Die Erfolgsmasche (The Success Ploy)

Sonja’s column about her life as a single parent is scrapped from one day to the next. But Sonja has to feed herself and her children, and so she quite simply reinvents herself – and becomes a man, at least on paper …

A wonderfully funny novel about little white lies, big feelings and quite a lot of luck.

November 2009, Diana

ISBN: 978-3-453-29073-0

Herzgesteuert (Heart Driven)

Juliane Hempel is a real estate agent and very successful. The high society is her home and everyone loves here. She deals only with the best and her filo fax is filled with who is who.

She sells only the most expensive prestigious homes in the city, and therefore it is a shock to her to get mixed up with a homeless who resides in one of her empty ready to sell estates.

It turns out that the exercise to get rid of him keeps her occupied in every possible way. Only when she finds out the truth about these men her attitude changes and although her heart tells her something else her brain thinks differently …

November 2008, Diana

ISBN: 978-3-453-29064-8

Schleuderprogramm (Spinning)

Opera singer Ella Herbst is on top of it all. Handsome Husband, two wonderful kids, sold out Concerts; everything goes well, until her Grandfather needs her desperately.

Her replacement singer at the Mozart festivals takes off and Ella’s career seems to take a drastic nosedive.

As it turns out that her husband Felix has failed to produce the goods and it does not take long until the funds are gone. The famous Opera singer Ella Herbst faces bankruptcy …

Oktober 2007, Diana

ISBN: 978-3-453-35137-0

Die Champagner Diät (The Champaign Diet)

Amanda Jackson weighs 200 pounds. She is dumbfounded when her husband Charles suddenly leaves her for their Swedish nanny Svenja.

Now the corpulent, abandoned wife is living in their rose-entwined mansion outside of Helena, Montana with her pubescent daughter, Charlene. She is incredibly ashamed, because everyone in the town of Butte knows her and her husband Charles, who is an influential factory owner. Every citizen of Butte works for him. She doesn’t want to be around people, since she is just realizing how fat and lethargic she is. Charlene suggests trying an “internet chat room” at least and shows her all the necessary steps. Amanda Jackson logs in and goes straight to the “Sport Island” chat room, a group of “weight-watchers”. However, Mark King from the cruise ship “MS Champaign” doesn’t give her a chance to search for chat partners. Writing to her from Jamaica, the Food & Beverage Manager would like some good ol’ traditional recipes from home again. Amanda Jackson decides to be the attractive, successful woman Angelina Montabelli, even if only for Mark. She reinvents herself as a fashion designer, zooms back and forth between New York and Milano, knows all of the top models personally and drives a Bugatti. Her hobby is cooking. Of course she is as thin as a rail! In reality Amanda Jackson struggles on her bicycle to make it to her weight loss group. There she suffers with fellow fatso and butterball losers like herself, counting calories, checking grams of fat and carbohydrates and detecting the correct heart rate to reduce fat.

Fat, sweaty Oliver from her group is always trying to be funny and gets on her nerves. When she arrives home every day the only thing she looks forward to is chatting with wonderful Mark King, who is, meanwhile, near the Galapagos Islands. He opens a new world for her, and she answers with stories from the fashion industry. She only needs to flip through a few chic style magazines. A sizzling love story evolves in the virtual world between “Angelina” and “Mark”, and Amanda doesn’t even notice how easily you can lose weight when you’re in love. Hefty Oliver from her roly-poly group comes over one day to help with her computer, and they become friends. Since he is momentarily homeless, Oliver moves in to Amanda’s house as the caretaker. The two become “big friends”, but they obviously keep their love lives to themselves. The day arrives when Mark King’s ship docks in New York, and he is dying to meet “Angelina Montabelli” on top of the Statue of Liberty!! Amanda Jackson almost pees in her pants - after all, their entire love story is based on a lie! She seeks solace with her friend Oliver, but he personally puts her on the airplane to New York. As she clambers up the stairs of the Statue of Liberty at 12:00 on the dot, a big surprise is awaiting Amanda, who has become slim and sporty in the meantime …

This novel by Hera Lind appeared in the spring of 2006 at Diana.

ISBN: 978-3-453-35136-3

Das Superweib (Super Broad)

Franziska, who is actually an actress, is sitting with her two sons in a four-room apartment playing with building blocks while her husband Will Gross is in the Caribbean working on his new series as a TV producer. One day she accidentally files for a divorce while believing she is buying a house in the name of her absent husband. Franziska’s attorney asks her to write down what her marriage is like. That evening Franziska sits at her kitchen table and describes her married life with growing enthusiasm. Finally someone is interested in her! The attorney lets his mother read the stuff, and she hands it over to a publishing house. “Happily Unmarried” becomes a bestseller. Right when Franziska really starts to enjoy her new independent life with house, children and fame, her spouse is standing at the door to film a certain Franka Zis. Clueless to the fact that it is his own marriage that he wants to capture on film, he tries to charm his way through to the obviously unreachable successful author. Franziska now has everything she ever dreamed of. But the dream turns into a nightmare when Franziska agrees to write the script while Will Gross produces it, and the story of their marriage from HIS point of view is completely different from HERS …

Written with wit, irony and charm this third novel by the successful author Hera Lind keeps the tears rolling down your face. In the summer of 1994, “Die Welt” printed the headline, “Hera Lind in Every Beach Bag.”

“Das Superweib” appeared in 1994 and sold 2.8 million copies. The novel was made into a movie, and 3 million people viewed it. The movie is shown regularly on German television.

ISBN: 978-3-453-35137-0

Voll im Leben (Full of Life)

Stories from the bible seen in a different way - funny written, better to undertstand.

February 2007, Gütersloher Verlagshaus

ISBN 978-3-579-06445-1

Fürstenroman (Blue Blood on Edelweiss)

A trashy novel that doesn’t take itself seriously.

It is May is Austria. The invited guests are pulling up to the magnificent castle of the royal family of Warternberg. Today the youngest daughter, Anne-Sophie is to marry the Hungarian baron of Tatzmanndorf! However when the bride and groom don’t show up, the wedding has to be cancelled and Europe’s royal family is left standing there looking stupid.

What happened? Charlotte, the prince’s oldest daughter, sent the naive groom to the mountains at midnight to pick edelweiss for his bride. She pulled his leg, saying that only then will the marriage be blessed with abundant children! Who falls in his black patent leather shoes, loses his memory, is found by a Czech poacher named Jan Tacatsch and kidnapped? Of course it is the idiotic Hungarian baron. Life is also hard on the stupid bride, Sophie. When she goes to look for her groom around four in the morning, she is buried by an avalanche. A bold old forest ranger finds the girl almost frozen to death on a slab of snow. Sophie is now snow-blind and cannot play the cello anymore. This catastrophe sparks a host of problems. The old prince Leopold gets drunk in his chambers. Charlotte’s husband reveals his true colors: He only wanted to launder the royal family’s illegal money in Hungary, a tax evader’s paradise. (huh?) The heir to the throne, Prince Ferdinand has to take over the political business of his drunken father. His common wife Mary, who married into the family (she is from the United States and was an actress or singer in Hollywood, or something like that. The old duke doesn’t really want to know exactly!), is on a self-fulfillment trip. She falls in love with a lonely monk who is teaching her pubescent and rebellious son, Maximilian, Latin verbs in a secluded monastery. As if everything weren’t embarrassing enough, Prince Alexander, the youngest son of the royal family comes out of the closet. He admits his love for the family’s server David, who used to work as a flight attendant for Austrian Airlines. Alexander’s 17 year old niece is hopelessly in love with David as well. She decides to go and work in a nursing home, which really annoys the old Prince. Princesses do not clean men’s butts; they play the piano and golf.

Sophie’s health slowly improves, but only thanks to the chief physician of the private Salzburg clinic. He will sooner or later fall head over heals in love with Charlotte. Charlotte however has become anorexic and addicted to exercise, swallowed by feelings of guilt. She leaves determined to find the missing groom Andre von Tatzmannsdorf. In the dark Bohemian vagabond area where women are sold to German brothels for next to nothing, she finds a red-hot clue …

This novel appeared in the fall of 2006 at Ullstein.

A parody / satire of the typical trashy novels about Austrian royalty. (Salzkammergut is where the “Sound of Music” took place) Hera Lind involves her readers for the first time by asking them: Should I let this guy or that one die now? Should I let him be good or bad? How do I solve this or that problem? Hm, I’ll just leave it open and go on to the next chapter. After all people do that all the time. She gets tangled up in absurd contradictions (Hungary: tax evader’s paradise?), but admits it and winks her eye. OK, I admit it, but I couldn’t think of a better solution … You feel like you’re at the hairdressers reading about the royal families, but this time you laugh yourself silly.

ISBN: 978-3-548-26785-2

Karlas Umweg (Charlotte’s Detour)

Charlotte Detour is in her early twenties and not exactly pretty. In the mid–eighties, she is accepted into the New York School of the Arts as a gifted piano student.

On the third night of her lonely existence in the big city she fills in for a „sick“ (drunk) student at a concert exam as the page turner for a pianist accompanying the singer. Jessica Patterson III is beautiful, successful and surrounded by admirers. This wife of a factory owner ends up taking Charlotte along with her on tour. She is supposedly hired “just” to be the page turner, but soon her job description changes.

Jessica Patterson III has a large group of male admirers, a handsome husband, a mansion protected by a Great Dane, a spoiled baby and a dominant mother. All of it has to be organized! Charlotte slowly goes from page turner to Jessica’s personal assistant. She moves into Jessica’s mansion where she officially becomes an unpaid housekeeper.

Charlotte puts her career on the backburner, because she admires and worships Jessica. And when she discovers her true feelings for William, the cuckold, she is willing to completely forget her own career. As Jessica’s shadow she is constantly present in the Patterson home without bothering anyone. She runs all of her beloved Jessica’s errands. Whether she is picking up a forgotten glove at a lover’s house or wresting Jessica’s pantyhose from another, Charlotte „stands by her man“. One day Jessica is given a gig at Carnegie Hall as „Carmen“, a role that is tailored to suit her. Charlotte must come along again, if nothing else to keep arriving lovers and definitely the domineering mother off the stressed singer’s back! When Jessica turns hysterical and the doctor gives Charlotte sedatives to calm her, Charlotte shares them fair and square with the mother, the husband and all the lovers. Each one of them wants to take care of Jessica. This results in Jessica sleeping in the changing room during the overture to „Carmen“. Charlotte’s big chance has finally arrived ...

This ninth novel by Hera Lind appeared in October 2005 at Ullstein.

ISBN: 978-3-548-26286-4

Der doppelte Lothar (The Double Herbert)

Anne and Alex have not seen each other since high school graduation 16 years ago, when they were inseparable. Anne Pistrulla - blond, straight-laced, main-stream - lives with her husband, two children and her mother in a small town outside of Chicago. In her profession she made it all the way to branch manager at „Macery’s“. There she controls the customer toilets every hour on the hour and marks special offers with the low prices of the day. Her husband Herbert - branch manager at the local Bank of America and allergic to most things - is the most stressful part of her life, followed closely by her mother. Both of them make her life difficult and treat her like a child. Anne does not even feel good about driving, because she always does everything wrong anyway.

Alexandra von Merz on the other hand - self-confident, dark haired and voluptuous - started an extremely successful talent agency, resides in a huge mansion and is the personal manager of international stars from the movie, TV and music industries. Being as powerful in the USA as she is in Europe, she even has influence on the casting of the next James Bond flick. Nothing can rattle her self-confidence. When her vibrator falls out of her luggage at the airport, she does not even turn red.

Main-stream, timid and with low self-esteem on the one hand and aloof, spoiled and at home in the Luxury League on the other, Anne and Alex begin writing emails to each other about their different everyday lives. A man plays the main part in both of their lives. For Anne it is Herbert, the complicated, nit-picking husband whom she can never please. For Alex it is the godly, handsome, talented and fantastic singer Mark – an American and her client.

Neither woman realizes right away that their men are actually identical twins. When Alex coaxes Anne into taking her life into her own hands and moving into Alex’s empty house in Vail with her daughters, Anne meets Herbert’s twin and falls in love with him. She then decides to go in search of the twins’ past. In New York she runs into a third Herbert and discovers that the biological mother of these triplets was forced to undergo medical experiments as a 17 year old under the communist regime in East Germany...

This fast-paced novel consists exclusively of emails, which increases the excitement even more. It is like reading personal emails from a best friend while slowly unveiling the shocking past of a divided Germany.

This novel appeared in October 2002 at Ullstein.

ISBN: 978-3-548-2550022

Hochglanzweiber (High-Class Chicks)

Three Women – Three Destinies – Three Turning Points

Abigail van Seunen is the audacious, hard-core Chief Reporter at the glamour magazine “Elite”. As a member of High Society in L.A., she bamboozles interviews, fakes pictures and writes psychological commentary using a pseudonym. By acting as the celebrities’ “friend” she builds and destroys people’s careers. She is married to Warren Wolf, the famous celeb divorce attorney. Abigail uses the sordid details Warren hears in his firm for her articles.

Martha Hadnot is a good-hearted, honest, respectable and untainted candidate for the Secretary of Education. She needs good publicity and support from the people. No one can know that she is not happily married to Chemistry professor Edward Hadnot. Of all people, Abigail van Seunen hears a rumor that Martha is having an affair! She immediately writes away the politicians career and Martha Hadnot can kiss her candidacy goodbye.

Ronda Whet divorced a plastic surgeon and is basically a slut. She is still able to squeeze money out of her ex-husband’s pocket by using her 13 year old daughter, Anne as a ploy. She writes for the tabloid, “Current Calumny” and sleeps with every Chief Editor that can help her climb the ladder to success. She wants to go where Abigail van Seunen is - all the way to the top.

Abigail van Seunen is talking on her cell phone, as usual, and causes an accident in the city. A school kid loses his life as a result. She is hurt badly. In the hospital she finds out the hard way that her husband Warren is having an affair with their nanny. She loses her job and her family. Suddenly she is at the bottom of the ladder.

If it hadn’t been for Fernando Gonzalez, who she meets in the hospital, she would have had no reason to live.

Abigail’s downfall is the chance of a lifetime for Ronda Whet, the little slut from the tabloid “Current Calumny”. With the contacts that she makes lying down, she manages to snatch Abigail’s position. Now she is all the way at the top. She has the power. She uses Warren Wolf, the divorce attorney, to ruin her ex-husband. She also continues sawing away at the honest Secretary of Education’s chair and throws her to the public for dinner.

After years of being honest, respectable and flawless, Martha Hadnot releases years of pent up frustration. She colors her hair red, drives a motorcycle and signs up for a self-defense course. She takes revenge on her husband, parents and all the corrupt people who had hurt her. She kicks the paparazzo in the balls that is lurking in front of her house at night. The animal inside her comes out. This is her way of freeing herself from eternal hypocrisy. She fights for her children and leaves her husband. She wants a completely new “me”. That’s when she meets the plastic surgeon…

These three women destroyed each other’s lives, yet also gave each other the chance for a fresh start. At the end, all of them are sitting in a small cable car at midnight on New Year’s Eve. It’s supposed to take them to a mountain-side cabin and gets stuck …

A hard-core novel about intrigues, lies, power, sex, greed and the tricks that manipulate the tabloid reading public.

In spite of its hardness, it is also a heartwarming love story that keeps you believing in the good of mankind.

This novel, which appeared in October 2001 at Ullstein, was completely ignored by the German press.

It sold 300,000 copies anyway. It was Hera Lind’s only novel that was not made into a movie with the argument that “Media in the media is not well received by the public.”

ISBN: 978-3-548-25247-6

Ein Mann für jede Tonart (A Man for Every Key)

Pauline Buoyant has both feet on the ground and is ready to fly. A small town diva, she is working her way up the career ladder. Whether she is singing Mozart’s Requiem at a church in Hokes Bluff, Alabama or a cantata by Bach in North Georgia, the Metropolitan Opera is only a tiny step away!

Between the typical perm-headed church choir mommies and the slobbery flutes spraying spit, two determined admirers slowly emerge from the audience while Pauline performs the “Merry-choly Mary Over the Manger” at a Christmas concert in Lawrenceville.

George Johnson is the bearded, straight-laced doctor, ready with flowers, always sitting in the first row aiming the video camera at Pauline. He drives a mammoth Mercedes and has two tickets to Rome just for her: he is the man for the key of “C major”. Everything always runs smoothly with him, he has, moves, knows, makes and does everything for Pauline. He brings out the rational side in her. But there is nothing accidental about this C major...

Then there is the music critic Nick Lalinde, 20 years George’s senior. He usually hangs out behind a pillar or is standing coincidentally in the shadows at the artists’ entrance. He only drives an old Opel, but he has that something special. He understands music. He speaks the soft language of romance. He caresses Pauline’s sense of the irrational. F sharp minor lets off a lot of vibrations …

When it “slips out” of Pauline’s mouth that she is pregnant right in the middle of her solo (the audience believes that it’s part of the piece) she is forced to answer the questions that follow.

Career or baby? And most importantly: Major or Minor?

Hera Lind’s first novel appeared in 1989 and immediately sold over 1.2 million copies.

The book was made into a movie and was shown in every German cinema continuously for over 3 months.

ISBN: 978-3-596-24750-9

Mord an Bord (Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’)

Alberta Smith, a music teacher and member of a small town choir in southern Iowa, was accidentally hired (hey - there are a lot of Smiths!) as a singer on a grandiose cruise ship. The “MS Royal Blood” is a ravishing, white, dream ship which includes an even more ravishing, white uniformed Cruise director! The good looking Officer allures country bumpkin Alberta, who is married to a boring choir director. She disgraces herself terribly as a singer, because the guests on board don’t want “Go Tell it on the Mountain”, rather “My Private Affair” and even more frivolous songs! Nevertheless she feels like she is in heaven, far away from the dull routine of daily life and close to her Greek god, Fred Hacker, on the vast, velvety ocean. The Officer begins a love affair with the gullible singer, and she considers him to be her, and herself to be his, great love.

That is when the first rumors begin from envious old passengers. It has been said that there is a precarious picture of her and Fred. Surely her husband would be interested in seeing that? Alberta is bound and determined to stop anyone from getting in the way of her piece of paradise. Obviously her only solution is to start knocking off one blackmailer after the other. One of them falls overboard in the early morning. The second one disappears in an inexplicable manner into the anchor shaft. Yet another is washed in boiling water and hung out to dry, and the fourth one found a cold grave in the deep freezer …

Alberta murders with the pleasure of a newcomer, until she notices that Fred Hacker is letting a few other ballet rats, diseuses and stewardesses see the Southern Cross. Then her longing for revenge suddenly takes a different turn…

Hera Lind’s seventh novel might be especially attractive to the American reader: They love cruises!

“Mord an Bord” was made into a movie for German television and is regularly aired.

The novel appeared in August 2000 at Ullstein.

ISBN: 978-3-548-25095-3

Der gemietete Mann (The Leased Man)

Rebecca Steiner is the hostess of a serious, established talk show, and a just-turned mother of four. The hippest teenage broadcasters in the USA offer her the dating game “Wirt Flirt”, where she plays matchmaker for young, pierced, totally hip guys and girls with the help of bogus questions and even more bogus answers. Most likely clouded by the high-paying offer, or maybe even by her abnormal hormone production, Rebecca signs the contract.

Since she is still nursing and has to drag her newborn to the broadcast station, they hire a “boy” from Japan for her – she calls him her “au pair guy”. The 19 year old Makoto, at first completely intimidated and speechless, observes Rebecca’s attempts at being young, dynamic, funny, stylish and trendy (after all, she wears a double D nursing bra!). Basically, she is trying to be irresistible and gorgeous. He feels dismay and sympathy by what he sees while changing the baby’s diapers, preparing bottles and pushing the baby carriage through the studio.

The producer of the series, Delisha-Lee Shoomaker, was also a hostess of this flirt show 30 years ago and had to leave because she had become old, fat and unattractive. Behind the scenes, Rebecca discovers through botched rehearsals, boring shows and high, unending stress that Delisha-Lee wants to satisfy her personal desire for revenge against the broadcasters by sending Rebecca in front of the cameras – or better said to the slaughter house.

While Rebecca is failing miserably, a deep fondness slowly starts to develop between her and Makoto. When they find out about Delisha-Lee’s evil motives, together they kill her in a perfidious way…

Hera Lind’s sixth novel “The Leased Man” deals critically with the youth craze in television and with the unfair fact that women in TV have to be young, pretty and slim, yet men do not.

This best seller (1.3 million copies sold) is not only hilarious and acrimonious, it also depicts an extremely exceptional love story.

It appeared in September 1999 at Fischer.

Erscheinungstermin: September 1999, Fischer Tb

ISBN 978-3-596-14443-3

Das Weibernest (The Chicks' Nest)

Now a mother of three Franziska is assigned her very own TV talk show after the huge success of her best seller “Happily Unmarried!” However the talk show ends up being an hour of prim and proper mother-in-law chit chat, for which she has to read a teleprompter word for word containing every question written by a humorless producer. Frustrated, she searches for the program director to convince him of her charm, wit and spontaneity. It backfires on her: nothing changes except the new affaire between her and the director.

The discouraged talk show host decides to drive to a club resort in Colorado with her three children. There she meets Marie, also a mother of three, who has humor, a fighting spirit and an abundance of ideas. They are immediately on the same wavelength! They move in together, help each other with the children –they establish a “chicks nest”. Overflowing with energy from the female solidarity Franziska tackles the talk show anew. She manages to assert herself, and the show becomes a success. Right when everything is going so well Franziska comes to the awakening that the program director is Marie’s husband and they are both pregnant with his baby …

This fifth novel by Hera Lind delivers insight about what goes on behind the scenes in TV and relentlessly uncovers what audiences have to take.

At the same time it is a benchmark for friendship between women and proves that more often than not a woman can depend on her girlfriends in times of trouble.

The novel appeared in 1997 at Fischer.

ISBN 978-3-596-13770-1

Die Zauberfrau (The Enchanting Woman)

Charlotte Pfeffer has magical powers. She can put a spell on men and make them fall in love with her! All she has to do is drop something, and the man has to look deep into her eyes while they both bend down. It sneaks up on him before he even notices. Since Charlotte has such a boring husband at home who is a much more of a slave to remote controls, user manuals and all technical innovations than to his wife’s charm, she usually drops quite a few things. Whether it is her sons’ swimming teacher or her co-actor during the production of the series „Our Little Clinic“, in which she plays the sweet little Dr. Anita Bach; whether it is her dentist or the mechanic in the garage next door: they all end up believing in her magic at one point in time! But then she is stuck with all of them - Lord, have mercy! To top it off, they’re jealous of each other!

And all Charlotte wants is an ordinary family life with a husband that pays attention to her! But she has to do a little more than just drop something to make her husband fall in love with her. The whole family almost falls apart before Charlotte finally comes to her senses about her real talents...

An upbeat, playful novel which mocks all types of men who fall for the superficial appeal of women. After her fourth best seller that sold 2.8 million copies, Hera Lind became the number one best selling author in Germany. She remained in the number one spot on the best seller list for two years.

“Die Zauberfrau” was filmed for the German public broadcasters, ZDF and is still occasionally aired on TV.

This novel appeared in 1995 at Fischer.

ISBN: 978-3-596-12938-6

Frau zu sein bedarf es wenig (It Requires Little to be a Woman)

Pauline Bouyant decided to go for security:

Even though she is not planning on marrying the child’s father, Dr. George Johnson (she had heard somewhere that people marry out of love…), she moves into his nice little three-story house in the suburbs. Their little Paul is growing magnificently, yet he is also in singer Pauline’s way while she reaches for the stars. So the virtuous nanny Ms. Dollis is rushed in to live under the same roof. Ms. Dollis knows exactly how a woman is supposed to take care of her husband and child these days. Between Pauline’s gamut and aria, the baby’s crying and the nanny’s never-ending idiotic babble, the only other thing to be heard is the satisfied snoring of a well fed Doctor Johnson.

Out of sheer desperation Pauline finds herself a lover. Simon Spendinton is an opera singer, suffers from acute self-overestimation and promises to open all the doors to success for Pauline. Ms. Dollis is trying her best to replace Pauline in every respect. Now Pauline has to decide: a settled family life with doctor, child, three-story house and nanny in the hand or an international career with all its perils and difficulties in the bush?

Hera Lind’s sequel to “A Man for Every Key” appeared in 1990 and sold over 800,000 copies.

The German public broadcaster “ZDF” made a movie from her book and 3.5 million viewers watched it.

ISBN: 978-3-596-11057-5