Book Description
When tall, blond, and beautiful Ellen Baxter enters the Paris Ritz the day before Princess Diana dies, she’s mistaken for Diana by the paparazzi. The next morning, as Ellen’s older, Nobel-laureate husband attends a physics conference, she goes to the site of the fatal crash and finds an uncharacteristic photograph of Diana. Surprised by how deeply the death has affected her, Ellen pockets the photo. As she hears Diana’s voice in her head and begins to understand the parallels between their lives, she tracks down the person who took the photograph, hoping that this man who deals in surfaces can penetrate her beauty, as he did Diana’s, and help her love the woman inside.
Elizabeth Dewberry’s complex, surprising novel uses string theory to weave together two women’s lives and explore a culture that celebrates women for their beauty—then exacts a terrible toll.
Customer Reviews:
One darn good storyteller.......2007-08-14
Ellen Baxter happens upon the site of Princess Diana's death the morning after the fatal crash. There, she pockets an unusual photo of Diana left by a stranger. On her way back to her hotel, Ellen begins to hear the deceased Diana's voice in her head-and her life takes a turn. As she draws parallels between her own life and Diana's, she begins to question herself. As Ellen looks for meaning in her relationship with her older husband, a Nobel laureate in physics, and in her own life as "his lovely wife," she goes on a search for the man who took the photo of Diana. What follows is a surprising, affecting, cautionary tale of the role of beauty and celebrity in the lives of women.
Elizabeth Dewberry's His Lovely Wife is a modern-day fairy tale set within the novel form. Through both flashbacks and telephone conversations, Dewberry touches on the complexities of mother-daughter relationships: Ellen and her mother, a former Miss Alabama, have a touch-and-go relationship much in need of forgiveness. Through Ellen's surprising emotions around the death of Princess Diana, Dewberry raises questions about the strange attraction of the lives of celebrities. And through it all, Dewberry manages to paint a portrait of a real woman, struggling with guilt and desires and trying to find her own place in the world.
The book is alternately heartbreaking and funny, filled with a woman's reflections on beauty and physics, on photography and marriage, on responsibility and desires. In the end, Dewberry raises more questions than she answers, which lends the book an authenticity missing from many chick lit or women's novels.
Dewberry said in an interview: "...when there is something that is really compelling and I have more questions than answers, that tells me that maybe a novel's there." Well, in the end of His Lovely Wife, Ellen Baxter's fate is uncertain, but we do know that she has faced some new truths. Somehow, though the story is quiet and the action mostly internal, His Lovely Wife is nearly impossible to put down.
Armchair Interviews says: When you can't put a book down, that's a sign of a good storyteller at work.
Two hefty issues weaved into a brilliant tale.......2006-11-21
This review is for the Harcourt hardback edition, 2006, 282 pages. HIS LOVELY WIFE is the fourth novel by Elizabeth Dewberry.
Beautiful Ellen has been married to Lawrence Baxter, a Nobel Prize winning physicist for fifteen years. As the sparks of love fade into distant memories, Ellen wonders if she has become a trophy wife for her famous husband. Their friends seem to think so.
In August 1997, Lawrence and Ellen arrive at the Ritz hotel in Paris where paparazzi briefly mistake Ellen for Princess Diana. While jogging early the following morning, at the site of a recent automobile crash, Ellen happens upon Max Kafka, the handsome American photographer who took her picture the previous afternoon. In an aura of sexual tension, Ellen and Max walk to a makeshift memorial near the crash, which already has a few bouquets of flowers. Max leaves a small photograph there and bids Ellen goodbye. When Ellen examines the photograph, she realizes Princess Diana died in the crash. Shocked, Ellen thinks about Diana and communicates with her spirit. Ellen realizes there are haunting similarities between Princess Diana's life and her own.
HIS LOVELY WIFE is a lyrical, literary journey into the perplexing role of the beautiful wife in the shadow of a famous husband and the nature of afterlife in terms of the theories of the universe. Ms. Dewberry weaves these two hefty issues together seamlessly in a brilliant tale.
An entertaining and profound read.......2006-11-08
Elizabeth Dewberry writes first-person fiction beautifully. This is an engrossing novel about a beatiful woman who is more intelligent and sensitive than she admits. Dewberry skillfully intertwines historical event,
science, popular culture and women in a way that is both emotionally moving and
intellectually stimulating.
Intellectually and emotionally engaging.......2006-04-01
Elizabeth Dewberry's novel reminds me of recent fiction by John Banville (this year's Booker Prize winner for The Sea). While painting a few dramatic days in the life of a lonely woman (unhappily married and obsessed with Princess Diana), she gives us quick glances at dreamscapes of eternity...her touch is very light, but the ideas here are profound. Dewberry is also a good stylist, funny and lyrical. The writing never calls attention to itself.
"Ultimately being Miss Anything is just a step on the way to being a better Miss Anything".......2006-03-19
Essentially a story about the place of women in the world, their lives, loves and their passions, His Lovely Wife is also a tale of the importance of beauty and the nature of yearning. The lovely thirty-something Ellen Baxter finds herself in Paris on the morning before the tragic car accident that killed Princess Diana. Ellen's scientist husband Lawrence is attending a prestigious physics conference and both are staying at the Ritz.
One morning, the paparazzi - the same group who chase Diana to her death - mistake Ellen for the famous Princess and later she spies the woman while she's having her hair done in the hotel salon. Although Ellen has never thought much about Diana, she admires the woman's penchant for beauty, fame and fortune. Her discovery that it really was Diana in that car, under that bridge, throws her into a maelstrom of confusion and self-doubt, particularly when Diana's spirit begins to talk to her.
As Diana's voice becomes louder, Ellen also obsesses over Max Kafka, a photographer who put the picture of the Princess on a memorial by the site of the accident. She decides to hunt him down, not because she wants to interrogate him about his involvement, but because she feels strangely drawn to him, her feelings for him somehow tied to her feelings for Diana.
Ellen is unhappy in her marriage and she's the first to confess that she doesn't have a single marketable skill, except that she's "good with people, and loves charities." Her mother, a former Miss Alabama, with her singing ventriloquist act, instilled in her from an early age that life is a pageant, "It's one big long beauty contest and the girl who gets the best husband wins." Consequently, Ellen now approaching middle age has found herself as a sort of "trophy wife" to a brilliant and talented man, who cares little about her emotional well being and ignores her efforts to achieve some semblance of independence.
Everything is just so frenetic for Ellen with everything rushing towards an end: "the summer, the century, the millennium, Diana" - there's also something else coming to an end that she just can't articulate - perhaps it's her marriage to Lawrence. Like Diana, Ellen has spent so much of her adult life trying to figure out what she was doing on the planet and she doesn't think she ever feels like she's finding the answer. It's only when Diana comes to her and tells her she doesn't regret a single act of love, that Ellen can make sense of her own desires.
Author Elizabeth Dewberry cleverly uses Ellen's predicament - and her reaction to Diana's death - to cast a protracted eye on the human condition, and the choices that people make and then regret. The themes are wide and far reaching: The nature of adoration - Diana chose men who gave her what she wanted, and then she did all her charity work to compensate, because she still wanted to deserve it. And the ability to connect - Ellen discerns that we are all intimately connected to the universe in ways we can't explain, and sometimes she feels it, "that infinite yearning for light in my own center, plain as desire."
His Lovely Wife is a very unique and distinctive novel, with its complex observations on the importance of science and the nature of the universe, and its view of a frustrated, lonely married woman with pent-up desires who is ultimately yearning just to connect. Dewberry, by the novel's end, isn't able to resolve any of Ellen's issues, although her journey is fraught with much self-knowledge. It is only through listening to Diana's voice that Ellen comes to the conclusion that life is all about love, "love defines who you are, making you willing to become someone your not, and in the process perhaps even a better person." Mike Leonard March 06.
Book Description
The first time I heard it, I laughed.
Oh, come on, I thought. He didn’t just say that.
We were at a restaurant in southern Ohio, where a hundred or so Democrats and a handful of young campaign workers had gathered to hear my husband, Sherrod Brown, announce for the seventh time in two days why he was running for the United States Senate.
The party chairman of the county stood up at the lectern and in a loud, booming voice, introduced “Congressman Sherrod Brown–and his lovely wife.”
By Week 40 of the campaign, I had been introduced that way nearly a hundred times. I stopped counting once we hit the 50 marker. I knew I was not the point at these gatherings, and I was so proud of the man who was.
Also, I realized I was getting cranky about something I could not change. If I couldn’t rely on a sense of humor, I was in for one long year on the campaign trail.
Writing with her trademark warmth, wit, and common sense, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz reveals the rigors, adrenaline joys, and absolute madness of a new marriage at midlife and campaigning with her husband, now the junior senator from Ohio. She describes the chain of events leading up to Sherrod’s decision to campaign for Senate (he would not run without his wife’s unequivocal support) in a state where no Democrat had won statewide office for twelve years. She writes about the moment her friends in the press became not so friendly; the constant campaign demands on her marriage and family life; a personal tragedy that came out of the blue. She gives us a candid behind-the-scenes look at the often ludicrous trials and tribulations of being an opinionated columnist, a political wife, and a newly married woman in her forties, and the rigors of political life: audacious bloggers, ruthless adversaries, campaign fatigue, political divas, the no-small-planes agreement, and staffers young enough to be her children suddenly directing her and her husband’s every move.
Filled with eye-opening revelations about the election process, . . . and His Lovely Wife illuminates through one woman’s story a marriage, our political system, our working lives, and our nation. Connie Schultz is outspoken, passionate, and very public about her opinions–in other words, every political consultant’s nightmare, and every reader’s dream.
Customer Reviews:
Small Airplanes.......2007-09-10
I was on a commercial flight from Cleveland to Washington last Spring. It was a particularly windy day and landing at DCA seemed problematic. On approach, one wing would dip and then the other. There was no applause on landing, but a collective exhale. Ohio's junior Senator, Sherrod Brown, was on that flight.
Connie Schultz is Sherrod's wife, a Pulitzer prize winning columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. ...and His Lovely Wife is her account of discovering the vicissitudes of Ohio politics through the eyes of a campaign wife during her husband's 2006 run for the Senate. The title comes from her irritation at the awkward manner in which she was frequently introduced by those not yet comfortable with married couples with different last names.
The book is a fascinating study of politics and romance, written with great humor and frequently great insight. It is especially readable because of the inclusion of details like Connie's insistance that her husband pledge not to fly in small airplanes during the campaign - too much of a temptation to fly when you shouldn't - too many dead candidates from choosing wrong:something I found ironic after that Spring landing in Washington.
O.K., I'm from Ohio. O.K., I'm sort of a political junkie. O.K. I'm a longtime Sherrod Brown fan. This book just sucked me through. After the few days it took be to go through it, my only disappointment was that there was not more.
A book that gives me hope for America .......2007-09-10
Smart, funny, and honest, ...and His Lovely Wife shows how crushingly difficult it is to run for public office. It also demostrates that there are still some honorable politicians who care deeply about average people. And there are dishonorable politicians willing to lie and slander in order to hang on to their power. (The incumbent Sherrod Brown defeated accused John Glenn--John Glenn--f being unpatriotic and soft on communism. The mind boggles.)
The book is also a lot of fun. Not surprisingly, Connie Schultz writes very well (Pulitzers are not given out as Cracker Jack prizes), and she can be very funny about the lunacy of campaigning. I'm glad Ms. Shultz has been able to go back to her life as a journalist, and I hope this book is read by everyone who cares about American politics and government.
Fluff and Fuzz.......2007-07-07
this is the same Connie Schultz who with her husband attacked the blogasphere and Paul Hackett who would have been a much better senator in my opinion. Unfortunately this state is too politically correct for a true plain spoken public servant such as Hackett. Instead we have a soft Bill Clinton like Hippie and his manly wife who bosses him around. Connie Schultz isn't so much of a crusader for women's rights as she is a leftover from the angry screechie's from the sixties who attack pornography, Miss America, cheer leading, bra's and just about anything else that makes a woman different from a man. Thankfully readers have a real rennaisance women such as Camille Paglia or Wendy McElroy to read instead of this bladerdash.
a bird's eye view of a crucial campaign.......2007-07-07
Schultz writes with humor and passion. She was there every inch of the way as her husband Sherrod Brown fought the underdog's battle and knocked off the incumbent Ohio senator, Mike DeWine. Political junkies will love this inside look at the campaign that shifted the balance of power in the US Senate.
Most telling, Schultz and Brown are progressives with strong Christian beliefs, a real slap across the kisser for all those holier than thou right wingers who trumpet their family values while having affairs on the side: Newt Gingrich-please don't run for office again.
Honest viewpoint.......2007-06-30
So many political memiors are thank you notes to supporters or influential people who can advance a politician's career. But, Ms. Schultz's book provides an outsider a view to the inside of a political campaign as well as to her inner most thoughts (at times) when it came to dealing with her own identity issues. As the book (and campaign) progresses, the reader can see how the humor and energy changes. This is a great read that will take you, from the wife's perspective, through the underbelly of how campaign strategy works and how the opponent's tricks play upon the candidate. It will take you, as well, through the inter mind workings of an intelligent woman who had to change her life and put her career on hold to support someone she loves.
This is not your normal political read. You do not need to be a "political junkie" to enjoy it. Anyone who has ever evaluated their own life, or had to deal with society's stereotypes of how wives and women are to "be"; or just want a good read with humor and insight on life thrown in, will enjoy this book.
Average customer rating:
- Not for every woman
- It's our turn
- Grrrrrrr
|
Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men
Valerie Gibson
Manufacturer: Firefly Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Love, Sex & Marriage | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Aging | Personal Health | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Interpersonal Relations | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Love & Romance | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Marriage | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Dating | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Aging | Aging Parents | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
jp-unknown2 | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:
-
Older Women, Younger Men : New Options for Love and Romance
-
A Much Younger Man
-
Be an Outrageous Older Woman
-
How to Make a Man Fall in Love with You: The Fail-Proof, Fool-Proof Method
-
Move Over, Mrs. Robinson: The Vibrant Guide To Dating, Mating, And Relating For Women Of A Certain Age
Accessories:
-
philosophy hope in a jar daily moisturizer
-
Omron HEM-780 Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor with ComFit Cuff
-
Health o Meter HDC100-01 "Grow with Me" Teddy Bear Scale for Babies and Toddlers
-
Avon ANEW CLINICAL Laser System
ASIN: 1552976351 |
Book Description
Today's liberated lifestyle has made room for a whole new set of relationships -- older women dating younger men.
She's confident, stylish, sophisticated and sexy, and she knows exactly what she wants -- hot young men and lots of great sex! She's not interested in children or commitment. She's a cougar, and she's on the prowl.
In
Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men, sex and relationships columnist Valerie Gibson takes the reader on a witty romp through all the excitement, satisfaction, drawbacks and pitfalls of dating younger men. Above all, she reminds readers that being a cougar is liberating, empowering and almost illegally fun. From hiding figure flaws during sex to surviving or avoiding a meeting with his (sometimes close-to-the-same age) mother,
Cougar is packed with invaluable advice for today's single woman -- whatever her age.
Customer Reviews:
Not for every woman.......2007-08-15
I recently saw a special on the WE television network which featured the author, who by her own admission, had been married 4 times by the time she was 40 years old. The special entitled "Cougars", featured women from age 39 to age 49 all dating men more than 10 years younger. All of these women had already been either married previously or had children so they had been down the domestic road of picket fence children and husband, now these women were simply looking to have a wild sexual time with no inhibitions, no strings for the most part, and just enjoy themselve with a young man. This of course plays exactly into the minds of what the committment shy male of this generation wants anyway. Why go out with a younger woman closer to his age, who will expect committment, a serious relationship that leads to marriage, when they can date a "Cougar" and just that relationship alone sets the boundaries, because of course a cougar can't expect a man so much younger than she is will marry her. (The Ashton Kutcher Demi Moore situation is very rare). Younger men love this scenario because it frees them from the so called drama they say they encounter from a woman who expects more. The older women like it because they've already experienced the marriage and children so they just want to have fun. This is not for everyone. If you're an older woman and still want committment and haven't married yet. (And it's interesting how they are starting to consider mid to late 30's as approaching "Cougar territory), but if you fall in that category a relationship like this with a much younger man will only most likely end in heart break especially if you want more. To each her on, but if you've been down the marriage path, and don't want to go that route anymore and you're just looking to go out have fun, be sexual and let the relationship stay at a certain level, then by all means, but if you're looking for more, the chances of that happening in a Cougar younger man relationship is slim to none. Don't let the hype about older hot sexy women having it all by dating younger men influence you. It is fun, if you want to keep it at a certain level.
It's our turn.......2006-08-01
As a 54 year old woman who sees men my age dating and marrying women half their age - I feel it is our turn to experience the same. I dated a younger man (my "boy toy") for four years - his family strongly disapproved of the age difference, but we had a wonderful time together until they finally got their way. I don't think cheap is the way to go. I do think grace, maturity, dignity, class is the road to take in this, as in all relationships. Be yourself, be gracious, be respectful, be mindful, and above all, be honest - with yourself, with him. If two people click, then age doesn't matter. I would never "use" a younger man. I would never "use" any man. Love is an incredibly wonderful thing between two people and age doesn't and shouldn't matter. If you find it - hold onto to it with all your might -- the wolf is always at the door.
Grrrrrrr.......2004-05-12
I was turned on to this book by a young man who was riding in my cab one evening. The man, in his twenties, looked like Harry Potter, but he was far from being a boy. He told me of this book and the world of the women know as Cougars. As we read together from Ms. Gibson's tome, I knew that as a twenty-something myself, I had to enter one of their lairs. That evening with Valarie Gibson's book in tow, we showed up at a variety of bars. When we pulled the book out, we immediately grabbed the attention of every 45 year old babe in the place. Not only is this book informative, it is just as good as a 22 year old man for cougar bait! Highly recommended.
Customer Reviews:
DECENT HISTORICAL FOR A RAINY AFTERNOON!.......2006-10-07
He was raised by the Apaches, she is captured by them and given to him as a slave. He feels he is unworthy of love since his father abused him and his mother abandoned him. She must break through his hard heart and teach him to love.
Was Okay.......2006-03-11
I liked it but it wasn't a book that you couldn't put down. It was Okay.
Wonderful Book!!!.......2003-07-23
I read this book in two days. It was so hard to put down. Each page left me anxiously awaiting to read the next. This is a must read for anyone enjoying historical Indian romance.
Great!.......2003-02-27
Such a sweet romance and so fun to read. the characters are wonderful and the storyline is perfect. Not to be missed. I put it up there with my favorites of late, Anything, My love by Cynthia Simmons and Savage Thunder by Lindsey.
Very Highly Recommended.......2000-07-06
Melissa Sheffield wanted to belong, craved respectability after early life incidents cast her family's reputation in shadow. Her chance for this 'happiness' is placed in peril when her fiance, a well-heeled fellow of high society in St. Louis, sets off for parts west on a grand adventure. Melissa decides to take action. She follows him. To her great dismay, her hasty plan goes awry when the caravan she travels with falls victim to an Apache raid. Even worse, she is captured and given to a member of the tribe as a slave--a slave! Will the man named Cougar rip the remaining dignity she possesses away from her...or will this enigmatic man actually be salvation from her living nightmare?
Cougar, otherwise known as Clay Brodie, is tortured by his place in the world. He wasn't born Apache, but claims them as his own. Yet he reluctantly faces his legacy as a white man when faced with the ultimate test he has been presented with thus far--break this woman's spirit or kill her. It galls him that this spitfire evokes feelings that he has sworn never to feel. He can't love anybody, especially after suffering the most crushing rejection a human can experience. It is better not to feel at all.
Ms. Thompson has created two strong characters and placed them into an intriguing tale. Melissa Sheffield gives as good as she gets, and Cougar aka Clay Brodie proves to be a gentle giant in spite of himself. Thompson's voice is strong, as it always is, yet I think in this historical she is in her element. Her warmth and humor breath life into the story and keep a reader turning the pages, long past time to go to sleep! Bravo!
Average customer rating:
- Touching & real. I'm inspired to learn more about leadership
- A new theme with an even newer view point.
|
Cougar Woman
Jane E. Hartman
Manufacturer: Aquarian Systems
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Native North & South Americans | Multicultural Stories | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | 18th Century | 19th Century | 20th Century | African American | Asian American | Classics | Collections & Readers | Drama | General | Hispanic | History & Criticism | Humor | Jewish American | Letters & Correspondence | Native American | Poetry | Short Stories | Women Writers
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Historical Fiction | History & Historical Fiction | Teens | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0961804513 |
Customer Reviews:
Touching & real. I'm inspired to learn more about leadership.......1999-05-14
This inspires all women to take charge of their lives and succeed. To watch a minority female in the 1800's achieve these heights clearly demonstrates how long we (women) have been fighting for our own voice.
A new theme with an even newer view point........1997-09-27
A book about the Indians of the southwest is not a new theme, nor is feminism. Cougar Woman, however, is the surprising blend of the two. A tender yet powerful story of a little girl who showed an extraordinary aptitude for warfare and leadership and was allowed to not only train with the young males of the tribe but to eventually become their leader and an excellent role model. A must read for young girls, feminists, historians and lovers of Indian tales.
Product Description
bestselling trilogy of the donovan sisters from lindsay mckenna!
Average customer rating:
|
Cougar's Woman
Ronda Thompson
Manufacturer: Leisure Books/ Dorcester Publishing Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000NQ5CP4 |
Average customer rating:
|
Cougar's Woman
Ronda Thompson
Manufacturer: Leisure Books/ Dorcester Publishing Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000K93MX8 |
Books:
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- Homemade Love
- House of the Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories
- I Served the King of England
- In the Beauty of the Lilies
- Legit Baller
- Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers
- Lili: A Novel
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Dirty Faith: Becoming the Hands and Feet of Jesus
- Turnabout: New Help for Woman Alcoholic
- Raw Creation: Outsider Art & Beyond
- The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel
- The Mitford Snowmen
- The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology
- Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship
- A Little Book Of Christmas Poems and Carols
- Texas Wildscapes: Gardening for Wildlife
- The Camp Men: The Ss Officers Who Ran the Nazi Concentration Camp System
Sacrament of Lies
A Dress for Diana
Break the Heart of Me
The Painted Veil
Diana Style: Foreword by Manolo Blahnik
