MORE CHICK-LIT | Summer reading

In Gigi Levangie Grazer's "Maneater," manipulative beauty Clarissa Alpert makes the "Sex and the City" ladies look like rank amateurs when it comes to dating and relationships.Clarissa is poised, polished and determined to marry her way up the social register. She has planned her life around looking beautiful and snagging men. Ever efficient, she makes an annual top-10 list of men she'd most like to hook up with in a given year and the probability of making it happen. The list always includes the power players, and this year the No. 1 prospect is Aaron Mason, a hot new -- as in rich -- producer fresh from Atlanta.Poor fashion sense aside, the stepped-out-of-a-romance-novel Aaron has "marriage material" written all over him. And when Clarissa's calling reception halls and dropping off engagement announcements before their first date is even over, you know Mr. Mason isn't going to last long.Still, when Clarissa finally has her lavish wedding and the mega-rich husband (sans pre-nup, of course), it turns out all is not right with this Hollywood ending, and that's when the catty fun begins.From power lunches downtown to play dates in posh neighborhoods, "Legally Blonde" scribe Amanda Brown has big changes in store for Wall Street broker Becca Reinhart.In "Family Trust," Becca is at the center of a perfectly orchestrated life. When she's not managing company portfolios or jetting to an exotic country to meet with corporate executives, she's, well, sleeping.Then her best friend, Amy, and Amy's partner Arthur are killed in a tragic accident, and Becca's world comes to a halt: Amy has named her guardian of her 4-year-old daughter Emily, while Arthur's choice for Emily's guardian is his friend Edward Kirkland.Becca and Edward go from glamorous lives to the utterly foreign world of preschools, French lessons and Mozart for Babies classes. These complete opposites learn to work together and come to love each other as much as they love Emily -- until a spiteful woman threatens to break up their happy family.Yes, there's a quirky, but likable heroine. Yes, there's an unhealthy obsession with high-priced shoes and makeup. And yes, there's even a scruffy-but-likable love interest."Sushi For Beginners" has a lot of the basic elements of chick-lit, but "Angels" author Marian Keyes succeeds in putting a new spin on an old formula. Ashling Kennedy is a slightly neurotic Irish magazine writer who has just landed a dream job on a new Dublin women's magazine, Colleen. Except the dream job comes with the nightmare that is Lisa Edwards, the acerbic editor fresh from London.For Lisa, who had been angling for an editorship in New York, living and working in Dublin is like being on a permanent campout. She can't seem to find any of the essentials, such as a decent boutique, trendy cafe or hot nightspot in the whole city.Of course, there is always Jack, Colleen's cute and slightly messy managing editor. Except the sparks don't fly in Lisa's direction. They fly toward plain old Ashling.To Holly Appleton, dating should be as simple as the right girl meeting the right boy -- which is precisely why she started Girl Meets Boy, a dating service for London's hip (OK, semi-hip) professionals.With the help of her friend Nigel and sister Rachel, she sets out to set up the lonely and maybe even find someone to help her get over her breakup with long-term fiance Nick. Things, however, don't always go so smoothly in the grown-up world, as Holly learns in Anna Maxted's "Behaving Like Adults."As a lark, she sets up a date for herself with a new client, Stuart, a successful solicitor who's not only classy but also charming. At least, that's how he looks on paper. In person, though, he's aggressive and ends up sexually assaulting her after a date.Maxted, who wrote "Running in Heels," handles the attack and its aftermath with refreshing honesty, despite a few convenient plot twists.