The Ex-Debutante
St. Martin's Press
Literature and Fiction: Chick Lit
April 1, 2008
ISBN-13: 0312354967
Available in: Hardcover
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The Ex-Debutante
by Linda Francis Lee
Carlisle Wainwright Cushing, of the old-moneyed Willow Creek, Texas, Wainwrights, is the daughter of larger-than-life Ridgely Wainwright . . . Cushing-Jameson-Lackley-Harper-Ogden. Given her mother's predilection for divorce, no one is surprised that Carlisle becomes a divorce lawyer and runs far away to Boston, where no one, including her fiancé, knows she's an heiress. But now, three years later, Carlisle is lured back to Texas to deal with her mother's latest divorce and the family-sponsored 100th annual debutante ball which is on the verge of collapse.
Suddenly the determined lawyer is weighing the merits of beads versus crystals on ball gowns and teaching eighteen-year-olds to balance books on their heads, all the while trying to figure out how to tell her deeply Southern mother that she is engaged to a Yankee. Things go from bad to worse and soon Carlisle's afraid she'll never get back to Boston, especially when good ol' Southern boy Jack Blair shows up on the opposite side of the divorce court, making her wonder if the man is going after her mother in the proceedings, or her.
Carlisle's trip home challenges her sense of who she really is and forces her to face the secrets her family has tried to keep, well, secret. Funny and smart, poignant and true, The Ex-Debutante is a story about the risks one woman must take if she stands a chance of finding herself, real love, and her place in that crazy thing we call family.
Other Books by Linda Francis Lee
Linda Francis Lee's Bio
RITA nominated author Linda Francis Lee is a native Texan now calling New York City home. Not crazy about heights, she's not sure how she ended up living on the 34th floor of a high rise in Manhattan. But there she is, diving into the brand new adventure of writing contemporary romance novels.
Lee's career truly began with the publication of the historical romance, Blue Waltz, which has been viewed as a breakthrough novel. The Atlanta Journal/Constitution called it "absolutely stunning."
Growing up, Lee created stories in her head. "That's a nice way of saying I spent too much time day dreaming," she laughs. At 20, realizing that she had done most of her living vicariously through reading, Lee took on a series of challenges. "I did things I thought I couldn't do," she recalls.
Among a laundry list of challenges, Lee began running and taking math and science courses until she ran a marathon and became a Probability and Statistics teacher. But it was writing that captured her imagination. Eleven books later, Lee's stories have been called wildly romantic and deeply emotional, a moving combination of laughter and tears.