New Me (ePub)

"Brings to life the nuance and emotion of a sometimes-dysfunctional family life in Southern California . . . hilarious and heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful" (Danny Goldberg, national-bestselling author of Serving the Servant).

Harriet is floundering. She's in her early forties, her kids have gone to college, her marriage feels empty, her cable TV cooking show has lost its sense of inspiration, and she longs to leave the West Coast for New York. Then one day she meets Lydia, a gorgeous woman in her late twenties. Lydia reminds her so much of herself a decade or so past-and her husband, who hardly likes anything, likes Lydia as well.

It slowly dawns on Harriet that Lydia could be the answer to everything that's ailing her. All she needs to do is turn Lydia into "the new me." From the acclaimed author of Lavinia, this is a witty, poignant, perceptive, and beautifully written novel about change and the price of becoming who you want to be.

"Have you ever worried you could be replaced by another woman? Have you ever secretly hoped that you might be? Is eighteen years of making dinner every night enough already? These questions haunt the irresistible chef/wife/mother Harriet Prince in Mary Marcus's funny, heartbreaking and thriller-paced novel . . . Marcus serves up the humor and sadness in a threatened empty-nest marriage and reminds us that for even the best cook, endings can be bittersweet." -Delphine Hirsh, author of The Girls' Guide to Surviving a Breakup