 | |
| Author | Sarah Strohmeyer |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Dutton Adult |
Publication date | September 22, 2005 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 368 ppg |
| ISBN | 0525949097 |
The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives is a 2005 novel by Sarah Strohmeyer. It was published on September 22, 2005 by Dutton Adult. [1]
In the luxurious neighborhood of Hunting Hills, Ohio, Marti Dench realizes her husband is never around and suspects he is having an affair. At the same time, John Harding comes back from Prague with a new wife who is far from the normal size two socialites of Hunting Hill. The instant Marti hears John, a long time friend, is newly married, she experiences jealousy and believes that John is the real love of her life. She then sets out to seduce John and begin an affair with him.
John's new (and second) wife, Clare Stark, has difficulty settling into life at Hunting Hills. Once a hot-shot journalist, Claire is now forced to be a stay-at-home wife, as her new husband has a bad history with the only newspaper in town, and Claire has a romantic history with the chief editor of that paper. The other wives aren't so welcoming, and John's mother disapproves of Claire. Claire befriends Marti, who goes out of her way to invite Claire to their exclusive book club and throws a party in Claire and John's honour, but (unbeknownst to Claire) only as a ploy to get John into bed. Claire, none the wiser, continues to try to make friends with the other Hunting Hills wives.
At Claire's first book club meeting, one of the wives, Karen Goss, calls for help from the police station. As everyone except Claire has been drinking, Claire drives down with Marti and Boots, John's ex-wife, to help her out. At the police station, Karen confesses that she is confused about her sexuality, a result of her husband's forcing her to commit sexual acts with other women. In an intimate rendezvous with her husband's secretary in Edgewater Park, Karen became the victim of a hate crime against homosexuals and was taken down to the police station to give a statement. She does not want to humiliate her family, and so begs Claire to pull strings with Eric Schmaltz, the editor of the Cleveland Citizen newspaper, so that her name will not appear in the papers.
Claire agrees to help Karen, but in a meeting with Eric, she is blackmailed into writing up an interview with a Hunting Hill wife who was convicted of manslaughter. Knowing how much her husband hates the idea of her writing for the Cleveland Citizen, Claire devises a plan to get back at Eric for the blackmailing.
Meanwhile, Jim Denton, Marti's husband, is caught in a compromising situation with Lisa, Marti's best friend, with whom Jim is having an affair. Having taken four Viagra pills, Jim's erection refuses to die down, and he misses his meeting with an important client at the last minute. The client, Marguerite, is insulted at being stood up and withdraws all her money from the investment company where Jim works. It is revealed that Jim had been forging account statements to all his friends who invested with him, and with Marguerite's money gone, they are all essentially broke.
At the party Marti is throwing for them, Claire gets roped into a boring conversation with Karen's husband, while Marti gets John alone in the library. Marti throws herself at John, who feels something for her but refuses her advances and leaves. Jim Denton arrives at the party, and Marti instantly forgets her rejection as she welcomes back her AWOL husband. While talking to Jim, Karen's husband makes an inappropriate comment about Karen's sexuality, causing her to run off and leave Hunting Hills.
Jim's fraud is discovered by his boss and his friends, and he runs off, assuming the identity of an old fraternity brother. He divorces Marti over the phone, causing her to have a total breakdown. Marti calls John over to her house to comfort her, which he does. Claire arrives home in a celebratory mood after dropping off the article she wrote, which had no relevance to the subject Eric wanted (angering Eric, as he had planned to put it on the front page). She calls Boots to ask for a cooking tip, who lets it drop that John is over at Marti's house, and they're having an affair. Devastated, Claire falls asleep on the couch.
When she wakes up, John is standing over her holding the newspaper. He angrily asks why her name is on an article about Karen Goss, and Claire accuses him of cheating. They fight, and John storms out. Claire later bumps into Marti, who tells her that although she had wanted to seduce John that night, he completely rejected her and all he did was talk about how great Claire was. Claire and Marti soon bond over Marti's loss (of husband and money), and they set off to find Jim.
Seeing how hurt Claire is from her fight with John, Marti calls Eric and offers him an exclusive on her husband's fraud if he apologizes to Claire and John for deliberately placing Claire's name on an article she didn't have anything to do with. While Eric apologizes, Claire steps outside, only to be taken hostage by Jim, who's desperate to get the cops off his back. They wrestle, Jim's gun goes off, and luckily Claire is unharmed. All ends well as John and Claire make up, Jim gets sent to jail, and Marti gets an early inheritance from her dad.
Reception for The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives was generally positive, [2] [3] [4] [5] with Kirkus Reviews calling it "light and frothy". [6] The Free Lance-Star cited Strohmeyer's portrayal of upper class privilege as a highlight, saying the book was "satisfying". [7]
A Delicate Balance is a three-act play by Edward Albee, written in 1965 and 1966. Premiered in 1966, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1967, the first of three he received for his work.
Edith Wilson was the first lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921 and the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson. She married the widower Wilson in December 1915, during his first term as president. Edith Wilson played an influential role in President Wilson's administration following the severe stroke he suffered in October 1919. For the remainder of her husband's presidency, she managed the office of the president, a role she later described as a "stewardship", and determined which communications and matters of state were important enough to bring to the attention of the bedridden president.
The Stepford Wives is a 1972 satirical "feminist horror" novel by Ira Levin. The story concerns Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer, wife, and young mother who suspects that something in the town of Stepford is changing the wives from free-thinking, intelligent women into compliant wives dedicated solely to homemaking. As her friends slowly transform, Joanna realizes the horrific truth.
The Stepford Wives is a 2004 American science fiction black comedy film directed by Frank Oz from a screenplay by Paul Rudnick and starring Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Glenn Close, Christopher Walken, and Faith Hill. The second feature-length adaptation of Ira Levin's 1972 novel of the same name following the 1975 film of the same name, it received generally negative reviews from critics and was a box office failure, grossing $103 million worldwide on a $90–100 million budget.
In common parlance, the wives of Henry VIII were the six queens consort of King Henry VIII of England between 1509 and his death in 1547. In legal terms, Henry had only three wives, because three of his marriages were annulled by the Church of England. He was never granted an annulment by the Pope, as he desired, however, for Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. Annulments declare that a true marriage never took place, unlike a divorce, in which a married couple end their union. Along with his six wives, Henry took several mistresses.
Edna May Diefenbaker was the first wife of the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker.
Hollywood Wives is a 1983 novel by the British author Jackie Collins. It was her ninth novel, and her most successful, selling over 15 million copies.
The Wailing Wind is a crime novel by American writer Tony Hillerman, the fifteenth in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series, first published in 2002. It is a New York Times best-seller.
Arizona is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by George B. Seitz and starring Laura La Plante, John Wayne and June Clyde. It is one of several films based on Augustus Thomas's 1899 play of the same name. Filmed as "Arizona", the movie's makers applied to the New York State Censor Board for a new title, "Men Are Like That", and the film was released and reviewed under that title in New York and elsewhere. The film was released in the U.K. as The Virtuous Wife.
The Stepford Children is a 1987 American made-for-television horror science fiction thriller film inspired by the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives. It was directed by Alan J. Levi with a screenplay by Bill Bleich and starring Barbara Eden, Don Murray, Tammy Lauren, Randall Batinkoff and Pat Corley. It is the second in a series of sequels inspired by the 1972 novel and the original 1975 film The Stepford Wives.
Sarah Strohmeyer is an American author of eighteen crime novels and humorous books about relations between men and women. She is best known for her Bubbles Yablonsky series about a Pennsylvania hairdresser who is drawn into solving various crimes and murders.
K. Street Pali Hill is an Indian thriller soap that aired on StarPlus. It replaced another thriller, Kaahin Kissii Roz, when it concluded in 2004. K. Street Pali Hill was successful for about a year, before its popularity plummeted, owing to many of the actors being replaced. This show shared many similarities with DD National's popular daily soap Shanti.
Jackie Collins' Hollywood Wives is an American television miniseries based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Jackie Collins. Airing on ABC in February 1985, it follows several women connected to the entertainment industry in Hollywood and capitalized on the public's taste for opulent melodramas that dominated television ratings in the 1980s. The three-part, four-and-a-half-hour production was produced by Aaron Spelling, whose series Dynasty was number one in the ratings at the time. Like Dynasty, costume design was by Nolan Miller.
Hollywood Wives: The New Generation is a 2003 American drama television film directed by Joyce Chopra. The film is based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Jackie Collins, which was a spin-off from the 1983 successful novel Hollywood Wives. It aired on CBS on October 19, 2003.
Yarigu Helbedi is a 1994 Kannada comedy-drama film directed by Kodlu Ramakrishna. It stars Anant Nag, Vinaya Prasad, Mukhyamantri Chandru and Vaishali Kasaravalli among others. The movie has become a cult film among Kannada film viewers. The movie was remade in Tulu in 2015 by the same director as Eregla Panodchi.
The second gentleman or second lady of the United States is the informal title held by the spouse of the vice president of the United States, concurrent with the vice president's term of office. Coined in contrast to "first lady" – albeit used less commonly – the title "second lady" was apparently first used by Jennie Tuttle Hobart to refer to herself. The first second gentleman of the United States is Doug Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris, the current vice president and first woman in the position, since January 20, 2021.