In the world of "How to" books, there has been a curious void on the subject of entertaining and managing house guest visits. Finally, here is a book that fills that vacuum. "Host or Hostage? A Guide for Surviving House Guests" by Darlene Dennis defines the idiosyncratic world of entertaining house guests from beginning to end. It is the first practical hands-on guide dealing with specific types of house guests -- how to invite or avoid them, how to make guests comfortable, and then how to manage their timely departure,

This no nonsense manual uses appropriate humorous anecdotal material to help us deal with all types of house guests.

Darlene Dennis, author of "Host or Hostage? A Guide for Surviving House Guests" is a retire English teacher. she lives in Encinitas, CA with her husband, Arthur, and their petite Shetland sheep dog, Foxy. Darlene enjoys working out at the Madelena Ecke YMCA, gardening, playing mah jongg and traveling the world. She is also a compulsive cook and hostess. After entertaining a bottom of the barrel house guest from hell, she decided there were no books that addressed the many difficult issues of entertaining guests for overnight or longer. She began collecting hellish house guest stories from everyone she met and launched her writing project. Ms. Dennis also speaks to groups using the cartoons from her book in an entertaining power point presentation.

"Host or Hostage? A Guide for Surviving House Guests" was published in January of 2009 and has been included in many news articles including The New York Times "It's August, They're Coming for You" by Joyce Wadler. she has also been interviewed by many radio hosts, including Patt Morrison on NPR. To view a television interview, please go to the website www.hostorhostage.com.
Darlene Dennis is the recipient of the 2009 Irwin Zucker Print Publicity Award. The book may be purchased at www.hostorhostage.com, on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, Borders.com and other online sites.