From Library Journal
Delinsky (Shades of Grace, LJ 1/96), the author of over 60 novels, has another winner: a woman's story of a marriage gone sour, seasoned with betrayal, disloyalty, unhappiness, and greed. Clair Raphael has a less-than-admirable spouse, yet she is doing her best to be a superwoman, catering to her beloved children and husband and in her spare time building a $20 million business called WickerWise. Returning home from a visit to her dying mother, she finds her children at her in-laws and is presented with a court order to vacate the house and to stay away from the children. Dennis wants a divorce, the house, full custody of the children, a hefty alimony, and half of the business. Add a chauvinistic judge and a biased family court adviser to the mix, and the result is fast and furious reading to see what happens next. Go for it.?Dawn L. Anderson, North Richland Hills P.L., Tex.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Prolific author Delinsky's latest novel, although television-movie-of-the-week fare, is certainly compelling right from page one. Claire Raphael is a successful entrepreneur in addition to being a good wife and mother. She and her business partner, Brody, own a chain of furniture stores across the country. Things appear to be going swell, until one day a life-altering jolt comes straight out of left field: Claire is served with papers notifying her that her husband not only intends to divorce her but also has obtained custody of their children--and, as if those things aren't bad enough--she must vacate their house immediately. Surrealistic nightmare that this may seem like, Claire simply can't sit back and wait to wake up; her plight is all too real, and she must battle preconceived notions of "a woman's place" at every turn before achieving a happy ending (with the love and support of partner-turned-lover Brody). Good, sensitive diversionary reading. Brad Hooper


From Kirkus Reviews
Run-of-the-mill divorce drama from a veteran author (Shades of Grace, 1996, etc.), this featuring the owner of a wicker-furniture chain who's betrayed by her husband but adored by someone much cuter. With a business to run, two kids to see to, and a dying mother, Boston businesswoman Claire Raphael has too much on her mind to notice that her husband, Dennis, a failed venture capitalist, has been exhibiting symptoms of restlessness and envy. Dennis does capture her attention, though, when Claire returns from a business trip to find the kids gone and a summons server waiting on her doorstep. It appears that Claire is being sued for divorce and has been removed from her house and separated from her children by court order on the grounds that by working too hard and having an affair with her CEO she's an unfit mother. Readers might feel sorry for the unjustly accused Claire if she didn't feel so monumentally sorry for herself. Declaring that ``wanting it all'' doesn't make her an evil person, she flees weeping into the arms of said CEO--incidentally her husband's former college roommate, and a handsome hunk with a house on the shore besides--and, while accepting a warm, tingly but emphatically platonic hug from him (photographed through the window, natch, by her jealous husband), decides that she won't take Dennis's false accusations lying down. Enlisting the aid of a lawyer, Claire starts digging up the dirt on Dennis, while simultaneously buying, refurbishing, and furnishing a charming old lighthouse to live in (this takes only one day, so organized is she), dealing with her daughter's allergies and her son's emotional withdrawal when Dennis proves incompetentas a psychological helper, and, just for fun, indulging after all in that affair with her CEO before she brings her former husband to his knees. Therapeutic, perhaps, for readers in the throes of their own divorces, but too formulaic for others. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Everything Claire Raphael has she's earned.On her own. The hard way. She built her part-time business up from nothing and made it successful through her imagination, creativity and hard work. She has two great children and Dennis, a husband she loves completely. Then, one evening, when Claire returns from a difficult business trip, Dennis hands her divorce papers along with a court order to vacate their house. And he's taking custody of the children. Claire is devestated. She had no idea her marriage was on the brink of disaster, that Dennis had been planning this ambush for weeks, if not months or that her hectic but happy life was about to come crumbling down around her. Claire doesn't know where to turn or whom to trust. But in a few short weeks she learns what so many women have had to discover -- that when the going gets tough, a woman's as tough as she needs to be..


About the Author
Barbara Delinsky is the bestselling author of more than sixty-five novels, including Shades of Grace, Together Alone, and For My Daughters. She lives in New England.

FROM THE PUBLISHER