianne Kent.  Her life may not seem thrilling – living with her widowed mother, majoring in economics, working in an elegant dress store after classes to put away money for graduate school – but she’s determined to make a better life for herself and her mom.

One night, she comes home.  Hmm, no light over the front door.  That old fuse box?  Again?  Except when Marianne gets inside, she stumbles and immediately

“I comprehended I had not tripped over a book…. I prayed.  I forgot for what, but it came down to Please let everything be okay.  Maybe that my mother (because I had no doubt it was she) had just fainted from a high fever or low blood pressure and she felt cold because she was so close to the front door.”

Her mother has been murdered.  The NYPD is stumped.  Marianne’s father, an army captain, was killed in battle when she was a year old, and whatever other family she has are so distant she’s never met them. Whom can she turn to?

Marianne does what strong women always do: She turns to herself.  With help from her Laurie Fishbein, her BFF since second grade, she becomes her own private detective to solve the case of her lifetime.

Cover for Goldberg Variations
(Paperback)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: Oct 2, 2012
ISBN: 9781451605921
(Ebook)
Published: Oct 2, 2012
ASIN: B007WT319E
(Audiobook)
Published: Oct 2, 2012
ASIN: B009KF1DZM

Gloria Garrison nee Goldberg isn’t getting any younger. At seventy-nine, it’s time for her to plan for the future of Glory, Inc., the Santa Fe-based beauty makeover business that Gloria has grown from zilch into an eleven-million-a-year bonanza.

But now Gloria has alienated her former business partner and chosen successor. Who will take over Glory? Gloria’s never been big on family and wrote them all out of her will, but suddenly she must contemplate her three grandkids as possible candidates.

There’s twenty-nine-year-old Daisy, a New York story editor for a movie studio. Her brother, twenty-seven-year-old Matt, does sports PR. He can charm his way around ball players, the press, and a flurry of women. And there’s gutsy Raquel, who at age twenty-five is laboring away as a Legal Aid lawyer. She’s Catholic and a Goldberg and proud of it.

When Gloria sends business-class tickets to tempt the three grandkids for a visit, they couldn’t be more surprised. Stranger still is the revelation that one of them and only one, may be offered the chance to inherit Glory.

Always sassy, smart, and wickedly witty, Susan Isaacs is at her formidable best in a novel that is both hilariously funny and a deeply moving tale of family, faith, and reconciliation.

Isaacs is a master of witty fiction with an undercurrent of emotional truth.”
USA TODAY
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.”
— “Pitch Perfect in Goldberg Variations” by Ellen Meister, Long Island Woman
Cover for As Husbands Go
(Paperback)
Publisher: Scribner
Published: Jul 1, 2010
ISBN: 9781416573081
(Ebook)
Published: Jul 1, 2010
ASIN: B003L786VO
(Audiobook)
Published: Jul 1, 2010
ASIN: B003VXOZ8Q

As Husbands Go, the latest from critically acclaimed, bestselling author, Susan Isaacs, is rare mix of wit, social satire, ethical inquiry and suspense. Its beautifully-drawn characters leap from the page to speak directly to the reader. The author’s twelfth novel is moving story about a love that just won’t give up.

Call her superficial, but Susie B. Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten assumed her marriage was great – and why not? She was beautiful. Talented too, but not threateningly so. Her husband, Jonah Gersten, M.D., a handsome, successful Park Avenue plastic surgeon, clearly adored her, and they were doting parents to their four-year-old triplets Dashiell, Evan, and Mason. But when Jonah is found in the Upper East Side apartment of second-rate “escort” Dorinda Dillon, Susie is overwhelmed with questions left unanswered. It’s bad enough to know your husband’s been murdered, but even worse when you’re universally pitied (and quietly mocked) because of the sleaze factor.

None of it makes sense to Susie – not a sexual liaison with someone like Dorinda, not the “better not to discuss it” response from Jonah’s partners. With help from her tough-talking, high-style Grandma Ethel who flies in from Miami, she takes on her snooty in-laws, her husband’s partners as well as the NYPD, and the DA. She wants to know if the person arrested for the homicide is the actual perp, or just an easy mark for a prosecutor who hates the word “unsolved.” And for her own peace of mind, she hopes to prove her wonderful life with Jonah was no lie.

Susan Isaacs brilliantly turns the conventions of the mystery on end as Susie Gersten, suburban mom, floral designer, and fashion plate, goes from shallow to deep in her search for the truth about her husband’s life and death.

>> Susan’s inspiration for As Husbands Go.

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.”
Publishers Weekly Starred Review
We have a great book for you…things, and spouses, are not what they seem in this rollicking caper.”
Good Housekeeping
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.”
Bookpage
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.”
— Patricia Volk, author of Stuffed and To My Dearest Friends
Isaacs' latest Jewish-gal-under-stress adventure purrs along perfectly sharply funny, all-knowing, and marvelously diverting.”
Booklist_, Donna Seaman'
(Paperback)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: Feb 13, 2007
ISBN: 9781416572084
(Ebook)
Published: Feb 13, 2007
ASIN: B007Z4RYHQ
(Audiobook)
Published: Feb 13, 2007
ASIN: B001I7RSFY

In Past Perfect, Susan Isaacs gives us one of her most glorious characters ever: bright, buoyant, and borderline luscious Katie Schottland. Katie seems to have the ideal life: a great husband, a precocious and winning ten-year-old son, and a dream job-writer for the long-running TV series Spy Guys. But all is not as splendid as it should be because writing about the espionage business isn’t nearly as satisfying as working in it.

Fifteen years earlier, Katie was in the CIA. She loved her job (to say nothing of her boss, the mysterious Benton Mattingly). Yet just as she was sensing she was in line for a promotion, she was fired-escorted off the premises by two extremely hulking security types. Why? No one would tell her: when you’re expelled from the Agency, warm friends immediately become icy ex-colleagues who won’t risk their security clearances by talking to you.

Until that day, Katie was where she wanted to be. Coming from a family of Manhattan superachievers, she too had a job she not only adored but a job that made her, in the family tradition, a Someone. Fifteen years later, Katie is still stuck on her firing. Was she set up? Or did she make some terrible mistake that cost lives? She believes that if she could discover why they threw her out, she might be at peace.

On the day she’s rushing to get her son off to summer camp, Katie gets a surprise call from former Agency colleague Lisa Golding. “A matter of national importance,” says Lisa, who promises to reveal the truth about the firing-if Katie will help her. Lisa was never very good at truth-telling, though she swears she’s changed her ways. Katie agrees to speak with her, but before she can, Lisa vanishes.

Maturity and common sense should keep Katie in the bright, normal world of her present life, away from the dark intrigues of the past. But she needs to know. As she takes just a few steps to find out, one ex-spy who might have the answers dies under suspicious circumstances. Another former agent is murdered. Could it be there’s a list? If so, is Katie now on it? And who will be the next to go?

>> Susan’s inspiration for Past Perfect.

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!”
— Lisa Scottoline, author of Dirty Blonde
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.”
— Sara Paretsky, author of Fire Sale
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.”
— Nelson DeMille, author of Wild Fire
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.”
Publishers Weekly
The story moves buoyantly thanks to sharp dialogue, brisk plotting, and an eminently likable protagonist.”
Los Angeles Times
Katie is vintage Isaacs, a sexy, successful woman with all her insecurities up front and no illusions about our own failings.”
Newsday
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.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Isaacs is so good at what she does that her deservedly loyal fans are bound to be charmed.”
The Washington Post, Claudia Deane
Feisty, funny, and smart.”
The New York Times
(Paperback)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: Jul 1, 1996
ISBN: 9780061256233

Lee (née Lily) White is a defense lawyer practicing on Long Island. Into her life drifts Norman Torkelson, a career con man charged with strangling his latest mark. At first, the case seems open and shut. But just as Lee is resigning herself to a guilty verdict, she begins to have doubts. After all, what was Norman’s motive? Lee starts to wonder if her client is covering for the real killer, and in doing so, performing the first selfless act of his life. As the case unfolds, so does the story behind the story: Lee is a privileged child coming age on Long Island. Her parents are devoted to the pursuit of money and status. When Lee marries a scion of Long Island blue bloods, her life seems blessed. But is the sacrifice of her dreams worth the approval she garners from her parents?

>>Susan’s inspiration for Lily White.

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.”
Publishers Weekly
A well-written, moving story that will keep the reader engrossed all the way.”
Miami Herald
Lily is a funny, nervy survivor of some major betrayals…one house guest you’ll wish could stay longer.”
Glamour
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.”
— NPR’s Fresh Air
Isaacs delivers witty, wicked satire from beginning to end.”
Entertainment Weekly
Lily White is a winner… with wit, insight, and enough twists and turns to keep the pages turning.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Shiny fun, jam-packed full of story.”
Atlanta Journal
Touching, funny, and fast-paced.”
St. Paul Pioneer Press
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.”
Cincinnati Post
A one-volume vacation reader.”
Los Angeles Times
The ingredients for another bestseller.”
Baltimore Sun
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.”
Boston Globe
Her richest book yet.”
Newsday
Murder, sex, and humor make for a wickedly entertaining combination.”
People
A big, fat, happy feast of a book… [Isaacs’s] most confident and appealing… [She] is both funny and piercing, a highly satisfying combination.”
New York Times Book Review
Cover for Any Place I Hang My Hat
(Paperback)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: Oct 1, 2004
ISBN: 9780743463133
(Ebook)
Published: Oct 1, 2004
ASIN: B007Z40LRQ

No matter which side of the nature/nurture debate you’re on, Amy Lincoln’s prospects do not look good. Her mother abandoned her when she was ten months old (just a couple of months after Amy’s father went off to serve his first prison term), leaving her in the care of Grandma Lil, who shoplifts dinner on the way home from her job as a leg waxer to the rich and refined.

When Amy is fourteen, she gets a scholarship to a New England boarding school - her exposure to the moneyed class. After Harvard and the Columbia School of Journalism, Amy becomes a political reporter for the prestigious weekly In Depth. While covering a political fund-raiser, Amy meets a college student who claims to be the son of one of the presidential candidates. It’s precisely the sort of story that In Depth wouldn’t deign to cover, but the idea of tracking down a lost parent and demanding recognition intrigues Amy. As she begins a search of her own past as well as the candidate’s, she discovers a new and unimpeachable grandmother and a mother who is much more than she bargained for. Most important, she finally comes to understand the stuff she’s made of and finds the perfect place to hang her hat in the world.

Bold, insightful, witty, and exhilarating, Any Place I Hang My Hat is a novel about one extraordinary young woman looking for a place to belong - by one of the most compelling and beloved voices in contemporary fiction.

>> Susan’s inspiration for Any Place I Hang My Hat.

“Women’s fiction with a tangy, contemporary bite.””
Booklist
Any Place I Hang My Hat is a clear-eyed look at a generation in flux.”
Chicago Tribune
Engrossing, unpredictable and deeply affecting.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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.”
The Seattle Times
Isaacs is a talented scene-setter and teases the plot at just the right tempo.”
The Denver Post
Isaacs is a social anthropologist with a wicked sense of humor.”
New York Newsday
Nobody does smart, gutsy, funny, sexy women better than Susan Isaacs.”
— Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post
Well-written, very funny, and incredibly smart.”
O, The Oprah Magazine
(Paperback)
Publisher: Penguin
Published: Mar 24, 1978
ISBN: 97808129073605
(Ebook)
Published: Mar 24, 1978
ASIN: B0057B7FZK

Judith Singer, the protagonist of Compromising Positions, is intelligent, brash and witty. But she is trapped by her lifestyle in Shorehaven (“minutes from Fitzgerald’s East Egg”); a stuffy husband (“Judith, don’t tell me you haven’t gained weight. I can see it in your waist.") demanding children (“I hate her peanut butter. It’s the smooth kind.") and a stultifying suburban home (“two weeks of accumulated laundry”).

When Dr. Bruce Fleckstein, a local periodontist and notorious stud, is found murdered, Judith’s life takes an interesting turn- and is infused with a sense of purpose.

It turns out that besides being one of the flashiest of Long Island’s gum-probers, Fleckstein was also a camera buff, as several of Judith’s acquaintances weepily disclose- weepily because their portraits were taken in what were once described as “compromising positions.”

Poking into the murder case on a lark, Judith quickly discloses her own innate talents and keed perceptions, spiced with irrepressible humor and irreverent social commentary. And the discoveries include not only her blossoming femininity and a burgeoning sense of her potential as a woman – but also an attractive homicide lieutenant who, in attempting to arrest her for meddling with the case, finds himself instead arrested by her contagious warmth, wit and sexuality.

Judith Singer is the most endearing and engaging of heroines in current fiction in her pursuit of solutions to the case, her self, and a position in life that is in no way compromising.

Wonderfully funny, deliciously mean.”
The New York Times
An impeccably constructed mystery… Wickedly subversive wit and a crackle of one-liners… Great fun.”
Cosmopolitan
A clever satire of suburbia wrapped around a mystery… Full of interesting and funny characters.”
New York Daily News
A big winner.”
New York Post
Zippy… wildly entertaining suspense comedy.”
Mademoiselle
A froth of a book. Clever, deft… and very funny.”
The Washington Post
(Paperback)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: Jul 1, 1993
ISBN: 9780060563738
(Ebook)
Published: Jul 1, 1993
ASIN: B000FC10JS
(Audiobook)
Published: Jul 1, 1993
ASIN: B0000546FM

Rosie Myers, high school English teacher, wife and mother, didn’t exactly object when her husband Richie changed from an easy-going math teacher into the hotshot president of a multi-million-dollar corporation in Manhattan. Well, she did worry how living on a grand waterfront estate in Long Island might affect the family, but what could be bad about the good life? She finds out when Richie leaves her the morning after their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party - for a younger, prettier, and possibly smarter woman. Since then, Rosie’s been living alone in the big house, grieving over her loss… and eating more chocolate chocolate chip ice cream than is necessary to sustain life. Late one night, on her way to the refrigerator, she trips over - Richie! Dead on the kitchen floor, a carving knife in his chest. True, there is no evidence that anyone besides Rosie and Richie were in the house. Admittedly, Rosie does have a motive. And the murder weapon came from her kitchen. So naturally the police think she’s guilty. Rosie knows she has to save herself. Hours before she’s to be arrested, she gives the police the slip and heads for New York City to find the real killer. What she discovers is that Richie, the husband she thought she knew, had been living a secret, high-style life as he tried to charm his way into the jet-set.

On the lam in Manhattan, Rosie summons guts and savvy she never knew she had. In her daring and devious quest for the killer, she brilliantly pieces together the clues to her freedom and meets some old friends along the way who show her how to live again after all these years with the wrong man. After All These Years is an irresistible mystery, replete with Isaac’s razor-sharp wit, splendidly drawn characters, and a brave, irreverent heroine readers will love.

>> Susan’s inspiration for After All These Years.

Susan Isaacs writes wonderful books. They’re loaded with wit, crammed with memorable characters, endlessly entertaining and beautifully written.”
Los Angeles Times
Pure fun.”
Los Angeles Times Book Review
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.”
Publishers Weekly
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
New York Times Book Review
Isaacs is once again at the top of her satiric form in After All These Years.”
Chicago Tribune
Isaacs scores again with this relentlessly funny…entertaining and imaginative mystery.”
People
(Paperback)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: Sep 9, 2001
ISBN: 9780061030437
(Ebook)
Published: Sep 9, 2001
ASIN: B0057B7FYQ
(Audiobook)
Published: Sep 9, 2001
ASIN: B01D8TDSEY

Judith Singer is back! After twenty years Susan Isaacs brings us back the heroine fromCompromising Positions, her first and most beloved novel and returns to a great suspense story set in suburbia. Judith’s life has changed. She now has her doctorate in history. Her workaday hours are spent at St. Elizabeth’s College, mostly squandered in history department shriek-fests. She is also a widow. Her husband Bob died one half-day after triumphantly finishing the New York City Marathon in four hours and twelve minutes. And although twenty years have passed without seeing him, she still cannot get her former lover, Nelson Sharpe of the Nassau County Police Department, out of her system.

With Courtney Logan’s dramatic disappearance, all eyes turn instantly toward her husband, Greg Logan, son of Long Island mobster Philip “Fancy Phil” Lowenstein. But since there is no body, there is no arrest. Then, in the less-than-merry month of May, Judith comes home from work, turns on the radio, and hears the Logans' pool man telling a reporter that he opened the pool and found . . . a raccoon? Not quite. “I see, you know, it’s a body! Jeez. Believe it or not, I’m still shaking.” The woman in the pool turns out to be Courtney, and now it’s officially homicide. And Judith comes alive! She offers her services to the police’s chief suspect, Greg Logan, but he shows her the door, thinking her just another neighborhood nut. But his father isn’t so sure: Fancy Phil may have other plans for her.

Long Time No See is Susan Isaacs at her wickedly observant best. With razor-sharp wit and an irresistible mystery, she brings us back in touch with an engaging, endearing and irreverent heroine we haven’t seen in far too long.

>> Susan’s inspiration for Long Time No See.

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.”
— Maureen Corrigan, “Fresh Air,” National Public Radio
…what made Judith such fun in the first place were her wit and her wiles, and the years have been kind to both.”
Entertainment Weekly
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.”
The Washington Post
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.”
Booklist
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.”
Library Journal
Hilarious satire of suburbia.”
People Magazine
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 Boston Globe
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.”
Publishers Weekly (boxed review)
Isaacs does it again: skewering the pretensions of upscale suburbanites and in a tender, funny romance.”
Kirkus Starred Review
(Paperback)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: Mar 1, 1994
ISBN: 9780061014659
(Ebook)
Published: Mar 1, 1994
ASIN: B001BANJZQ

A beautiful man. A brilliant woman. And a life together that is almost paradise.

Susan Isaacs, bestselling author of Compromising Positions and Close Relations, joins America’s first-rank novelists with this rich and complex story of Jane and Nicholas Cobleigh, of the generations that sired them, and of the wide cast of family and friends with whom their lives are intertwined. Nicholas is the handsome, elusive, awesomely aristocratic scion of one of the East Coast’s oldest families. Jane – supremely intelligent, awkward, and deliciously funny – is the product of a disastrous union between a down-on-her-luck (but eternally optimistic) burleque queen and the dreary Cincinnati bank clerk she dupes into marriage.

But Almost Paradise is more than just the recounting of two lives. All of Susan Isaacs' characters are alive – colorful, human and beautifully textured: James, Nicholas' father, an embittered, hard-drinking, womanizing former OSS spy stuck in a Wall Street law firm; Dorothy, Jane’s vicious, avaricious stepmother; Murray, their savvy, good-hearted agent; their daughters, the chilly Victoria, the vulnerable Elizabeth.

Almost Paradise is the Colbleighs' story, together and apart, from the cold-water flat in Hell’s Kitchen to the rolling, verdant Connecticut farm to the Fifth Avenue duplex, from their vastly different backgrounds to their life together that transcends what either alone could achieve. It is a tale of great wealth and great celebrity in the midst of personal tragedy, of the ties that bind us all together, and the missed opportunities that tear us apart.

Susan Isaacs has written a profoundly moving drama with wit, warmth, irony, and compassion – a deep and gripping saga that penetrates to the heart of our modern culture.

>> Susan’s inspiration for Almost Paradise.

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.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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.”
Newsday
Clever, witty and thoroughly charming.”
The Detroit Free Press
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.”
Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Extravagant…. As witty as she ever was, but her imagination has gotten wilder, and the story she tells is bigger.”
Cosmopolitan
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.”
Chicago Sun-Times News
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?”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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.”
New York Daily News
Sizzling… Shining Through explodes more than one myth about being as American as apple pie.”
Los Angeles Times
(Paperback)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: Jul 1, 1988
ISBN: 9780061030154
(Ebook)
Published: Jul 1, 1988
ASIN: B001BANJZG

“In 1940, when I was thirty-one and an old maid, while the world waited for war, I fell in love with John Berringer.” Every night Linda Voss covers her typewriter, says goodnight to the other secretaries and takes the subway from Wall Street to her home in Queens, where she has dreams about her boss, the extravagantly handsome, brilliant and altogether unattainable John Berringer. But she is a realist and knows that her reveries of bliss in Mr. Berringer’s arms are simply consoling fantasies. And yet four years later, Linda Voss Berringer no longer needs dreams to comfort her; this ordinary working girl emerges triumphant from the ruins of the second world war as a woman of valor, a genuine hero. Linda’s story involves passion, when a blazing affair with John Berringer leads to pregnancy and a gentlemanly offer of marriage; then betrayal, as their marriage is rocked by John’s faithlessness; and finally intrigue, both the polite variety of Wall Street wives and a more deadly kind when Linda joins the war effort as a spy. The master of her own fate in a world out of control, Linda penetrates the heart of Nazi terror and carries out one of the war’s most deadly missions. Like a blazing rocket, the novel ends in an explosion of danger, action and unexpected romance.

>> Susan’s inspiration for Shining Through.

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.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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.”
Newsday
Clever, witty and thoroughly charming.”
The Detroit Free Press
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.”
Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Extravagant…. As witty as she ever was, but her imagination has gotten wilder, and the story she tells is bigger.”
Cosmopolitan
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.”
Chicago Sun-Times News
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?”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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.”
New York Daily News
Sizzling… Shining Through explodes more than one myth about being as American as apple pie.”
Los Angeles Times
(Paperback)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: Mar 1, 1999
ISBN: 9780007652044
(Audiobook)
Published: Mar 1, 1999
ASIN: B01CQ1FL72

Compromising Positions to Lily White -- seven critically acclaimed novels, seven New York Times bestsellers. Now, with her eighth novel, Susan Isaacs has written her finest work yet. Red, White and Blue tells the story of two ordinary Americans who find it within themselves to become extraordinary heroes.

Charlie Blair of Wyoming and Lauren Miller of New York start out as strangers. They are drawn together by an appalling hate crime and by their mutual passion for justice. Yet they share more than a sense of fair play. They are not simply kindred spirits but actual kin, descendants of immigrants who met on a boat on their way to America, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.

Special Agent Blair of the FBI has the numbing job of a bureaucrat and the soul of a cowboy. A wry Westerner from his Stetson to his boots, he also happens to be the great-great-grandson of . . . Dora Blaustein? Dora what? True, although he is unaware of that particular ancestor. A nearly burned-out case at thirty-four, he is about to walk away from the safe world of paper-pushing to risk his life in Wyoming, infiltrating an armed, white supremacist, viciously anti-Semitic group called Wrath. Wyoming born and bred, Charlie seems the perfect choice for this undercover operation, because who in Wrath could question this whiter-than-white man, so clearly one of their own?

Also in Jackson Hole is Charlie’s apparent opposite. Gen-X Lauren Miller is articulate, ironic-and unwaveringly liberal. A journalist from Long Island, she has been hired by theJewish News to investigate a bombing that Wrath is suspected to be behind. Lauren’s job is to know who, what, where and when, of course. But most of all, she is compelled to discover why. Why are all these people who’ve never met a Jew in their lives obsessed with Jews-and why do they want them dead? Just who is it who gets to define who is an American?

With narrative grace, insight and her trademark exuberant wit, Isaacs not only chronicles Lauren’s and Charlie’s investigations, but explores their American heritage as well: How did their forebears-how did all of our forebears-get from there to here? And what can this mountain man and this suburban woman possibly share-except a few random genes?

Intelligent, exhilarating and intensely moving, Red, White and Blue is a novel about what makes Americans American.

>> Susan’s inspiration for Red, White and Blue.

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.”
The Providence Sunday Journal
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.”
— Bookpage.com
Both on the large scale and the small [Red, White and Blue is] an absorbing chronicle of the American character.”
Kirkus Reviews
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.”
The Plain Dealer
With Isaacs' wry characterizations and unabashedly patriotic…finale, Red, White and Blue should earn the allegiance of her countless devoted fans.”
Entertainment Weekly
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.”
Library Journal
Cover for Brave Dames and Wimpettes
(Paperback)
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: Jan 19, 1999
ISBN: 9780345422811
(Audiobook)
Published: Jan 19, 1999
ASIN: B0B3LRKFTD

In this thoroughly witty, incisive look at the role of women on screen and page, Susan Isaacs argues that assertive, ethical women characters are losing ground to wounded, shallow sisters who are driven by what she calls the articles of wimpette philosophy. (Article Eight: A wimpette looks to a man to give her an identity.) Although female roles today include lawyers like Ally McBeal and CEOs like Ronnie of Veronica’s Closet, they are wimpettes nonetheless. A brave dame, on the other hand, is a dignified, three-dimensional hero who may care about men, home, and hearth, but also cares–and acts–passionately about something in the world beyond. Brave dames' stories range from mundane (Mary Richards in The Mary Tyler Moore Show) to romantic (Francesca in The Horse Whisperer) to fantastic (Xena: Warrior Princess), but whatever they do, they care about justice and carry themselves with self-respect and decency. For a Really Brave Dame, think Frances McDormand as the tenacious, pregnant police chief in Fargo.

Isaacs’s unmistakable love of fiction and film shines through even her most scathing wimpette assessments. In the end, she urges us to become “more thoughtful critics.” The artist, she says, has the right to create whatever he or she pleases–and we have the right “to applaud or to yell, ‘Hey, this stinks!’ " If we do so, not only will fiction be improved, but so too might real life.

Cover for It Occurs to Me That I Am America
(Paperback)
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: Jan 19, 1999
ISBN: 9781501179600

In time for the one-year anniversary of the Trump Inauguration and the Women’s March, this provocative, unprecedented anthology features original short stories from thirty bestselling and award-winning authors—including Alice Walker, Richard Russo, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, Mary Higgins Clark, and Lee Child—with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen.

When Donald Trump claimed victory last November, the US literary world erupted in indignation. Many of America’s leading writers and artists openly resist the current administration’s dogma and earliest policy moves, and they’re not about to go gently into that good night. In It Occurs to Me That I Am America: New Stories and Art, more than thirty of the most acclaimed modern writers consider the fundamental ideals of a free, just, and compassionate democracy—through fiction.

Featuring artwork by some of today’s best known artists, cartoonists, and graphic novelists—including Art Spiegelman, Roz Chast, Marilyn Minter, and Eric Fischl—who cover political, social, and cultural issues, this anthology is a beautiful, enduring collection that will resonate with anyone concerned with the contest for our American soul.

(Paperback)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: Jan 1, 1991
ISBN: 9780061099489
(Ebook)
Published: Jan 1, 1991
ASIN: B001BANJYW
(Audiobook)
Published: Jan 1, 1991
ASIN: B000F3T972

Susan Isaacs brings her wicked wit and keen understanding of what really goes on between men and women to a very different slice of Long Island- the Hamptons.

Magic Hour. That perfect time, that fleeting hour of enchanted light near dusk and dawn that is perfect for moviemaking, perfect for making love. Perfect for murder.

And into the magic hour steps Stephen Brady, wise guy, tough guy, local farm boy turned homicide cop, and a good man with a very bad life. But just as his luck is about to change, the rich, gifted, and urbane filmmaker Sy Spencer is murdered, and Brady discovers that his prime suspect is a woman he and the victim shared.

A spellbinding mystery, a scathing social satire and a poignant love story, Magic Hour looks beyond the trendy magazine-cover Hamptons' world of the summer set’s high-cheekboned elegance and the locals' down-on-the-farm authenticity into the hearts of real people.

This is the story of the treacherous murder that rocks them all and of the police detective who is too cold-hearted, too world-weary to ever fall in love- until he does.

>> Susan’s inspiration for Magic Hour.

Snappy plot.”
Entertainment Weekly
The same witticism-wrapped… center that always drives Isaacs’s fans dotty.”
Kirkus Reviews
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.”
— Anne Tyler, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Breathing Lessons
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.”
Washington Times
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.”
Publishers Weekly
A witty and sexy page-turner.”
Pittsburgh Press
Holds its edge.”
Glamour
If you’re in search of pure entertainment, pick up a copy of Magic Hour.”
New Woman
Magic Hour does exactly what it’s supposed to do - entertain.”
Chicago Tribune
A wonderfully rich, sensual sort of novel… The dialogue rips along with panache, with sharp and surprising turns, always funny, always fun.”
Detroit News
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.”
Washington Post Book World
Vintage Isaacs… Magic Hour is like polishing off an entire box of chocolate-covered chocolates… Fun.”
New York Times Book Review
A delightful blend of obsession, comedy, romance, movies and murder.”
San Francisco Chronicle
(Paperback)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: Aug 1, 1980
ISBN: 9780061735318
(Ebook)
Published: Aug 1, 1980
ASIN: B003WJRDZQ

Marcia Green is a sophisticated, witty, successful New Yorker, a whiz of a political speech writer, a woman who finds a smoke-filled room more intoxicating than a magnum of champagne. Her private life is a little less bubbly. She has a passionate but not very promising live-in relationship with her boss’s dashing chief of staff, Jerry Morrissey. He offers her only a good time – but what a time!

Can Marcia resist when a new man arrives on the scene, a man who is exactly the sort her family wants her to marry – bright, kind, attractive, wealthy, and charming- in short, too good to be real?

Marcia’s determination to find the right kind of man, as well as the right kind of life, makes Close Relations a compelling novel. It is a book that says something very important about the things that are vital to all of us, about men and women, about sex, money, work, family values and about what we need most in today’s world – close relations.

>> Susan’s inspiration for Close Relations.

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.”
Publishers Weekly
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.”
— Kitty Kelley, bestselling author of The Royals
Delectable.”
John Barkham Reviews
Hilarious one minute…intensely erotic the next.”
The Denver Post
The novel that gets better and better and better. A book with three happy endings.”
Washington Post Book World
Delightful.”
Cosmopolitan
Superb, frequently hilarious…A lively diversion.”
Kirkus Reviews
[Susan Isaacs is a] witty, wry observer of the contemporary scene.”
The New York Times Book Review
Cover for Compliments of a Friend
(Ebook)
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller
Published: Nov 12, 2013
ISBN: 9781480454972
ASIN: B00G2V621C

Chic Vanessa Giddings, founder and CEO of Panache, the largest employment agency on Long Island, falls into a coma in the designer shoe department of Bloomingdale’s . . . and dies. It’s not long before Judith Singer, former housewife, current widow, and local history professor, decides to investigate. She cannot believe the official ruling: that her wildly successful, confident, and iron-willed neighbor committed suicide with a drug overdose. Vanessa was buying shoes, and Judith knows accessorizing is a life-affirming act. So was it foul play?

Tracking the gossip about the late Vanessa and trusting her own acute instincts about human nature, Judith encounters more than a few surprises (including a big romantic one) as she investigates the death—and the life—of the misjudged mogul who turned out to have been more vulnerable than anyone guessed.

This ebook features an afterword by Susan Isaacs, as well as an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from her personal collection.