Stacey Ballis is the author of seven foodie novels: Inappropriate Men, Sleeping Over, Room for Improvement, The Spinster Sisters, Good Enough to Eat, Off the Menu, and Out to Lunch. She is a contributing author to three nonfiction anthologies: Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, and Living Jewishly. She is currently writing two new works of full-length fiction for Berkley/Penguin. She was an educator for more than fifteen years in Chicago, including teaching high school English in the Chicago Public Schools and serving as director of education and community programs for Goodman Theatre for seven seasons, before pursuing a full-time career in writing and consulting.
Out to Lunch
eBook
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ISBN-13:
9781101612545
- Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
- Publication date: 12/03/2013
- Sold by: Penguin Group
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 432
- Sales rank: 71,004
- File size: 923 KB
- Age Range: 18 Years
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A touching and hilarious novel from the fabulous Stacey Ballis about best friends, true love, and the joy of food—for fans of Jen Lancaster, Jennifer Weiner, and Emily Giffin...
Jenna has lost her best friend.
With Aimee gone so tragically young, Jenna barely knows where to turn. Aimee was the one who always knew what to do—not to mention what to wear. The two built a catering company together and had so much in common—well, except their taste in men. Jenna never understood what the successful, sophisticated Aimee saw in Wayne, with his Star Wars obsession and harebrained business schemes.
And gained her best friend’s husband…
But Aimee has left a shocking last request: Jenna now has financial custody of the not-so-merry widower. True, Wayne needs someone sensible around to keep him under control, but what was her dear departed friend thinking?
The thing is, as she gets to know Wayne better, his latest moneymaking idea actually starts to intrigue her. Her attractive new lawyer boyfriend doesn’t approve of it—but then, Wayne doesn’t approve of her attractive new lawyer boyfriend. Now Jenna has to figure out what direction her life is going to take next. And she can’t help asking herself: What would Aimee do?
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Ballis (Off the Menu, 2012, etc.) delves again into foodie women's lit with flavorful results. For all of Jenna's adult life, her best friend, Aimee, has been by her side. Inseparable as college roommates, they became wildly successful by their early 40s, building and then selling an events and catering company. They talked every day, ran a hobby cookbook shop and had planned to sail through the rest of their lives together, until Aimee's untimely death cut that plan--and Jenna's life as she knew it--short. Emotionally stranded, Jenna finds ways to fill the days. She sees a therapist. She cooks and bakes for her warm and enthusiastic bookstore family. She tentatively begins a new romance. She cares for her dachshund. And she tries to deal with Wayne--Aimee's widower and the one part of her best friend's life Jenna never understood. Thanks to Aimee's will, they are stuck together on a financial front, and Jenna must figure out what elegant Aimee saw in her Star Wars–obsessed, criminally clumsy husband. It isn't easy. Jenna resents Wayne and the fact that she has to deal with him when she doesn't know how to deal with her own grief. Unsurprisingly, it's when Jenna and Wayne begin to see each other as people in their own right, and not in relation to Aimee, that the healing begins. Some of the story's pleasure derives from the sheer Pinterest-quality abundance of goods--cookies, cashmere and Chicago restaurants abound. A recipe index is offered for aspiring chefs. But Ballis has real things to say about relationships and grief, and at its best, this book is honest and touching. A cozy meal, with dessert.