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You might say that reporter Penelope Mercury’s life is in retrograde. After years of paying her dues at the New York Telegraph, she found herself once again passed by for a much-deserved promotion. She wasn’t exactly planning to quit her job—or throw up on her boss, for that matter—but that’s what happened. And now she’s unemployed.
Dana Gluck, meanwhile, is in her own kind of retrograde. The hard-working lawyer once thought that her whole life was planned out. She had the perfect husband, and they were trying to have a baby. But her husband got impatient and left her for a supermodel—and now they’ve got a baby on the way.
And then there’s Lena “Lipstick Carcrash” Lippencrass. The pampered heiress once lived off her father’s fortune—until he demanded that she quit her job at fashion magazine Y and join the family business. Determined to make it on her own, she’s moved into a tiny SoHo apartment.
Connected by their address and their semi-weekly private yoga class, they find friendship and support in one another as they try to get their lives spinning in the right direction.
If anyone knows high society, it’s Paula Froelich, gossip reporter and former editor of the New York Post’s infamous Page Six. So it’s no big surprise that her first novel, Mercury in Retrograde, would be both delightfully dishy and utterly entertaining—with a touch of high fashion thrown into the mix.
Mercury is like three interconnected works of chick lit, starring three surprisingly likeable leads from different backgrounds (though two of them are originally from Ohio, for some reason). Each of the three is struggling with her own set of issues—though they rarely get so caught up in their own issues that they become whiny and annoying. They’re all simply women in transition—whether they’re recovering from a bad marriage, a bad job, or a dangerously pampered lifestyle—and readers are sure to relate to at least some of their problems, in one way or another.
Though the story is fluffy and totally predictable (in that formulaic, chick lit kind of way), Froelich’s easy-going style makes Mercury in Retrograde an enjoyable novel. She writes with a touch of humor, seasoning the story with a bit of romance—and she even incorporates a good message or two, too. It’s Page Six meets Project Runway, all wrapped up in a light and undemanding package—just the thing to bring along on your next vacation.
