Ivy, Jane and Ramona, three BFF's since high school in Las Vegas, will be reunited at a birthday celebration in Sin City. Ivy and Frank Jacobsen are hosting a party for their son, Lucas, aka Lucky, who will be 1 years old. Time for the girls to get together and "catch up." Ivy and Frank recently returned to Vegas when his mom became ill and later died. They live in a home with a pool, cactus garden and palm trees. Frank is happy in his job as principal in a school near by where he can keep a watchful eye on his father. I loved Frank and found him to be a sweet and caring husband, and what a proud father. Ivy hides many secrets; about her mother who left Ivy and her father; Jeremy, her first love, the thoughtful things he did for her when her mother left. However, Jeremy wanted to be able to date others, so he broke Ivy's heart? Did she marry the right man?
Jane arrives from cold, snowy Wisconsin with her two children Fern and Rocky. Recently fired from her job as a reporter when she and a co-worker were discovered kissing on the job. Defiant, she has a hot pink stripe dyed into her blonde hair. Jane is impatient with her children and angry at her husband. She decides she does not want to be married anymore. She plans to enjoy her vacation in Vegas with her friends but find an apartment for herself and her children upon her return home. She plans to tell Adam their marriage is not what she wants. Not my favorite character. I found her selfish, and her decisions not thought out.
Ramona has has a semi-successful career as a singer/songwriter and carries around the pain of giving her son up for adoption when she was in high school. Living in CA, Ramona has a relationship with a younger man, Nash. In Vegas, she discovers she is pregnant and has a decision to make. Should she tell Nash he's about to be a father? She plans to keep this baby and must decide if she will bring it up alone or with Nash? While she is in Vegas, she searches in vain for the son she gave up for adoption but is unsuccessful in her attempts. Time to move on.
One day while shopping in a grocery store, Ivy walks directly into Jeremy. He is standing there with a washed- out blonde clinging to his arm. He looks the same. Still dressed in his uniform of a punk rocker, tight black Tee and tight black jeans, his black hair still spiky, the same gorgeous emerald green eyes, now without the black eye liner he preferred. He is a hunk and happy to see Ivy. He gives her his card and it is later at home that she discovers he is a caterer. When she tells Frank, he insists she use him to cater the birthday fete. Ivy and Jeremy spend some alone time and discover they can be friends and enjoy a nice friendship.
VEGAS GIRLS is a now story, sometimes touching, other times troubling. Ivy makes poor decisions, in my opinion. Her treatment of her long lost mother was cold, mean and unforgiving. Shame on you! Heather Skyler knows her locale and brings Vegas to life, the hot desert, the flashy casinos, with characters that need help in finding answers and getting rid of secrets. I find too many unanswered questions. VEGAS GIRLS, Part Two, perhaps Mx. Skyler? I look forward to it, even though "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
For Fans of Julia Glass and Ann Hood, a Novel about How
the Choices We Make Last a Lifetime
Vegas Girls begins when three former high school
friends, now in their mid-thirties, reunite in their
hometown of Las Vegasβa city they vowed to escape as soon as
they couldβto celebrate their new lives and revisit old
haunts. But what starts out as a week-long, sun-kissed
reunion takes a strange turn as mysterious gifts appear,
familiar faces pop up in unexpected places, and each woman
reveals a secret, private quest.
Ramona is searching for a son she gave up for adoption
before their high-school graduation. Jane is trying to leave
her husband of eleven years, even with her two kids in tow.
And Ivy, who has a new baby, is haunted by the memory of her
mother abandoning her twenty years agoβand she has begun
spotting her everywhere. Add to this a darkly charismatic
ex-boyfriend of Ivyβs who wonβt give up hope of rekindling
their romance, and a strange, new friend of Janeβs in need
of help, and the week quickly begins to unravel.
Set against desert heat, swimming pools, and casino lights,
and told masterfully through five different points of view,
Vegas Girls is about how we navigate the present
while carrying the ghosts of our past; about growing up with
one eye glued to the rearview mirror; and about what happens
when the past you thought you left behind turns out to have
been with you all along.
Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good
Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books
for readers interested in fictionβnovels, novellas,
political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical
fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic
literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics
including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more.
While not every title we publish becomes a New York
Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are
committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked
and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
No excerpt available.
© 2003-2026