Rating: 
Summary: A Very Good Read
Review: I was a little wary of this book as I had read Caldwell's "Burning the Map" and although it was cute and good escape material, it was very cliched and predictable. This book however, was far from that. I like to think of these types of books as the "Thinking Woman's Chit-lit Book". Pick it up - you won't be able to put it down!
Rating: 
Summary: A beach blanket book at best.
Review: If you are looking for some light reading this book would be it...it would make a great beach book.Kelly McGraw suddenly comes out of a fog, realizing that she can not remember a thing about the last five months of her life, during which, according to pieces of stories she gets from her ex-boyfriend and her best friend, she lost her job, lost her fiance, sold the townhouse she loved, and became some sort of hermit-like stalker...but now she is miraculously all better...except not really. This books attempts to chronical the life of a young woman who decides to wipe the slate clean and start over in a job that she loves...(photography) instead of a job where she made a good salary but didn't have a passion for (investment banking). She convienently falls into a dream job working as the assistant to a fallen-from-graces famous photographer because she has taken a couple of photography classes at a local community college. The problem with this book is that everything seems to fall too neatly into place in Kelly McGraw's new life. Dream job, dream boyfriend who wants her but she doesn't even know is there at first...it is far too predictable for my tastes...but as another reviewer said...it comes with a pretty pink cover.
Rating:
Summary: delightful second chance at life tale
Review: In Chicago financial expert Kelly McGraw suddenly realizes that she cannot remember a thing about the last five months of her life. She recalls trivial facts and events that happened to her before the curtain dropped, but nada for the previous 150 days or so. Kelly is frightened and somewhat panicked as her brain was wiped clean like an Etch-o-sketch. Bits of data, all negative begin to surface as she remembers losing her boyfriend and her job on the same day and not long afterward had to sell her townhouse and move in with a friend. Finally her sister died. The "stressometer" went off the board for Kelly, but though she wants to know why she has no recent memories, she accepts that she has a CLEAN SLATE to pursue whatever she wants. Kelly becomes an assistant to a once highly regarded fashion photographer with a bad reputation. As romance blossoms, Kelly will learn why she had total amnesia when her past and her present clash causing doubt for her future. This is an interesting character study of an adult suffering several traumas that erase her recent memory. Though terrified, Kelly sees this as an opportunity to start anew and do what she wants to do with her life. Readers will enjoy the insight into Kelly and place themselves in a similar position of grabbing a second chance. Though the support cast pales next to Kelly, fans will appreciate this delightful second chance at life tale. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Serious Chick Lit?
Review: It is refreshing to see Red Dress Ink offering such a serious title being published under the guise of chick lit. Though it makes one wonder exactly what to expect from the genre when a title like this can be published under the same label as the likes of "Fishbowl" and "As Seen on TV" by Sarah Mlynowski, books that are just laugh out loud funny and frivolous reads. Up until I finished "A Clean Slate" by Laura Caldwell, the only similar work in the genre that I had read was Jennifer Weiner's "Good In Bed". Though this title does not top Weiner's debut novel, it is comparable in it's seriousness and depth. I beleive this is what RDI was trying for when publishing "Losing It" by Lindsay Faith Rech, which in my opinion was terrible and not at all the quality of any of the previously mentioned books. In "A Clean Slate" an ordinary woman's life is suddenly filled with tragedy and disappointment. Her sisters death closely followed by a 30th birthday marked by being dumped by her boyfriend, just when she expected a proposal and the loss of her job when she expected to make partner. Five months later aided by the loss of her memory of those painful months, she emerges a new woman. One who can make her future anything she wants regardless of past expectations.
This story poses the question of weather the expectations you set for yourself in life are what you really want, or if you just set a course for life and follow it unquestioningly. This book is unexpected and poignant and decidedly un-chick-lit like, I can only hope that RDI is trying to set a new standard.
Rating:
Summary: A Clean Slate
Review: Kelly has stars in her eyes about the future as she goes home one day, but they fall to the ground with a resounding bang when she arrives to find her key will not work and some idiot has replaced her name with someone else's on the mailbox. Her irratation turns to shock when a stranger opens the door and treats her like a visitor. This woman and her family now live in Kelly's home, and have for months. Scared, she goes in search of her boyfriend, who tells her to quit acting like a stalker and leave him and his new girlfriend alone. When Kelly finally finds her best friend, Laney tells her things that make her realize that five months of her life have been erased from her mind. She now lives somewhere else, is jobless, and her boyfriend broke up with her months ago. She is also keeping a pscyhologist in business. Disconcerted, Kelly is not sure what bothers her more, losing five months or finding out what kind of person she has become in that length of time. Determined to change the latter, she begins an odyssey that will lead her to following a dream and getting a job working with a photographer she has long admired, changing her image in a way that draws men to her, including her former boyfriend who now wants a second chance, and generally reshaping her life. **** Kelly is a heroine that shows us the truth of such Bible passages as Romans 8 28, that all things work out for the good. Losing one's lifestyle might be the way to really find one's life. This unusual book will get you to think, intriguing you with what it really takes to start one's life anew. **** Reviewed by Amanda Killgore
Rating:
Summary: interesting premise, same old everything else
Review: Kelly MacGraw wakes up to a day of clarity when she discovers she has essentially been in a depressed state for 5 months, and didn't know she had lost her lucrative job, sold her townhouse and been dumped by her boyfriend on her 30th birthday. On top of this, her younger sister had died in a car accident a few months before her birthday and her mom had moved to LA in an effort to deal with it. Kelly must start over, but can she really when she doesn't know where she has been? Her best friend Laney has been nursing her through it and -- after an annoying chapter on shopping + makeover --- Kelly is ready to retsart her life. She takes a break from financial analyzing to be a photographer's assistant in a studio apartment and tries to figure out why Ben dumped her and went to Therese. It's all right but not that fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: One of RDI's Best
Review: Kelly thought she knew exactly what she wanted out of life: to make partner at her job, to marry her boyfriend and eventually have kids. Her world get's smashed when she must cope with the death of her sister then to make matters worse a couple months later on her 30th Birthday she gets laid off and dumped by Ben! She plummets into a horrible depression for months... but Kelly doesn't remember anything that happened before her birthday! Her best friend fills her in and she's given this clean slate of a life to work with. Her body is looking better than ever, she has enough money from her job's severence pay so she decides to take up photography professionally. BUT WHY CAN'T SHE REMEMBER!?!?! You'll have to read it for yourself to find where this new path takes her. I absolutely loved this book! I got to a point where I couldn't put the book down... I loved Burning the Map, Caldwell's first novel and now this! I can't wait to see what else she'll write!
Rating:
Summary: What would YOU do?
Review: Laura Caldwell's latest novel leaves readers with the resounding question, "If you were starting over with no memory of the past, what would you do?" Ok, so maybe that's not a question that most of us ponder, but this novel elicits this as well as some other very interesting conundrums. Kelly McGraw is a successful retail analyst with a great townhouse and a soon-to-be fiance. The book opens with Kelly going around to her old haunts, and guess what? Her keys don't fit and her boyfriend tells her to get lost. So what has happened? At this point I was afraid this book was going to resemble a bad Beverly Hills 90210 plot, but Caldwell instead assembles a story about love, friendship, depression, loss, and finding one's true calling. This is a fast read and a thought-provoking one, too. Enjoy this latest Red Dress Ink book and maybe you, too, will have a better idea of who you are, just as Kelly does.
Rating:
Summary: What would YOU do?
Review: Laura Caldwell's latest novel leaves readers with the resounding question, "If you were starting over with no memory of the past, what would you do?" Ok, so maybe that's not a question that most of us ponder, but this novel elicits this as well as some other very interesting conundrums. Kelly McGraw is a successful retail analyst with a great townhouse and a soon-to-be fiance. The book opens with Kelly going around to her old haunts, and guess what? Her keys don't fit and her boyfriend tells her to get lost. So what has happened? At this point I was afraid this book was going to resemble a bad Beverly Hills 90210 plot, but Caldwell instead assembles a story about love, friendship, depression, loss, and finding one's true calling. This is a fast read and a thought-provoking one, too. Enjoy this latest Red Dress Ink book and maybe you, too, will have a better idea of who you are, just as Kelly does.
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking and poignant...
Review: Red Dress Ink has ventured into darker, thought-provoking novels with serious subject matters. I find this new venture refreshing. Lindsay Faith Rech's Losing It floored me in a profound level, and Laura Caldwell's A Clean Slate has done the exact same thing. Kelly McGraw's life is no longer the same. She suddenly has no recollection of events that occurred during the last five months. Strangely enough, those were the most difficult months of her life. Her boyfriend had dumped her on her birthday, she'd lost her corporate job, and a deep depression had befallen her. Kelly sees her loss of memory as a clean slate. Now she can pursue all the things she's always wanted. However, starting over isn't as simple as she had hoped... As previously said, this is quite an impressing Red Dress Ink offering. This imprint offers books that are above the typical looking-for-love-in-the-big-city novels. A Clean Slate is a wonderful and poignant novel. Laura Caldwell is a talented writer and I look forward to her next project.
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