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Social Lives    by Wendy Walker Amazon.com order for
Social Lives
by Wendy Walker
Order:  USA  Can
Griffin, 2010 (2009)
Hardcover, Softcover, e-Book
* *   Reviewed by Joan Burton

Wiltshire, Connecticut is a wealthy community where people live in luxury, but cannot find any pleasure in life. They have beautiful homes, manicured gardens, and expensive cars. The men work and the women attend to the children, the house, and the needs of their husbands, along with working on their own social life. Rosalyn Barlow has done her job well. She has the most envied social standing in town, but is starting to feel threatened.

Fourteen year old Caitlin Barlow has been caught giving friend benefits to a boy at school, and now Rosalyn wants to silence the gossip that could ruin her daughter's reputation. Rosalyn's husband Ernest - or Barlow, as he is known - is a self-made billionaire, growing distant to her in his early retirement. Rosalyn wants to host an event at the Winchester Academy to inform parents of this new trend in which the teenagers are involved.

Newcomer Sara Livingston has a great dislike for the people of Wiltshire. They moved to the community because her Wall Street husband Nick grew up there. She fears bringing another child into the world she resents. Jacqueline Halstead has just discovered her husband is under investigation for hedge fund fraud. She finds herself doing the unthinkable to save her family from disaster. Eva loves her role as wife, but is always trying to sabotage someone else's marriage. When she learns Barlow and Jacqueline are having an affair she informs Rosalyn it is Sara.

Social Lives centers around four very different families, each with their own problems ranging from financial deceit to infidelity and teenage angst. It is an entertaining look at the lives of the rich who are not content, and always wanting more.

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