Mona Berman is an expert at Happily Ever After - after all, she's a best-selling Romance writer and happy endings are what she does best. So when her husband of twenty years leaves her for somebody 15 years younger, 30 pounds lighter, and French, she's got a lot of adjusting to do, both personally and professionally. Lucky for her she's got three savvy teen daughters, a few good friends, and Ben, the world's sexiest plumber, to help her along the way. First she decides that her next book will be the anti-romance - her heroine finds the best part of her life AFTER getting dumped. Next her daughters tell her she needs to start practice dating, and summer at the Jersey shore is the perfect place for that. She's also juggling her soon-to-be-ex, a loony aunt, and a match-making neighbor, while Ben is sending her romance-driven imagination into overdrive. Can Mona's life imitate art? Can she write her own happy ending?

Divorcee Theresa Osborne, newspaper columnist and mother of a twelve-year-old son, picks up a bottle on the beach during a seaside vacation. Inside is a letter from a man called Garrett. My dearest Catherine, I miss you my darling, as I always do, but today is particularly hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together . . .For Garrett, his message is the only way he knows to express his undying love for a woman he has lost. For Theresa, wary of romance since her husband shattered her trust, the message raises questions that intrigue her. Who are Garrett and Catherine? What is their story? Challenged by the mystery and unaccountably drawn to find him, Theresa embarks on a search that takes her to a sunlit coast town and an unexpected confrontation . . .

An Oprah's Book Club selection Samantha Morrow's husband has left her, and after a spree of overcharging at Tiffany's, she settles down to reconstruct a life for herself and her 11-year-old son. Her eccentric mother tried to help by fixing her up with dates, but a more pressing problem is money. To meet her mortgage payments, Sam decides to take in boarders. The first is an older woman who offers sage advice and sorely needed comfort; the second, a maladjusted student, is not quite so helpful. A new friend, King, an untraditional man, suggests that Samantha get out, get going, get work. But her real work is this: In order to emerge from grief and the past, she has to learn how to make her own happiness. In order to really see people, she has to look within her heart. And in order to know who she is, she has to remember--and reclaim--the person she used to be, long before she became someone else in an effort to save her marriage.Deeply felt, beautifully observed, and written with perfect emotional pitch, Open House is the unforgettable story of how a woman re-creates her life after divorce by opening her house to strangers and her heart to the simple miracle of possibility.

When Christine’s husband of ten years dumps her over the phone while she watches a Hugh Grant film she is sent spinning on a cathartic, self-medicated journey to the land of self-acceptance and self-reliance. Surrounded by her sister and a strong support group of friends, Christine learns how to deal with the horrors of dating, finding new appliances, and the exhilarating feeling of shopping without consequence.An uproarious look at the suddenly single life of a divorcee, Dora Heldt’s first book to appear in English captures the zeitgeist of the new millennium with searing insight while never deigning to take itself too seriously. Sparkling dialogue and unforgettable characters create a vibrant world of sardonic, take-no-prisoners women who hold their own in a world geared toward acceptance of their younger selves. Not since Bridget Jones’ Diary or Sex in the City has anything like Life After Forty so accurately and thoroughly expressed the modern female point of view with such startling clarity.

Vivian Lawson's fantasy of being the perfect 1950s suburban housewife is shattered when an uncontrollable event changes her life forever. Destitute and left to fend for herself in a man's world, she searches her New England town unable to find a job. With nowhere to turn, Vivian takes the advice of her wisecracking best friend, Babs, and reluctantly becomes a Tupperware lady. Vivian struggles with low self-esteem as well as stage fright but with the support of Babs' lovesick brother, Stew, and the creator of Tupperware's Home Party Plan system, Brownie Wise, she may just find the strength to conquer her inner demons and take control of her life. A story of empowerment, Leftovers is a delectable romantic dramedy with an inspirational journey that reveals to us what can be achieved by using one's guts, determination and a little bit of a self-deprecating humor.