Twenty-one-year-old Amber Anderson, gospel country singer, has made it to the final five on the American Megastar Show. Of course no one is supposed to know that until the moment of the big revelation in her home town of Daily, Texas. Now it’s American Megastar’s associate producer Mandalay Florentino’s job to make sure that all the plans for that disclosure are made but kept secret from Daily’s Amber-crazy townsfolk. Not that Mandalay’s presence hasn’t already caused a stir in Daily. Word at the café is that she is only the first of a horde of journalists and paparazzi about to descend on the town.

For Mandalay’s part, the sudden rainstorm that introduces her to Daily is only the first of a chain of catastrophes that threatens to tank her career. In Talk of the Town Lisa Wingate takes us through that whirlwind weekend that not only changes the course of Mandalay’s life but introduces her and us to a whole townful of salt-of-the-earth Texans who make us laugh, cry and promise ourselves to look for other books by this warm and funny novelist.

The tight timeframe of the story is the perfect vehicle for Wingate to spin her comedy-of-errors plot. Of course she throws every possible obstacle into the mix -- from Mandalay getting arrested to a missing starlet -- so that the action never stops (although it does slow down with some days going on until it feels like we’ve lived through several). Using a dual point of view to tell the story (alternating first-person chapters by Mandalay and Imagene Doll, a Daily widow) help us keep on top of how things are playing to both sides. A hunka love interest for Mandalay and close-up glimpses of Amber’s family toy with readers’ emotions and help spin this into a tale with just the right balance of laughter and heart.