Sometimes life is like a bad waiter-it serves you exactly what you don't want. The women of Freesia Court have come together at life's table, fully convinced that there is nothing good coffee, delectable desserts, and a strong shoulder can't fix. Laughter is the glue that holds them together-the foundation of a book group they call AWEB-Angry Wives Eating Bon Bons-an unofficial "club" that becomes much more. It becomes a lifeline. The five women each...

From their first meeting during the turbulent summer of 1968, five young California mothers--Frankie, Linda, Brett, Ali, and Kath--form a sister-like bond as they confront the ups and downs of life and pursue their mutual dreams of becoming writers.

When her contractor's unfaithful wife is brutally murdered, former TV anchorwoman Ali Reynolds sets out to prove the husband's innocence in spite of skepticism on the part of Ali's detective boyfriend, a situation that strains their relationship and catches the attention of the real killer.

A mother of three and New Yorker at heart, Kate Klein finds her new life in suburban Connecticut rather unpalatable. But then, something interesting happens. Another local supermommy is murdered, and despite being warned off by the police, Kate can't help investigating. Restricting her sleuthing to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings--when the kids are at nursery school--Kate discovers the murdered woman led a life full of secrets

On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, a young wife and mother obsessed with the glamour of Jackie, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless but secure marriage or to follow the man she loves and whose baby she may be carrying. Decades earlier in 1919, Vivien Lowe, an obituary writer, is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. By telling the stories of the dead, Vivien...

Baking a multitude of tartes tatin for local restaurants, an Ohio housewife contemplates her four kids, husband, cats, and chickens. Also, America's ignoble past and her own regrets. She is surrounded by dead lakes, fake facts, Open Carry maniacs, and oodles of online advice about survivalism, veil toss duties, and how to be more like Jane Fonda. But what do you do when you keep stepping on your son's toy tractors, your life depends on stolen land...

Fifty-year-old Pippa lives a contented life with her older husband, Herb. However, everything changes when Herb announces that they are leaving Manhattan for a retirement community. Unsettled in her new home, Pippa begins sleepwalking through life-literally. She catches herself on a security camera cooking and eating while unconscious, then finds evidence that her somnambulist self has taken up smoking. In light of her erratic behavior, Pippa reconsiders...

Traces the parallel stories of a present day Massachusetts, unhappily married professional reader, Ella Rubinstein's inspiration of the story of Shams of Tabriz, and her own transformation, and, the 13th-century transformation of a successful but unhappy cleric, Rumi, into a mystic and poet.. Shafik blends the East and the West, past and present, and presents an account of how love works in the world.

"The page-turning new novel from the internationally bestselling author known for her "conversational writing style and a knack for making readers care about her characters" (The Washington Post) takes us into the homes of an idyllic suburban neighborhood where we discover the burning secrets hiding just below the surface. Bucolic Newport Cove, where spontaneous block parties occur on balmy nights and all of the streets are named for flowers, is...

Meet the women of American Housewife: they wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it's cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. They pump the salad spinner like it's a CPR dummy. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies out of the oven. These twelve irresistible stories take us from a haunted prewar Manhattan apartment building to the set of a rigged reality television show, from the unique initiation...