This book came to me via a recommendation from a site I find new books on and often end up reviewing. I was looking for something light (I’d just finished a pretty intense book) and I thought this was a romance. And yes, there is some romance, but it’s not a romance, per se. Technically it’s Women’s Fiction, and it had friendship, marriage and divorce packed into its pages.

Here’s Cricket Crosby, a very upstanding sort of southern gal who finds out her upstanding banker husband of many years is having a fling with their daughter’s tennis coach.

So naturally, I figured this would be a book about how Cricket overcame the divorce and made a new life of her own. And it is…but it’s also about how Cricket made new friends with new skills to help her bring down her dirt-bag of a husband who’s up to a lot dirtier tricks than adultery!

Luckily for Cricket, the new assistant at her antique store, Ruby, comes with a checkered past. As the two gradually reveal their secrets. It’s Ruby who keeps Cricket from melting down and focuses her on not only surviving but getting the sweetest ending of all—revenge.

Meanwhile, Ruby is starting to hone her talent for couture design and Cricket realizes that, between Cricket’s business sense and Ruby’s blossoming talent, they might have a creative and successful future together.

Sure, there are other characters to love in this book, including the array of Ruby’s ‘other-side-of the tracks’ relatives who form a fun and formidable sting operation. But it’s the growing friendship between Cricket and Ruby that anchors the story, told from alternating points of view between the two of them. (It’s tricky, but it works!)

These two couldn’t be more different…and yet they find they are very similar. It makes for quite an adventure and a fun story that I totally recommend you read. Enjoy!