Scoop - Rene Gutteridge

Author:  Rene Gutteridge
Publisher:  Waterbrook Press
Website:  http://www.renegutteridge.com

The Occupational Hazards series gets its name from the seven Hazard siblings, all homeschool students and veterans of their parents’ family clown business. After their parents’ untimely deaths, the family business is sold and the sheltered Hazards are each forced to make their own way in the world, sans the clown masks. Scoop picks up five years after the deaths of the Hazard parents and centers on daughter Hayden and her job as an assistant to Channel 7 News producer Hugo Talley. In a station filled with a stressed producer worried over sagging ratings and the state of his marriage, a control freak anchorwoman experimenting with Botox, and a weatherman focused more on his image than actual weather fronts, Hayden stands out as an island of calm in a sea of chaos. When the local sewage plant explodes, Ray - a reporter who struggles to balance his desire to report news that matters with the constant demand for sensationalism and “fluff” - has to juggle his undercover investigation with an increasingly undeniable attraction to Hayden.

For someone whose name lends itself to the series title, Hayden Hazard is characterized not so much by her actions and point of view, but by how she is perceived by others. This is at once the main strength and as well as weakness of the novel. The book works well because of the engaging, funny, and very real group of characters with which Gutteridge populates her fictional news station. However, while Hayden is the supposed “center” of the book, Gutteridge chooses to reveal the bulk of her character, feelings, and emotions through the perceptions of other characters. Hayden never really grows in this book; instead, she exists as a rather flat, but nice, touchstone the rest of the characters revolve around.

I started reading Scoop expecting a novel centered on one character and their experiences, similar to Gutteridge’s previous release this year, the fabulous My Life as a Doormat. Instead, what I discovered, much to my surprise, was a quirky ensemble story that made me feel like I was reading about the characters that populated the newsroom of the Mary Tyler Moore show. On that front, Scoop succeeds splendidly as a fast-paced, engaging read full of Gutteridge’s trademark dry humor and lovable characters. The only drawback is that Hayden has a tendency to come across as one-dimensional and cardboard, something of a caricature of a homeschool student that doesn’t ring true and can be rather annoying. The book is saved by Gutteridge’s strong plotting, snappy dialogue, sense of humor, and ability to create characters (Hayden aside) that are quirky and funny and feel genuine as well as relatable.

Purchase Scoop (Occupational Hazards, Book 1).

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