Summary
Newly engaged, Ellie is thrilled to be accepted into the loving Cooper clan--which seems like the perfect family she never had--until she begins to realize that Dan's mom, Linda, is a little too involved. Dan and Linda talk on the phone every day. Twice a day. As Dan and Ellie's intimate civil wedding ceremony gets transformed into a black-tie affair, Ellie begins to wonder if it's possible to marry the man without marrying his mother.
As troubles mount, Ellie turns to her friends--glamorous Lisa, who always looks like she's just stepped off a runway, and wonderfully frazzled Trish--and tries to rediscover the independence she once had, and the man she still loves. But it seems that having a child and saving a marriage means growing up in ways she'd never imagined . . .
A warm, witty, and wise look at mothers-in-law and what they teach us about ourselves, The Other Woman is sure to please Jane Green's growing legion of fans.
Author Notes
"Jane Green" is the pen name for author Jane Green Warburg. She was born in 1968 in London, England. While in her twenties, she worked as a journalist for various national newspapers and magazines in London. At the age of 27, she wrote her first novel Straight Talking, which became a New York Times bestseller. Her books helped launch the phenomenon known as "chick lit", and gave her the nickname of "the queen of chick lit". Her novels include The Patchwork Marriage, Another Piece of My Heart, Promises to Keep, Dune Roard, The Beach House, Family Pictures, Tempting Fate, Summer Secrets. and Jenima J.
Green's title, Falling, made the New York Times Bestseller list in 2016.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Ellie's found her Mr. Right-too bad his mom's got him all wrapped up in her apron strings. Bestseller Green (Bookends; Jemima J; etc.) saddles her heroine with the mother-in-law from hell in her latest bit of comic frippery. Ellie's mom was an alcoholic who died when Ellie was 13, so it's understandable that at first she's "over the moon" about being embraced by Dan's entire family. But poor Ellie never saw the meddlesome Mrs. Cooper coming. Mrs. Cooper calls her three times a day at work, plays devoted son against desperate daughter-in-law, takes control of the wedding plans and then, after the wedding and then birth of Ellie's son, Tom, seems to forget that Ellie even exists ("Hello, my gorgeous boys," she croons into the answering machine). More and more significant troubles loom: having a baby is hard! Marriage is hard! Green offers scenes of real pathos. ("We've become one of those couples that I used to dread becoming: the couples that sit in restaurants all night and don't say a word to each other"). The setup is solid, but the prose is flat: Ellie narrates with all the energy and ?lan of a bored, middle-aged housewife. She perks up, though, at the requisite happy ending. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
When Ellie Black meets Dan Cooper, she feels as though she's found her best friend and soul mate. After an idyllic courtship, Dan proposes and Ellie happily accepts. She loves everything about Dan, even his family: his sister, Emma, has become her good friend, and his mother, Linda, might end up being the mother Ellie never had when she was growing up. Ellie's own family was far from ideal--her alcoholic mother died when she was 13, and Ellie and her father withdrew from each other almost completely. She hopes Dan's family will become her own, that is, until she gets to know Linda and realizes how controlling and manipulative she can be. Ellie's resentment toward Linda grows after she gets pregnant and gives birth to Tom. When an accident puts Tom's life at risk, Ellie's bottled-up emotions spill over and threaten not just her relationship with her mother-in-law but her marriage itself. Green, best-selling author of Jemima J (2000) and To Have and to HoldBKL Mr 1 04, is particularly adept at producing engaging women's fiction, and her latest is a prime example--warm, convincing, and eminently readable. Although at times Ellie's venomous anger toward her mother-in-law grates, overall, she is a sympathetic heroine. --Kristine Huntley Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Ellie Black is engaged to the man of her dreams, but he comes with baggage-namely, Linda Cooper, his needy, meddlesome, and obtrusive mother. Green's latest novel (a best seller in Britain) follows Linda's attempts to insinuate herself into every aspect of her new daughter-in-law's life. At first, Ellie is excited to become part of her husband's outwardly happy family, but the more she learns about the Coopers, the more dysfunctional they appear. When Linda is involved in a tragic accident with Ellie's newborn son, the aftermath nearly destroys both women's marriages and forces them to reconsider their relationships with their families and with each other. The mother-in-law from hell story is apocryphal in women's fiction, and this novel often treads familiar territory. In someone else's hands, it could have been yet another ho-hum chick-lit novel, propped up with overwrought melodrama or ridiculous slapstick. However, Green's trademark wit makes this a worthwhile read that will be enjoyed by a wider audience than most typical chick lit. Recommended for all public libraries.-Nanette Wargo Donohue, Champaign P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
1 Pulling a sickie is not something Iím prone to do. And, while Iíd like to say I feel sick, I donít. Not unless prewedding nerves, last-minute jitters, and horrific amounts of stress count. But nevertheless this morning I decided I deserved a day offóhell, possibly even twoó so I phoned in first thing, knowing that as bad a liar as I am, it would be far easier to lie to Penny, the receptionist, than to my boss. ìOh, poor you.î Pennyís voice was full of sympathy. ìBut itís not surprising, given the wedding. Must be all the stress. You should just go to bed in a darkened room.î ìI will,î I said huskily, swiftly catching myself in the lieómigraine symptoms not including sore throats or fake sneezesóand getting off the phone as quickly as possible. I did think vaguely about doing something delicious for myself today, something Iíd never normally do. Manicures, pedicures, facials, things like that. But of course guilt has managed to prevail, and even though I live nowhere near my office in trendy Soho, I still know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that should I venture outside on the one day Iím pretending to be sick, someone from work will just happen to be at the end of my street. So here I am. Watching dreadful daytime television on a cold January morning (although I did just manage to catch an item on ìupdos for weddings,î which may turn out to be incredibly useful), eating my way through a packet of custard creams (my last chance before the wedding diet goes into full acceleration), and wondering whether there would be any chance of finding a masseuseóa proper oneóto come to the house at the last minute to soothe the knots of tension away. I manage to waste forty-five minutes flicking through the small ads in the local magazines, but somehow I donít think any of those masseuses are what Iím looking for: ìguaranteed discretion,î ìsensual and intimate.î And then I reach the personal ads at the back. I smile to myself reading through. Of course Iím reading through. I may be about to get married but Iím still interested in seeing whatís out there, not that, I have to admit, Iíve ever actually gone down the personal-ad route. But I know a friend who has. Honestly. And a wave of warmth, and yes, Iíll admit it, smugness, comes over me. I donít ever have to tell anyone that I have a good sense of humor or that I look a bit like RenÈe Zellwegeróbut only if I pout and squint my eyes up very, very smallóor that I love the requisite walks in the country and curling up by a log fire. Not that any of thatís not true, but how lovely, how lucky am I, that I donít have to explain myself, or describe myself, or pretend to be someone other than myself ever again. Thank God for Dan. Thank you, God, for Dan. I slide my feet into huge fluffy slippers, scrape my hair back into a ponytail, and wrap Danís huge, voluminous toweling robe around me as I skate my way down the hallway to the kitchen. Dan and Ellie. Ellie and Dan. Mrs. Dan Cooper. Mrs. Ellie Cooper. Ellie Cooper. I trill the words out, thrilling at how unfamiliar they sound, how they will be true in just over a month, how I got to have a fairy-tale ending after all. And, despite the cloudy sky, the drizzle that seems to be omnipresent throughout this winter, I feel myself light up, as if the sun suddenly appeared at the living-room window specifically to shine its warmth upon me. The problem with feeling guilty about pulling sickies, as I now discover, is that you end up too terrified to leave the house, and therefore waste the entire day. And of course the less you do, the less you want to do, so by two oíclock Iím bored, listless, and sleepy. Rather than taking the easy option and going back to bed, I decide to wake myself up with strong coffee, have a shower, and finally get dressed. The cappuccino machineóan early wedding present from my chief executiveóshouts a shiny hello from its corner on the kitchen worktop, by far the most glamorous and high- tech object in the kitchen, if not the entire flat. Were it not for Dan, Iíd never use the bloody thing, and thatís despite a passion for strong, milky cappuccinos. Technology and I have never got on particularly well. The only technological area in which I excel is computers, but even then, now that all my junior colleagues are messing around with iPods and MPEGs and God knows what else, Iím beginning to be left behind there too. My basic problem is not so much technology as paper: instruction manuals, to be specific. I just havenít got the patience to read through them, and almost everything in my flat works eventually if I push a few buttons and hope for the best. Admittedly, my video recorder has never actually recorded anything, but I only ever bought the machine to play rented videos on, not to record, so as far as Iím concerned it has fulfilled its purpose admirably. Actually, come to think of it, not quite everything has worked that perfectly: The freezer has spent the last year filled with ice and icicles, although I think that somewhere behind the ice may be a year-old carton of Ben & Jerryís. And my Hoover still has the same dust bag itís had since I bought it three years ago because I havenít quite figured out how to change itóI cut a hole in it when it was full one time and hand-pulled all the dust out, then sealed it back up with tape and that seems to do the job wonderfully. If anything, just think how much money Iíve saved myself on Hoover bags. Ah yes, there is also the superswish and superexpensive CD player that can take four hundred discs at a time, but has in fact only ever held one at a time. So things may not work the way theyíre supposed to, or in the way the manufacturers intended, but they work for me, and now I have Dan, Dan who will not lay a finger on any new purchase until he has read the instruction manual cover to cover, until he has ingested even the smallest of the small print, until he can recite the manual from memory alone. And so Danóbless himónow reads the manuals, and gives me demonstrations on how things like Hoovers, tumble dryers, and cappuccino machines work. The only saving grace to this, other than now being able to work the cappuccino machine, is that Dan has learned to fine-tune his demonstrations so they last no longer than one minute, by which time Iíll have completely tuned out and will be thinking either about new presentations at work, or possibly dreaming about floating on a desert island during our honeymoon. But the cappuccino machine, I have to say, is brilliant, and God, am I happy I actually paid attention when Dan was showing me how it worked. It arrived three days ago, and thus far Iíve used it nine times. Two cups in the morning before leaving for work, one cup when I get home, and one, or two, in the evening after dinner, although after 8:00 p.m. we both switch to decaf. And as Iím tapping the coffee grains into the spoon to start making the coffee, I find myself thinking about spending the rest of my life with only one person. I should feel scared. Apprehensive at the very least. But all I feel is pure, unadulterated joy. Any doubts I may have about this wedding, about getting married, about spending the rest of my life with Dan have nothing whatsoever to do with Dan. And everything to do with his mother. Excerpted from The Other Woman by Jane Green All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
