In MOMMIES BEHAVING BADLY, Roz Bailey has written a wicked tale perfectly encapsulating the life of today's working mother. Ruby Dixon is a thirty-something married author and mother of three children living in Queens, New York. She's been languishing in the category romance industry, hoping to breakout in mainstream fiction, but her current contract is with an influential publisher who is somewhat unsupportive of her aspirations. Her husband Jack is a manager with a Dallas-based television network. Ruby and her agent decide to go for it, to finish and sell that breakout novel. It turns out to be just the ticket for catapulting Ruby's career on to the bestsellers' lists. At the same time, her husband Jack receives the opportunity of a lifetime, one which will immediately improve their fortunes but requires them to relocate to the Pacific Northwest, a move Ruby is all too ready for after her car is stolen.

Now that she's a success, Ruby finds herself in for the ride of a lifetime, from talk show appearances to a whirlwind book tour, but also unsure as to whether all these demands on her time—including the need to write more books—are worth the toll they have on her family. Jack discovers that the old saying, "all that glitters is not gold" may be true and faced with important decisions about who he is and what he wants from his marriage to Ruby.

With a little more writing experience under my belt, I could have written this book (no offense, Ms. Bailey!) Except for an unexpected blow that leaves Ruby reeling, in many ways, my life mirror hers. I get what it feels like to relocate from the NY metropolitan area to another part of the country with its own—and completely different—pace and culture. I know what it's like to have three small children with different personalities all tugging on my time—and heartstrings—simultaneously. Everyday I juggle my career vs. my husband's, attempt to balance both against our family's needs, and struggle to maintain some semblance of a romantic relationship. If you don't live or haven't lived this life, after reading MOMMIES BEHAVING BADLY, you'll get it too but in a delicious and comic sort of way.

Roz Bailey does a great job of setting the scene, whether of the daily grind of living in NY, NYC nightlife, or the seeming monotony of suburbia. She poignantly captures the angst of a harried working wife and mother. Given that she herself is a romance writer, I suspect some of the aspects of Ruby's writing ordeal are a bit tongue-in- cheek, like when she gives one of Ruby's books the same title as one of her own. Overall, MOMMIES BEHAVING BADLY is one of the best "motherhood and marriage" novels I've read, certainly in quite some time.