Thy Neighbor's Wife

Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: Alex Foster's life is exactly as she wants it. She's quit her job as an English teacher and has decided to hole up in her newly acquired lake house for the summer to try her hand at writing a novel. She has close friends; she has her dog; she plays volleyball. She is content.

Jennifer Wainwright is a young, wealthy suburbanite who's life is exactly as she expected it would be. She's married to her high school sweetheart who is about to inherit his father's law firm. She has friends. And she has the whole summer to work on decorating the new house on the lake she and her husband have just purchased as their summer home. She is content.

A chance meeting over a runaway pooch is the start of a journey for each woman. Over the course of one unbelievable summer set on the beautiful shores of Canandaigua Lake in upstate New York, these two women will teach one another, learn from one another, question their own beliefs and expectations, and unwittingly fall in love...

Rating:
Summary: What a wonderful book!
Review: I loved this story and the way it was written. I found it smooth, polished and expertly told. I think it deserves to be a classic, as good as 'Curious Wine'. It's certainly as sexy and the two main characters are women we would all love to meet! Here's to Georgia Beers, and hopefully many more novels of equally high calibre!

Rating:
Summary: Decent X:WP uber, a fun read
Review: It's worth noting the good points before pointing out the minor weaknesses of this novel. It's a fun read, and the writer has promise judging by the easy way the reader is drawn from one line to the next. There are very few instances where rough writing distracts from the story, but the plot line (as noted in other reviews) is massively unsurprising. I think it's one of the more enjoyable examples of the genre, and I look forward to future work by Ms. Beers. The characters are more typical of modern folk, and less tied to the obvious role models, than usual in this type of writing. They display modern foibles, seeming more typical of today than the mythical heros of our imaginary alternate past.
There are a few points where the foreshadowing is so literal and heavy handed that it really doesn't work. In a few other places, the author included some details that reflect the real world X:WP community (and perhaps the author) rather than the characters in the novel. New rule of thumb; if you're writing an X:WP novel, don't mention X:WP. That belongs in the amateur category. But, that said, here's the good part; if flows well, is sweet, and is generally a fun (albeit light and predictable) read. I recommend it w/o reservation. It won't stick with you like some others, haunting you with images and words that last, but it is fun and easy to read.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling and Believable
Review: Young, attractive Jennifer Wainwright, married to her high school sweetheart, Eric, is a happy woman. She and Eric have just purchased a summer retreat in upstate New York, and they are doing so well financially that Jennifer doesn't even need to work. She's living every heterosexual woman's dream. Perhaps the only fly in the ointment is her shrewish mother-in-law and all the expectations of Eric's and her parents. But even they can be ignored when she considers the wondrous layout of the new home and starts thinking of ways to decorate it. The day she and Eric move in, Jennifer becomes acquainted with the next door neighbor, Alex Foster, who is a slightly mysterious novelist with a not-so-mysteriously broken heart. Jennifer, too, has secret aches of her own, and with Eric off at the law office in the city so much, she starts leaning on Alex for companionship, joins her volleyball league, and gets to know Alex's friends. It's only a matter of time before problems bloom for Eric and Jennifer, and the inevitable happens. When it does, the lives of everyone involved threaten to blow apart.

There aren't any new twists on the straight-woman-falls-in-love-with-a-woman plot, but this story is well-written and contains compelling and believable conflict and angst. This is a fine follow-up to Beers' previous book, Turning The Page. ~Lori L. Lake, Midwest Book Review