UNDERNEATH IT ALL is women's fiction with a delicious chick-lit flavor. Jacquelyn "Jacqs" Sanchez is looking for love in all the wrong places, including her soon to be remarried ex-husband. But that's not her overriding concern. Jacqs' life is preoccupied by the lives and loves of the people around her, near and far, from her neurotic social climbing boss, the First Lady of San Francisco, to her newly engaged best friend, Bina. Somehow, someway, Jacqs gets caught up in everyone else's drama. As she helps the people she cares about work through their problems, Jacqs discovers the freedom to be who she is and to decide what she wants in her life.

With a decidedly Latina flair, Ms. Candela demonstrates that the aspirations—and life crises—of an educated Hispanic woman in America are not much different than those of women in any other culture. Her roundly multicultural cast of characters affords her the privilege of highlighting cultural uniqueness without dwelling on the all too often negatives of race.

A quick, fun read, UNDERNEATH IT ALL will keep the reader laughing with the hilarious images of people she's sure to know, if not of herself. Ms. Candela brings a fresh and much needed voice to the women's fiction genre.