In the waning days of grunge and heroin chic, it's nice to know that the next big thing is truly big. Yes, the Bombshell is back -- not a moment too soon -- and now anybody can learn her trade secrets.

What is a Bombshell? She is a compelling bundle of contradictions, a combustible blend of confidence and vulnerability, sauce and naiveté. She wears high heels but kicks them off at every opportunity. Adores negligées and charmeuse gowns but can't wait to peel them off. She always expects to run into somebody who matters, even if she's home alone. A Bombshell never dresses carelessly and always wears marabou mules around the house. She behaves as if life is a movie and she is the star.

In this glittering beauty and lifestyle guide packed with pearls of wisdom, Laren Stover and her co-writers have compiled everything you need to know to live the Bombshell life, including:

• Bombshell perfumes: Chanel No. 5, Joy, Spring Flower by Creed.
• What's in a Bombshell's day bag: lipstick, cocktail umbrella, tattered roll of butter rum LifeSavers, napkin from the Plaza hotel bathroom.
• Bombshell footwear: mules, slingbacks, the classic pump.
• What's in a Bombshell's library: Peyton Place, The Little Engine That Could, Thus Spake Zarathustra, A Book for All and None.
• Things a Bombshell gets away with that ordinary women can't: tantrums, a lack of domestic prowess, petty crimes.
• Music a Bombshell exercises to: Xavier Cugat, Eartha Kitt, Robert Mitchum's version of "Momma Looka Boo Boo."

With scads of little-known facts about real-life Bombshells like Liz, Marilyn and Lana and stunning illustrations by Ruben Toledo, this fun and ever-so-practical little book is certain to bring out the inner Bombshell in every reader.

"What began as a 'Nightline' profile of the NYPD bomb squad by my former ABC News colleagues, Rich and Ted, has evolved into a revealing and compelling book. Imagine: a unit that has to defend New York City against threats real and imagined -- nut cases to professional terrorists, homemade bombs to weapons of mass destruction. Forget '24,' this is the real thing." --Ted Koppel

"By Laren Stover, it offers advice to all women, brunettes and redheads included, on how to detonate the inner bombshell." --New York Times

"Fledgling divas can consult . . . for guidance on how to make an entrance, when to throw a tantrum and what to wear." --Town & Country

"Stover, Forrest and their colleagues are not only shrewd and insightfully observant field anthropologists, you sense that they would be personally adept at putting false eyelashes on a monkey." --Tom Robbins

"The perfect little book for anyone who wants to fulfill her own Bombshell aspirations. Just grab your favorite baby doll pajamas, a glass of champagne, and sink right in!" --Marisa Tomei

"With prose and perception of rare and natural grace, Laren Stover, in this lilting livre du blondisme, has given us, modestly and unassumingly and sublimely, a work that deserves a place beside Neumann's The Great Mother, Witt's Isis in the Ancient World, and the complete run of Beauty Parade." --Nick Tosches

"Ten, nine, eight, seven . . . get ready to detonate! The Bombshell girls have figured out the secret formula: how to mix equal parts lady and tramp. Consider this your literary compact. Slip it in your purse, balance it on your head, just keep it on hand-and refer to it as often as you touch up your lipstick. Kaboom! " --Ilene Rosenzweig