The Pretend Wife
By Bridget Asher
Category: Women's Fiction | Literary Fiction
May 25, 2010 | 304 Pages
Jun 09, 2009 | 288 Pages
About The Pretend Wife
What would life be like with the one who got away? From the acclaimed author of My Husband's Sweethearts comes this bighearted, funny, fiercely perceptive tale about a happily married woman and the little white lie that changed everything.
For Gwen Merchant, love has always been doled out in little packets—from her father, who lost himself in work after her mother's death, and from her husband, Peter, who's always been respectable and safe. But when an old college boyfriend, the irrepressible Elliot Hull, invites himself back into Gwen's life with a surprising proposition, she suddenly starts questioning everything she's ever expected from love.
Elliot, it turns out, is in need of a pretend wife, just for the weekend, in order to fulfill his dying mother's last wish. But as Gwen finds herself drawn into Elliot's quirky, wonderful family—and uncovers a few secrets about her own—a pretend relationship just might turn out to be the most real thing she's ever known.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Bridget Asher's The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted.
Also by Bridget Asher
See all books by Bridget Asher
About Bridget Asher
Bridget Asher is the author of My Husband's Sweethearts, The Pretend Wife, and The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted.
Published by Bantam
May 25, 2010 | 304 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780385341929
Ebook | $11.99
Jun 09, 2009 | 288 Pages | ISBN 9780553906646
People Who Read The Pretend Wife Also Read
"Asher … brings an abundance of warmth and wisdom to this tale of lost-and-found love."—Publishers Weekly
"Bridget Asher writes with intelligence, humor, and real humanity about the issues of contemporary life."—Lisa Tucker, bestselling author of Once Upon a Day and The Cure for Modern Life
"The Pretend Wife is a sexy rumination about love and loss, truth and lies, marriage and friendship, with a daring, propulsive plot. I loved Gwen Merchant and her passel of hilarious and heartbreaking friends. And the dilemma: what to do when The One Who Got Away comes back, after you married The One, is handled with a deft mixture comedy and complexity. I ate it up."—Lisa Gabriele, author of The Almost Archer Sisters and Tempting Faith DiNapoli
"Gwen is happily married until her dreamy ex asks if she'll act as his wife—just for the weekend, to please his dying mom. A cut above chick-lit."—People, summer reading round-up
"Succeeds with the aid of humor, insight and an appealing heroine. If this one has not yet been optioned for film, it soon will be."—Kirkus Reviews
"Balances the lighter side of life with the sadder realities. Surprising, poignant moments pave the way for a…satisfyingly happy ending."—Booklist
Random House Publishing Group: Your fiction explores unconventional twists on relationships-in The Pretend Wife, for example, your heroine decides to spend the weekend with an old flame as his spouse even though she is already married. Where do you get your ideas, and what's your personal view on family dynamics?
Bridget Asher: I never thought I'd be a wife, frankly. Never dreamed of my wedding day. And so the term "the pretend wife" has come to me over the years quite naturally. I sometimes still don't feel like a wife-the term itself is so wifey! But I've always been fascinated by love and the construct of marriage. I married for love but it's fascinating how we watch our friends and family sometimes marry for some other reason-safety, normalcy, acceptance. But the idea of love doesn't go away in these cases. It still exists. I wanted to explore the true love that got away. I wanted to write a love story about that love, and that's where The Pretend Wife came from.
Plus, we all have the beau who got away … and have always wondered: What if?
I'll also confess: I've never wanted to have a fling, but I have wanted to have whole other lives. Maybe I'm not alone in this. Maybe this is part of the pleasure of writing and reading novels-we get to know what it is to live other lives.
RHPG: You write fiction, young adult novels, and have four kids? What's your writing routine, and how do you manage to get it all done?
Bridget: My creative process is simple: constant interruption. In fact, if I were allowed to seclude myself in some cabin in the woods to write day and night in peace and quiet, I'd figure out a way to self interrupt. I'd buy a herd of hound dogs. I'd invite over the locals from the bar. I'd ask someone to take a backhoe to the yard-one that beeps loudly in reverse. In other words, your world shapes your writing not the other way around.
RHPG: You grew up in the South and currently live in Florida. Is there a special perspective being from this region-which has such a rich, literary tradition-that influences your writing? And if so …
Bridget: My grandmother, an ample Southern belle with a penchant for poodles and handguns, taught me most of what I know about storytelling. The Southern storytelling tradition crept into everything. You don't get answers to questions; you get stories-vivid, lurid, deeply embellished and irrefutably true. My mother kept the storytelling tradition alive and passed it on. I'm product of both nature and nurture.
RHPG: What's up next?
Bridget: This past summer, I spent five weeks in the south of France with my husband and five kids in tow. We got robbed. We muddled through our mediocre French, felt like foreigners in a foreign land. We also ate amazing cheeses and enjoyed the chocolate shoved into everything, and drank wine from the surrounding vineyards. We learned to enjoy pistou and live among swallows and lilacs. It was like a cure for what ailed us. And this title came to me: The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted. That's what I'm at work on now-reliving it all.