Adoring husband + agreeable child + picturesque home = picture perfect life. But picture perfect is hardly the life that Lucy paints in the novel The Queen Gene by Jennifer Coburn. Saucy, energetic, and side-splitting, The Queen Gene launches into colorful debacles as Lucy repeatedly fails to circumvent the matrilineal curse (or blessing) of eccentricity.

When Lucy and her husband Jack convert their new home in the Berkshire Mountains to an artist retreat, trouble brews. With the start of the warm season, they are only months away from the open house where their four visiting artists can showcase projects completed during the summer. Catastrophes threaten their success. Home repairs are mysteriously fixed, “female at her own peril” occurs as women consistently leave the house with haphazard foot injuries, and a sweet talented artist flips into a raging loud-mouth grouch. As it would seem, Lucy’s artistic paradise could be haunted. To topple the escapade, she contends with her darling-speak mother Anjoli, who puts her Chihuahua under psychiatric counseling, a dog who undergoes multiple transformations due to an identity crisis. Aunt Bernice, Lucy’s 84 year old auntie, calls periodically to give a “Snatch Report,” as she recently started shaving “down there” after a visit to a strip club.

Sigh after sigh, Lucy finally embraces her bizarre yet flavorful heritage and combats her dilemmas using an Anjoli-style approach. She too, like her mother’s Chihuahua, undergoes a metamorphosis into a capable woman, comfortable with herself and her rather unconventional family. Bursting with loveable and memorable characters, The Queen Gene fulfils ravenous appetites for a good and enjoyable read.