From Publishers Weekly
The separate stories of two women--one a career-driven late-20th-century professional and the other a 1950s housewife--are awkwardly juxtaposed in this third novel by British author Buchan (Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman; The Good Wife Strikes Back). Thirty-five-year-old Siena Grant enjoys a life that many women only dream of. A highly successful fashion consultant with her own business, a magazine column, a book deal and an American television show, Siena is also married to a loving, sensitive man. She and Charlie live in a trendy flat and enjoy intimate little suppers. What more could anybody want? For starters, Charlie is dreaming of a country home and children--not a life that appeals to the oh-so-chic Siena. Meanwhile, in 1959, 42-year-old Barbara Beeching, a married mother of two grown children, lives with her pilot husband, Ryder, in a charming country home and hosts the most delightful little parties. Perfect partners, Barbara and Ryder survived the atrocities of war over England and now face the rest of their lives as Ryder thinks of retirement and Barbara thinks of... Alexander Liberty, a hunky psychiatry student whose passion for her takes her by surprise. The ungainly setup--the two stories only glancingly connect at the novel's conclusion--is partly mitigated by Buchan's warm writing and her realistic portrayal of the choices women continue to face, but this isn't quite up to the standard of her previous two outings. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
With just the right blend of heartfelt feminism and humor, British author Buchan (Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, 2003) crafts another women's-crisis story that accurately captures the doubts and fears about personal fulfillment experienced and rarely resolved by two generations of women. The drama begins with Sienna, a young, successful British fashion consultant in the present, whose "psycho-situation" with her husband, Charlie, centers on his desire for children and hers to pursue a television opportunity in the U.S. Then the camera pans to Barbara, who, in 1959, meets an attractive younger man and suddenly finds her life as a well-groomed farmwife constricting. In alternating chapters, Buchan uses these two women's experiences to portray women's changing values in the twentieth century, from home and family to career and family, and the difficulties real women have in balancing their suddenly disparate priorities. Without falling into trite stereotypes, Buchan affectionately reveals Sienna and Barbara in a thoughtful melange of scenes that most women will find compelling. Jennifer Baker
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
No one has captured the complexities of marriage at middle age better than Elizabeth Buchan. Now she is back with another irresistibly entertaining and thoughtful tale of two women at the crossroads—of love, of freedom—who wonder, Where does happiness lie? It is the summer of 1959 when forty-two-year-old Barbara Beeching, a married mother of two grown-up children, meets Alexander Liberty. Adored by her family and admired by her friends, Barbara never imagined that an unexpected, tender, and surprisingly passionate affair with a much younger man was on the horizon. Will she allow it to destroy the only life she’s ever known? Forty years later, thirty-five-year-old Siena Grant is at a very different crossroads. Immersed in her challenging career as a television fashion consultant, Siena does not believe that happiness requires having children. But her husband, Charlie, disagrees. Can Siena give Charlie the family life he craves without sacrificing her ambition or well-ordered life? Or will children give her a kind of joy she’s never experienced before? Decades separate Barbara and Siena—years in which the lives of women and the battle of the sexes have changed substantially. Or have they?
About the Author
Elizabeth Buchan is the author of nine books, including the bestselling Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman and the prizewinning Consider the Lily.
Everything She Thought She Wanted FROM THE PUBLISHER
"It is the summer of 1959 when forty-two-year-old Barbara Beeching, a married mother of two grown-up children, meets Alexander Liberty. Adored by her family and admired by her friends, Barbara never imagined that an unexpected, tender and surprisingly passionate affair with a much younger man was on the horizon. Alexander tells Barbara that she has a mind and a life of her own and, to her astonishment, Barbara is seduced into a different way of thinking. Will she allow the unexpected bloom of passion and intellectual curiosity to destroy the only life she's ever known?" "Forty years later, thirty-five-year-old Siena Grant is at a very different crossroads. Immersed in her challenging, exciting career as a television fashion consultant, Siena does not believe that happiness necessarily requires becoming a mother. But her husband, Charlie, desperately wants a child. Can Siena give Charlie the family life he craves without sacrificing her ambition or well-ordered, pleasing life? Or will children give her a kind of joy she's never experienced before?" Decades separate Barbara and Siena - years in which the lives of women have changed substantially. Or have they? Everything She Thought She Wanted reaches across time and the battle of the sexes to tell the story of two women at the most exhilarating and pivotal moments in their lives.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
The separate stories of two women-one a career-driven late-20th-century professional and the other a 1950s housewife-are awkwardly juxtaposed in this third novel by British author Buchan (Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman; The Good Wife Strikes Back). Thirty-five-year-old Siena Grant enjoys a life that many women only dream of. A highly successful fashion consultant with her own business, a magazine column, a book deal and an American television show, Siena is also married to a loving, sensitive man. She and Charlie live in a trendy flat and enjoy intimate little suppers. What more could anybody want? For starters, Charlie is dreaming of a country home and children-not a life that appeals to the oh-so-chic Siena. Meanwhile, in 1959, 42-year-old Barbara Beeching, a married mother of two grown children, lives with her pilot husband, Ryder, in a charming country home and hosts the most delightful little parties. Perfect partners, Barbara and Ryder survived the atrocities of war over England and now face the rest of their lives as Ryder thinks of retirement and Barbara thinks of... Alexander Liberty, a hunky psychiatry student whose passion for her takes her by surprise. The ungainly setup-the two stories only glancingly connect at the novel's conclusion-is partly mitigated by Buchan's warm writing and her realistic portrayal of the choices women continue to face, but this isn't quite up to the standard of her previous two outings. Agent, Mark Lucas. (Mar. 21) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
A 1950s wife indulges in an affair; a 1990s wife resists having kids. Plus a change . With an eight-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Two stories, set decades apart, reflect unreliably on the gender wars. Buchan's latest (The Good Wife Strikes Back, 2004, etc.) presents Siena, a London fashion columnist on the rise. She's been tapped to star in an American makeover show, a hybrid of What Not To Wear and Queer Eye, complete with a sidekick named Fersen. The second story's character, Barbara, is a suburban housewife in the 1950s, married to Ryder, a commercial pilot who suffers flashbacks of Spitfire dogfights from WWII. Her burgeoning fruit garden and two adult children preoccupy her until she encounters Alexander, a handsome twentysomething psychology student. As for Siena, at 35, (the new 25), she has set her biological clock on snooze: her rocketing career deafens her even to husband Charlie's increasingly strident pleas for children and a house in the suburbs. Barbara, on the other hand, at 42 (the old 52), is still attractive, and her husband is always flying to Nigeria, so she and Alexander consummate their love during an idyllic riverside picnic. Charlie, a legal-aid lawyer defending a woman accused of murdering her infant, fails to understand just how tired a mother can get, while Barbara tries to forget Alexander on a romantic trip to Switzerland with Ryder. But when the airline later calls Ryder away, Alexander shows up for one last tryst. Meanwhile, back in the 21st century, Siena and Charlie can't have a coherent discussion. Charlie goes incommunicado, maybe house-hunting, maybe trying to rekindle something with his ex-wife; Siena goes back to New York to dress the truculent with the aid of the recalcitrant; the banished Alexander makes a halfhearted play for Barbara's niece Sophie; and Barbara is latelynauseated by every little thing . . . could it be? Just when things are getting interesting, it all ends, Siena teetering on the brink of motherhood and house pride. Barbara's story is the more realized; Siena's a tritely topical afterthought: neither profits from the pairing. Author tour
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