There are rules to being a Hunting Hills wife, rules that newcomer Claire Stark, a journalist who grew up in impoverished Webster County, is initially unaware of. Fortunately Marti Denton's only too pleased to teach her. Unbeknownst to Claire, that's because Marti has her eye on Claire's husband John - a man she had no interest in at all until he came back from Europe married after a whirlwind romance.
This looked like a frothy enough bit of escapism, but I found the plot predictable and somewhat contrived - the incestuous little world of trivial, privileged women who think a disaster is someone wearing the same dress twice and husbands who exist solely to ear money and not embarrass their wives was bad enough, but the unprincipled hypocrisy, bed-hopping and cattery left a bad taste in my mouth.
There's a significant secondary plot about Marti's husband, who she senses is shifting away from her and who is not only having an affair (with, unsurprisingly, one of Marti's best friends) but has done dodgy stock shifting that leaves his friends and neighbours exposed, contributes to the plot. It also contributed to my utter distaste for almost every character. I felt as though I'd read it all before, only with more sympathetic characters and in a more interesting way. Clearly something about The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives registered, because I finished the novel, but I did so with a sense of bitter accomplishment rather than with pleasure. - Alex
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