Featuring . . . My Wife's Affair by Nancy Woodruff

This Friday and every Friday for the next couple of months, I will be featuring a book that was published under the Amy Einhorn Books imprint. I am starting with the 2009 books and will spotlight them in alphabetical order by year.

Publisher's Weekly's starred review of My Wife's Affair opens by telling us that Nancy Woodruff "leaves not a dry eye in the house in this gripping ode to theater and the love it can command—and crush." The publisher summarizes the novel like this:

Georgie and Peter, very much in love, move to London with their three children. Once there, Georgie's dormant acting career takes off and she wins the role of Dora Jordan in a one-woman show. Dora Jordan was the most famous comic actress of the eighteenth century (she had thirteen illegitimate children, including ten by the future king of England).

As Georgie rehearses for her part, she becomes increasingly drawn to Dora Jordan, who she sees as a working mother with struggles exactly like her own. And when Georgie can no longer fight her attraction to the playwright, she begins an affair with tragic results.

Narrated by Peter, a failed-writer-turned-businessman, My Wife's Affair is about infidelity, passion, duty, and about finally getting what you want and then wanting still more.

I was initially attracted to My Wife's Affair for a number of reasons, including that it is set in London, it involves the theater, and it explores a marriage. But then I went to Nancy Woodruff's website and read the excerpt, and I was taken in by the prose. I wanted to read more . . . immediately.

After I saw what Kelly of KellyVision had to say, I ordered a copy of the book. I can't wait for it to get here. Kelly's review ends with: "Books like this one are why I read so much—because every so often, you find one that just grabs you and won't let you go and is dangerously close to perfection."

This book was featured as part of the Amy Einhorn Books Reading Challenge (click to join the fun). For information about the imprint, please read Amy Einhorn's open letter posted here on January 25, 2010.

My Wife's Affair at an Indie

My Wife's Affair at Powell's
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Published by Putnam/Amy Einhorn, April 2010
ISBN-13: 9780399156298