Newly separated from her lawyer husband, Caroline James heads to the spa for a makeover and a massage, looking for a tonic to her battered pride. Instead she encounters Eleanor Hampton, the ex-wife of her spouse’s law partner, a woman so bitter she makes Medea look like Anne of Green Gables. Watch your back, Eleanor tells her. You won’t believe the stuff they’ve pulled.
When Eleanor turns up suspiciously dead in her hot tub, Caroline opens the Pandora’s Box of documents the vengeful socialite has sent as proof of the firm’s unscrupulous divorce tactics. Between fighting her divorce proceedings, raising two children, and mending her broken heart, Caroline sleuths her way through upscale La Jolla, California to unravel the truth. For the first time in a long time, she feels truly alive, if only she can stay that way…
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Once upon a time, Becky Weston had the life of her dreams—then the Volvo, the beach house, and the luxurious lunches disappeared when her husband went looking for a much younger trophy wife. To top that, her ex is now deceased, leaving the purse strings of the children’s trust fund in the greedy hands of Number Two, leaving Becky truly out in the cold.
Having put herself through six years of night law school, Becky is now the oldest new associate in a small, aspiring law firm, where she is expected to put her life on hold and her nose to the grindstone, a prospect that’s neither anatomically advantageous nor a great deal of fun. Rescue appears in the form of a new client—bestselling author, glamorous anti-aging guru, and Becky's college archnemesis, Bobbie Crystol. When some of the designer-clad doctor’s patients leave her life-extension spa a great deal sicker than when they entered, however, Becky grows skeptical about the pursuit of longevity at the expense of living well. Trying to save her career while maintaining her integrity, Becky comes up with the perfect exit strategy—a strategy that will reap unexpected dividends…
After more than a decade alone, attorney Lynn Bartlett was ready to shake up her reliably comfortable life. So when successful, kind-hearted Jack Hughes—with his home in Silicon Valley, his safely remarried ex-wife, and his two grown children—proposed, it seemed like a dream come true. After all, how hard could it be? All you had to do was be nice to everybody and you’d all get along.
Welcome to the perilous world of the second wife, where nothing turns out quite as expected. With an unemployed, unmotivated stepson who declares he’s moving in “temporarily,” a stepdaughter who oozes scorn, and a husband who’s hiding something, Lynn’s imagined domestic bliss begins to crack. Add in an ex-wife who shows up at inopportune times, a law partner who may be involved in illegal dealings, and a client whose attractions prove far too tempting, and Lynn finds both her marriage and her career could be in trouble.
Not even the Anne Boleyn Society—an informal support group for second wives—has all the answers. Sure, they can commiserate when Lynn says, “I never thought it would be so hard,” but they don’t know the half of it…