Three women, Ellie, Alice, and Joan know each other because their children all went to the same school. Now with their children grown and away from home, these three women feel lost. When a terrible tragedy takes place at their kids' former school, all three women show up to a vigil and decide to get together to have lunch after so many years of drifting apart. Joan is trying to keep up with her husband's family's lifestyle, going shopping and keeping her home spotless. She is so bored with her life she decides to go the casino to pass time and ends up with an addiction. Ellie has her own bookkeeping business that is growing, and a new customer challenges her worldview. And Alice, feeling neglected by her husband, decides to take up running again to get back in shape. After this first reconnection, they decide to get together for lunch every other Wednesday.
One day Alice is out running and attacked. The man gets away, but now Alice feels unsafe and decides to get a gun for protection. During their regularly scheduled lunch, the three women find themselves at odds about Alice's purchase: Ellie supports her friend, but Joan is against it from the start.
This conversation makes the three women rethink their lives. Joan knows she has to quit going to the casino, Ellie has to make a huge decision on her lifestyle. Alice really has to rethink the gun purchase, especially after finding her attacker following her on the beach. What decisions will these women choose?
Susan Kietzman's
Three women, each facing an empty nest, come together to
cheer and challenge one another in this insightful, poignant
new novel from acclaimed author Susan Kietzman.
For years, Ellie, Alice, and Joan enjoyed a casual
friendship while volunteering at their childrenβs
Connecticut high school. Now, with those children grown and
gone to college, a local tragedy brings the three into
contact again. But what begins as a catch-up lunch soon
moves beyond small talk to the struggles of this next stage
of life.
Joan Howard has spent thirty years of marriage doing whatβs
expected of Howard women: shopping, dressing well, and
keeping a beautiful home. Unfulfilled, her boredom and
emptiness eventually find a secret outlet at the local
casino. Meanwhile, Ellieβs efforts to expand her accounting
business lead to a new friendship that clashes with her
familyβs traditional worldview. And Alice, feeling
increasingly distant from her husband, and alienated from
her once fit body, takes up running again. But a terrifying
ordeal shatters her confidence and spurs a decision that
will affect all three women in different ways.
Over the course of an eventful year, Ellie, Alice, and Joan
will meet every other Wednesday to talk, planβand find the
freedom, and the courage, to redefine themselves.
No excerpt available.
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