M.J. Stark is living a life in the Big Apple that is not too shabby. She owns her own apartment; has a dream job as editor for CITY, a successful magazine; and a handsome, sexy boyfriend, Dan, who is a doctor. She is awaiting a BIG promotion. After her family died in an automobile accident, the only thing that helped her shock and sadness at the loss was to become a workaholic.
Dan is setting up his own practice and has just bought a charming bungalow on the ocean in Pearl Beach, California. Dan is an adventure seeker and a humanitarian and is trying to encourage M.J. to join him on the west coast. Deadlines keep her busy and on her toes and the new promotion will be the icing on the cake. It is not to be. Betrayed by her boss, the offer to become Editor-in-Chief has a caveat. M.J. is to share it with a Co-Editor-in-chief. One that M.J. did not like or think could do the job. In a fit of anger, M.J. leaves the office. She packs and leaves for the west coast. So much for dreams in New York City. Could she find some in California?
Arriving in Pearl Beach, jobless and fancy free, it is not long until M.J. is bored and lonely. Dan has left with several other doctors to surf in Jakarta. She meets her next door neighbor, Gloria, and her husband, Leo, a retired Hollywood Producer. She bonds with Gloria. Leo dies suddenly of a heart attack. Gloria leaves for Paris shortly after and leaves a note for her. In the note. she invites M.J. to a meeting of the Dirty Book Club, started by Gloria and her three high school friends in 1960. The club meets once a month during the full moon to discuss selected risque books. A letter in each book from a former member of the DBC will be included. Members must wear the key necklaces (one was left for M.J.), and must be secret. M.J. attends and meets three ladies: Britt, Addie, and Jules. Over drinks, many drinks, the sex chats sometimes funny, often raunchy or spicy, turn to, subjects of abuse, infidelity, rejection, loss, hopes and dreams.
Lisi Harrison writes a delight of a chick-lit about women being strong for each other living in a man's world in THE DIRTY BOOK CLUB. From the generation when the first DBC began to the present, the ladies drink and discuss the naughty books, and began to tell their secrets, bonding, becoming closer, beginning friendships that will last a lifetime. You will love the cast of characters, root for them and miss them when you finish the last page. What a novel idea and a great novel! Good job, Ms. Harrison.
M.J. Stark’s life is picture-perfect—she has her dream
job as a magazine editor, a sexy doctor boyfriend, and a
glamorous life in New York City. But behind her success,
there is a debilitating sense of loneliness. So when her
boss betrays her and her boyfriend offers her a
completely new life in California, she trades her
cashmere for caftans and gives it a try. Once there, M.J.
is left to fend for herself in a small beach town, with
only the company of her elderly neighbor, Gloria, and an
ocean that won’t shut up.
One afternoon, M.J. discovers that Gloria has suddenly
moved to Paris with her friends to honor a fifty-year-old
pact. And in lieu of a goodbye, she’s left a mysterious
invitation to a secret club—one that only reads erotic
books. Curious, M.J. accepts and meets the three other
hand-selected club members. As they bond over naughty
bestsellers and the shocking letters they inherited from
the original club members, the four strangers start to
divulge the intimate details of their own lives… and as
they open up, they learn that friendship might just be
the key to rewriting their own stories: all they needed
was to find each other first.