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Summary
Summary
Vicky Townsley participates in a contest that has her switching places for one month with Amber Winslow, a busy wife and mother.
Summary
Internationally bestselling author of The Other Woman returns with a sharply observed tale of a single girl swapping places with a married mother of two.
Unabridged CDs - 9 CDs, 11 hours
Author Notes
"Jane Green" is the pen name for author Jane Green Warburg. She was born in 1968 in London, England. While in her twenties, she worked as a journalist for various national newspapers and magazines in London. At the age of 27, she wrote her first novel Straight Talking, which became a New York Times bestseller. Her books helped launch the phenomenon known as "chick lit", and gave her the nickname of "the queen of chick lit". Her novels include The Patchwork Marriage, Another Piece of My Heart, Promises to Keep, Dune Roard, The Beach House, Family Pictures, Tempting Fate, Summer Secrets. and Jenima J.
Green's title, Falling, made the New York Times Bestseller list in 2016.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This fun but familiar novel from Green (The Other Woman) follows the seemingly perfect lives of two women-one married with children, one single with a high-powered job-who wish to see how the other half lives, only to have the misfortune to get what they wish for. When Amber Winslow, a wealthy Connecticut housewife replete with wealthy husband, full-time nanny and golden retriever, grows tired of her town's vicious social scene, she responds to British magazine Poise!'s search for a subject to swap lives with one of the magazine's London editors, Vicky Townsley. Serious and successful, Vicky is longing for the husband and children she doesn't have. While both women leave home on a yellow-brick-road quest to find the missing piece of their lives-a sense of purpose for Amber, a suitable mate for Vicky-what they find instead is the saccharine obvious: they already have everything they really want. Green's latest, like her more inspired ventures, is hard to put down, thanks to affable leading characters and interesting, if not particularly revealing, commentary on the cross-Atlantic cultural gap. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Reality shows and contests are a hot topic for fiction these days, and Green ( The Other Woman,0 2005) is the latest writer to jump on the bandwagon. Green's vehicle is a Poise!0 magazine contest that gives a married woman the opportunity to switch places with Poise! 0 features director Vicky Townsley, who at 35 is professionally fulfilled but unhappy that she's not yet found a man. She's hoping she may have met the one in Jamie Donnelly, a handsome Irish comedian who has a reputation as a womanizer. Across the pond in Highfield, Connecticut, Amber Winslow has what seems like the perfect life with her husband, Richard, and her two adorable children. But Amber is tired of keeping up with her competitive friends, and she sends a letter in to Poise!0 never expecting to win. Readers probably won't be surprised that Vicky and Amber learn to appreciate their own lives thanks to the switch, but they will enjoy watching Green peel the layers of the women's lives back, highlighting that both women have issues they need to change and others they need to accept. Green is a popular chick-lit writer, so expect demand. --Kristine Huntley Copyright 2006 Booklist
Kirkus Review
The British Green, master of the career-girl novel (if your idea of a career girl includes Manolos and a Birkin bag) switches the lives of a pampered American housewife and a London magazine editor, with predictable results. Thirty-five-year-old Amber Winslow seems to have it all: a McMansion in a Connecticut suburb, a walk-in closet filled with couture, two beautiful children and a doting husband. But of course life in--is it Stepford?--isn't as rosy as it seems. Her Jamaican nanny is all but raising the children; Amber lives in a state of anxiety that one of the League ladies is besting her; and she has this nagging feeling that her whole life is a useless sham. Across the Atlantic, Vicky Townsley is also yearning for what she doesn't have--a country home with kids, a big dog and a husband. At 35, she is the features editor at Poise! magazine and enjoys a glamorously hectic social life and a dishy friend (with benefits) who lives around the block. Thanks to a contest sponsored by the magazine, the two women swap lives for a month, bringing with them little more than a toothbrush and underwear. For both, the situation reaffirms that they really do love their life/family, but for Amber, there are some added realizations that the superficiality of her life is interfering with her sense of self. Good for Amber and Vicky and destination epiphany. The real question is whether the journey is enough for the reader--and it mostly is. Green skewers Connecticut suburbia with a gleeful relish, and she hits the right marks with sympathetic Londoner Vicky, a quirky, imperfect heroine who keeps a pair of fat pants at the back of her closet. Clothes, bags, shoes, romance, self-acceptance--all we've come to expect and done well enough. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Vicky Townsley, stunning, single, and a successful features director at a hip London magazine, longs for the simple life: a country home, a couple of big dogs, gorgeous children, and a wonderful husband. Meanwhile, Connecticut housewife Amber Winslow is bogged down with the responsibilities of social climbing and motherhood that are part of her picture-perfect life in the idyllic suburbs. Vicky is so desperate to find out what life would be like as a happily married mother that she assigns herself a story that requires swapping lives. And Amber is the lucky recipient of this twist on Wife Swap and Trading Spouses. The experiment gives both women the excuse to get away from their lives and find out if the grass really is greener. Of course, it takes only a few short weeks for both to appreciate the paths they've chosen for themselves. Green's (The Other Woman) witty blend of chick lit and mom lit allows readers to escape and live vicariously through these two characters. Recommended for all popular fiction collections.-Anika Fajardo, Coll. of St. Catherine Lib., St. Paul, MN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
