First Wives Club—Dumping made commonplace

Has it been seventeen years since First Wives Club made dumping a recognizable, marital pastime? And a viable word in all our vocabularies? Getting revenge, and getting caught up with not being second best catapulted this novel of getting even into history. Women having a voice and plotting how to exercise that voice captivated reading audiences. First wives Club was very possibly the first support group for middle-age women who had been dumped for younger ones.

But things haven’t changed. There are echoes of First Wives Club in Susan Slater’s novel, 0 to 60.  Shelly Sinclair is dumped—after thirty-five years of marriage, two sons, and supporting a physician husband through school. Sound familiar? Of course, but what’s new is that not only does it continue to happen but it happens to older and older women. Shelly is sixty. Her husband has proposed marriage to a woman thirty-nine years his junior—who is also the mother of his four-year-old child.

Is Shelly too old to start over? Of course not—the stakes are just different. And so are her needs and interests. But how many women at sixty would just give up—drop out of the mainstream and accept a role as has-been? It’s tough to begin dating, move, establish a new career, make new friends—all when you’d thought you would be enjoying grandchildren, cruises, and the material comforts a successful career guaranteed. 

Shelly doesn’t need to remarry for money. But she would like a companion.  She doesn’t need to go back to school but she’d like to contribute. She doesn’t need to get even, but it’s tempting. In the spirit of First Wives Club, Shelly is entrusted with a secret—devastating knowledge that could even the playing field. Will she tell? 

Looking for a book similar to First Wives Club? Get your copy of 0 to 60 today!