"Funny, sweet-natured, and well-crafted… Pedersen has created a wonderful assemblage of…whimsical characters and charm."
-Kirkus Reviews

"This novel is funny and just quirky enough to become a word-of-mouth favorite… Pedersen has a knack for capturing tart teenage observations in witty asides, and Hallie's naivete, combined with her gambling and numbers savvy, make her a winning protagonist."
-Publishers Weekly

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Card shark and former wild child Hallie Palmer is in college now, and Bernard, her former legal guardian and go-to guy for crepes suzettes, has suddenly appeared during final exams. He's hysterical that his relationship has gone down in flames and wants to enlist Hallie in a scheme to win Gil back. So Hallie returns to Cosgrove County, Ohio, the setting of Pedersen's award-winning novel BEGINNER'S LUCK, and resumes her job as live-in yard person for the summer, and also for some damage control.

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THE BIG SHUFFLE
is the sequel to HEART'S DESIRE, and the third book in the BEGINNER'S LUCK series.

When the death of her father leaves her mother in a state of shock, card shark Hallie Palmer – the fiery protagonist from BEGINNER’S LUCK and HEART’S DESIRE - returns home from college to bravely deal herself in as head of a chaotic household and care for her eight younger siblings.

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More from Laura
Read an excerpt from the sequel to THE BIG SHUFFLE. Click here.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

PLAY MONEY: My Brief But Brilliant Career on Wall Street

The sassy memoirs of a still-young woman who had a short and bittersweet but financially rewarding career as an index options trader at the American Stock Exchange.

Having quit the University of Michigan after just one semester, Pedersen headed for Wall Street. Starting as an ASE clerk at age 18 in January 1984, she earned a partnership in a specialist firm (and an exchange membership) shortly after turning 20. By the time the author left the Amex late in 1989 (within days of the market’s second precipitous break in two years), her annual income was close to $500,000. Physically and mentally, however, she qualified as a basket case, with badly strained vocal cords, impaired hearing, jumpy vision, chronically sore feet, a wealth of vague anxieties, and an attention span that could most charitably be described as transient. Here, Pedersen (who pinched pennies to maximize her investment bankroll) offers some good yarns about the lessons learned by an Upstate New York lass while apartment-hunting in Manhattan. She also provides pointed commentary on casino capitalism during the Reagan era. At the heart of her narrative, though, are antic accounts of the manic goings-on in the ASE’S trading pits. In addition to making split-second judgment calls on contracts that could yield her employer substantial profits or losses, Pedersen had to cope with unsparing competition from male-chauvinist rivals (and their insensitive pranks), the nearly unbearable din of the trading floor, and other allied challenges. She nonetheless kept her wits and prevailed to the extent that she escaped with her life, comparatively good health, and a small fortune.

A savvy insider’s vastly entertaining line on aspects of the money game.

GOING AWAY PARTY is Laura Pedersen's first novel, and winner the Three Oaks Prize for Fiction. (Story Line Press, 2001.)

Comic in spirit but serious at heart, GOING AWAY PARTY stars a girl who is almost a woman and a man who has just lost his wife. Together they find an unexpected bond, wit battling wisdom in spiraling interplay.

"Pedersen shows off her verbal buoyancy. Their quips are witty and so are Pedersen's amusing characterizations of the eccentric MacGuires. Sentence by sentence, Pedersen's debut can certainly entertain."
-Publishers Weekly

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Having descended from a long line of indomitable, good-humored Scots, Hayden MacBride sees no reason to take his own death lying down. In fact, he now spends his days crashing funerals for the free food and insight into the Great Beyond. Then he meets Rosamond, a nun playing hooky from the Holy Orders. Hayden is smitten the instant her heavy silver cross smacks him in the face when she leaps up to do the wave at a ball game. Luckily, Rosamond has picked the right person to teach her how to live . . . and to love–because nobody does both better than Hayden MacBride.

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THE SWEETEST HOURS is a heartwarming, life affirming, laugh-out-loud funny meditation on the many different ways we live and love.

“Laura Pedersen's short stories are as clever, original, and enjoyable as her Hallie Palmer novels. There is something for everybody in THE SWEETEST HOURS.” -Sherri Caldwell, Co-Author: The Rebel Housewife Rules!

"To call THE SWEETEST HOURS a book of short stories would be like calling The Mona Lisa a painting." -Front Street Reviews

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BUFFALO GAL is a hilarious new memoir by Laura Pedersen that came out in October 2008.

A fabulous one-two literary punch, BUFFALO GAL has the historical sensibility of Russell Baker's GROWING UP combined with the sharp humor of Augusten Burroughs' RUNNING WITH SCISSORS. The 8th largest city in the country in 1901, known for its beauty and progress, blizzard prone Buffalo had slipped to 36th place by the end of the century, with one-third of its citizens on public assistance. Due to its heavy ethnic mix, Catholic majority, and close proximity to Canada, the city was a flash point for race riots, anti-war protests, abortion rallies, bingo, bowling, and Friday night fish frys. Join the Pedersens as they survive separation, stagflation, the energy crisis, and President Jimmy Carter's boozy chain smoking brother marketing his own line of "Billy" beer.

Click here to read an excerpt.