“Tense, moving, and hilarious . . . [A] dark jewel of a novel.” —Francine Prose, O, The Oprah Magazine

Three husbands have left her. I.R.S. agents are whamming on her door. And her beloved cat has gone missing. She's back and forth between Melanie, her secluded Southern town, and L.A., where she has a weakening grasp on her job as a script doctor. Having been sacked by most of the studios and convinced that her...

"Marie-Renée Lavoie's Autopsy of a Boring Wife tells the hysterically funny and ultimately touching tale of forty-eight-year-old Diane, a woman whose husband leaves her and is having an affair because, he says, she bores him. Diane takes the charge to heart and undertakes an often ribald, highly entertaining journey to restoring trust in herself and others that is at the same time an astute commentary on women and girls, gender differences, and the...

Kit Raine, an American writer living in Tuscany, is working on a biography of her close friend, a complex woman who continues to cast a shadow on Kits own life. Her work is waylaid by the arrival of three womenJulia, Camille, and Susanall of whom have launched a recent and spontaneous friendship that will uproot them completely and redirect their lives. Susan, the most adventurous of the three, has enticed them to subvert expectations of staid retirement...

As dark truths from the past reveal themselves, two middle-aged women must learn to forgive -- for the sake of their children and themselves.

When Lisa's favorite patient Kathy loses her battle with cancer, she finds herself drawing closer to Carrie and Suzanne, Kathy's devoted friends. As their lives connect and they powerwalk the beaches of the Isle of Palms, they uncover the truth of Kathy's life-- and discover their own futures in the process. In this charming, evocative, soul-touching novel, Dorothea Benton Frank once again takes us deep into the heart of the magical Lowcountry where...

Includes discussion questions. "When Sonny Dunes, a SoCal meteorologist whose job is all sunshine and seventy-two-degree days, is replaced by a virtual meteorologist that will never age, gain weight or renegotiate its contract, the only station willing to give the fifty-year-old another shot is the very place Sonny's been avoiding since the day she left for college-her northern Michigan hometown. Sonny grudgingly returns to the long, cold, snowy...

"Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope–she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in. That’s because Sam Kemp – in the bleakest point of her life – has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about...

"As a new Mat Mom of the Pioneer Middle School (PMS) Wrestling team, Jen Dixon finds herself thrown in the middle of the "guerrilla war against so-called perfect mothers," armed only with her cutting wit and acerbic sense of humor (New York Times Book Review). Handling a whole host of new challenges, from the dreaded seventh-grade science fair to a school fundraiser (again!), Jen faces the somewhat-terrifying new social dynamics of the wrestling moms...

Jen Dixon is not your typical Kansas City kindergarten class mom-or mom in general. Jen already has two college-age daughters by two different (probably) musicians, and it's her second time around the class mom block with five-year-old Max, this time with a husband and father by her side. Though her best friend and PTA President sees her as the "wisest" candidate for the job (or oldest), not all of the other parents agree. From recording parents'...

It is a perfect July morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at "The Paper Palace"-- the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different, because last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next 24 hours, Elle will...