Today’s theme is Rumors, Scandal and Fabulous Books! Be sure to check out the posts on Abbi Waxman & Marisa de los Santos too.
Jane Rosen hit publishing gold with her 2016 debut, Nine Women, One Dress: A charming, hilarious, irresistible romp of a novel that brings together nine unrelated women, each touched by the same little black dress that weaves through their lives, bringing a little magic with it.
This summer, her second book, ELIZA STARTS A RUMOR, didn’t gain quite the same traction, but it is a delightful book, and in many ways (in my humble opinion) a more complex and subtle one.
After Eliza Hunt posts anonymously on the community bulletin board she launched to re-engage her audience, she inadvertently hits a little too close to home for some neighbors, setting off a chain of events that lead to fledgling friendships, old wounds revisited, and life-changing new directions across the neighborhood.
If you didn’t already discover this one, I highly recommend it. Entertaining and touching, and a fascinating look at how friends can save us.
ELIZA STARTS A RUMOR
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. When Eliza Hunt created The Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board fifteen years ago she was happily entrenched in her picture-perfect suburban life with her husband and twin preschoolers. Now, with an empty nest and a crippling case of agoraphobia, the once-fun hobby has become her lifeline. So when a rival parenting forum threatens the site’s existence, she doesn’t think twice before fabricating a salacious rumor to spark things up a bit.
It doesn’t take long before that spark becomes a flame.
Across town, new mom and site devotee Olivia York is thrown into a tailspin by what she reads on the Bulletin Board. Allison Le is making cyber friends with a woman who isn’t quite who she says she is. And Amanda Cole, Eliza’s childhood friend, may just hold the key to unearthing why Eliza can’t step out of her front door.
In all this chaos, one thing is for sure…Hudson Valley will never be the same.
Funny, romantic, raw, and hopeful, this is a story about being a woman and of the healing power of sisterhood.
Find the books:
Jane Rosen @Amazon
(This review is part of Read-A-Romance Month. Hope you’ll come back every day to check out my book recommendations. You can find the calendar here. Also check out The Romance of Reading, a Facebook “book club” where we’ll have great authors guest hosting every week.)
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Enjoy!