Jill Campbell returned to Boston after leaving her job, her apartment and her husband in New York City. She's hoping to make a fresh start, since all of the dirty laundry surrounding her husband's affair with a younger woman at their agency was aired in the advertising industry gossip columns before she left. Jill buys a large old house on a few acres of land in a rural bedroom community outside of the city. Having a house and a car are new experiences, part of her new life on her own. When a new neighbor, the ruggedly handsome "Grain Man," delivers two goats and a dog that her ailing grandfather purchased to help her build character, Jill knows she needs help. She doesn't expect to find it in a shy teenage girl named Sarah who comes every day to care for the animals in her barn. Jill is rarely at home. She loves her work, and she immerses herself in the second-best advertising firm in New England.

Although she was hired to work on the campaign for a sexy Swedish convertible car, she is slow to realize that her new position seems to encompass many other tasks. When she is assigned to the account for the largest producer of pre- packaged beef in the world, she recognizes that it would be a very bad time to admit that she only eats chicken and fish. Jill usually relies on her restaurateur father for advice, but he has no compliments for the conglomerate beef industry. As the token female creative director at her agency, she is playing with the big boys more often than she would like. Thankfully the beef executives seem to like her, even though she doesn't have much first-hand experience with their products. To keep her job, she'll have to come up with a winning slogan that will convince Americans to eat red meat again. And when reporters start asking questions about a former employee, slogans may turn out to be the least of her worries.

Tracy McArdle delivers a strong follow-up to her debut novel CONFESSIONS OF A NERVOUS SHIKSA. The storytelling alternates between the distinctive voices of two women both living lives of "quiet desperation" and finding their own ways to fit in -- within their families, their jobs and their own expectations. One is the 35-year- old divorcee returning to her home but finding her family greatly changed and her job unfulfilling, and the other is a 13-year-old tomboy who is much more comfortable working outdoors with animals than with the constraints of school, people her own age and her mother. This isn't the first story to explore the balance of professional satisfaction with personal happiness, but REAL WOMEN EAT BEEF delivers a relevant and rewarding message with exceptional humor and grace. Not many books can make use of advertising lingo, foodie restaurant speak and animal husbandry terms with equal eloquence, but McArdle lets her characters shine in this absorbing chick-lit story of women in the workplace, romances and friendships. Highly recommended.