Jane, Cara and Meg were always super-close until adult life got in the way. After her husband is nabbed for fraud, Jane - ostracised and out of cash - seeks out her former friends. But she finds life isn’t so rosy for them either. Cara is resigned to an unhappy marriage to a controlling husband, while Meg - dealing with the fallout of infertility - has separated from her spouse and retreated to her Long Island summer house.
With flashbacks that illustrate the good and bad times of their friendship, the trio somewhat reluctantly band together as they try to put the pieces back together again. It’s an engaging journey, with a theme of rekindling friendship and reclaiming your life. However, I found the revenge scene rather off-putting (if you substitute a female in the male’s position, you’ll see what I mean).
When kindergarten teacher Abby learns via Facebook that she is no longer engaged, she decides to escape the Boston heat and head to Newport, RI, for the summer to lick her wounds and regroup at the urging of her best friend, Grace. Getting back into the dating pool is not something Abby is looking forward to but she decides it is something that needs to be done in order for her to move on from her fiance, Ben. Besides, she could use a little distraction from the horror of being maid of honour to her sister so soon after being jilted. Abby devises a dating plan and with the help of Grace, Wolf and Bobby, two new Newport friends, she jumps in with both feet. Unfortunately, Abby realises that while dating has never been easy, dating in the age of social media is worse since practically everything you do or say can end up online.
As with her first novel Bond Girl, Erin Duffy writes with humour and grace about realistic characters who are going through what all of us deal with - breakups, friendships, and self-realisation. I really enjoyed her second novel and was very happy to learn that the book wasn't all about how having a guy in your life makes you complete. Not that they aren't wonderful accessories! (LEK)
From the first day she tagged along with her father to his office on Wall Street, Alex knew she had found her calling. Everything about her father's job excited and interested her and she spent the next several years working towards a job on "the Street". Once out of college she lands her dream job on the sales desk of Cromwell Pierce and immediately gets thrown to the sharks.
Dragging her folding chair from person to person, she watches and studies how things are done, enduring humiliation after humiliation from her gruff boss, Chick, who has no problem telling her what he expects of her (in front of everyone), to the desk of men who think nothing of calling her Girlie and sending her to get boxes upon boxes of pizzas for lunch. She's new, she's a woman and if she wants to make it in the industry, she needs to acquire a really thick skin. Just as Alex begins to hit her stride, the market starts to head south and she realises the hard way that the man she has been seeing is not the person she thought he was. Is this really the life she envisioned for herself all those years ago?
Erin Duffy weaves an entertaining tale of life on Wall Street before the recent crash. Alex is highly likable and you want her to do well but you also want her to be smart. Reminiscent of The Devil Wears Prada and Working Girl, Bond Girl is a hard one to put down and will have you rooting for the little people until the end. (LEK)
