The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax: Book Cover

    The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

    BUY IT NEW

    • $15.00 List price
      $12.00 Online price
      $10.80 Member price
      (Save 27%)
      Limited Time Offer! Everyone receives the Member Price on books.
      See Details
    • skip to cart
    • Add To List uiAction=GetAllLists&page=List&pageType=list&ean=9780425227671&productCode=BK&maxCount=100&threshold=3

    GET FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OF $25 OR MORE

    DELIVERY & GIFT DETAILS:

    Usually ships within 24 hours

    Delivery Time and Shipping Rates

    Eligible for gift wrap & gift message.

    BUY IT USED

    16 copies from $2.75

    See All Available

    Pick Me Up

    Reserve it at BN.com & pick it up in 60 minutes at your local store.

    Enter a zip code

    (Paperback)

    • Pub. Date: June 2009
    • 432pp
    • Sales Rank: 13,375
    Harper's Magazine Offer>See Details

      Reader Rating: (8 ratings)

      Detailed Rating: "Characters" See All

      More Formats 
      Available in eBook$9.99
      Buy it Used: 16 copies from $2.75 See All Available

      Customers who bought this also bought

       
      • Overview
      • Editorial Reviews
      • Customer Reviews

      Product Details

      • Pub. Date: June 2009
      • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
      • Format: Paperback, 432pp
      • Sales Rank: 13,375

      Synopsis

      Once upon a time four aspiring authors met at their very first writers' conference. Ten years later they're still friends, survivors of the ultra-competitive New York publishing world. Mallory St. James is a workaholic whose bestsellers support a lavish lifestyle. Tanya Mason is a single mother juggling two jobs, two kids, and too many deadlines. Faye Truett is the wife of a famous televangelist and the author of inspirational romances: no one would ever guess her explosive secret. Kendall Aims's once-promising career is on the skids-and so is her marriage. Her sales are dismal, her new editor detests her work-and her husband is cheating. Barely able to think, let alone meet her final deadline, Kendall holes up in a mountain cabin to confront a blank page and a blanker future. But her friends won't let her face this trial alone. Together they collaborate on a novel using their own lives as fodder, assuming no one will ever discover the truth behind their words.

      No one is more surprised than they are when the book becomes a runaway bestseller. But with success comes scrutiny and scandal...as these four best friends suddenly realize how little they've truly known each other.

      Anne M. Miskewitch - Library Journal

      Wax (Single in Suburbia) offers a warm, triumphant tale of female friendship and the lessons learned when life doesn't turn out as planned. At age 45, Kendall Aims is seasoned but shadowed in her writing career-counting on the famed Zelda Award to validate her work and her life. When she fails to win the award, she loses her publishing contract, then goes home to realize that she may lose her marriage. In the midst of all this disappointment, Kendall is told that she's contractually obligated to write one more book. Her friends Mallory, Tanya, and Faye, all writers with varying degrees of personal and professional success, rally together and help her complete the novel. Because they all passionately agreed to make this an anonymous endeavor, they cathartically share secrets they wouldn't have under their actual names. Little do they know that this joint venture will be such a success-and such a fiasco. Wax sheds insight on the writer/reader relationship and nurtures this invisible bond throughout. Sure to appeal to fans of women's fiction and aspiring writers.

      Customer Reviews

      Great Readby WINDIE

      Reader Rating:
      See Detailed Ratings

      October 04, 2009: Loved the book. It is all about frienships, marriage and a little lying. It is about those who help you through tough times and the secrets we all keep from each other.

      The Accidental Bestsellerby BANCHEE_READS

      Reader Rating:
      See Detailed Ratings

      September 15, 2009: Wendy Wax has written a book chockful of interesting characters -- from Kendall, the empty nester who leaves the conference early only to find that her husband is having an affair; to Tanya, my favorite character, the hopeful trailer park dweller who hopes to write her way to a better life; to Mallory (whom I didn't care for so much) who appears to be patterned on Judith Krantz with her romantic clothes, fistful of bestsellers and seemingly perfect life. Finally, there's Faye Truett, the pastor's wife who writes "inspirationals" and the lowly editorial assistant who is much wiser and more savvy than her uninspired boss, Plain Jane. In some ways, the whole premise and set-up reminded me a bit of David Lodge's books about academia, in which there are a number of memorable characters whose stories intersect, weaving back and forth between them.

      I Also Recommend: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Twenties Girl, Love's Eclipse Of The Heart.


      More Customer Reviews