The Other Woman by Sandie Jones

Are you ever just so tired that you feel like a slug? Probably no. You are likely one of those annoying, eternally perky people. I detest you. I really do. Okay, maybe I'm jealous. So what? I'm just in a mood, noticing all those signs of aging and resenting the young. My friend said she pulled a muscle the other day just putting on her bra. Hell, I pulled my back just sneezing "the wrong way".  People told me the day I hit 40 it would start, the very day...like on my birthday. Sadly, those wack-a-doodles were completely right. Now this is where I'll write nothing else, since I just mentioned turning 40 and act like I just had that milestone. In actuality, I've lied about my age so much recently when the doctor asked me how old I was, I had to get out my fingers to count. (Get them out, like they were "put away".) I'd say I got out an abacus, but you are all probably too young to even know what that is, which will really tick me off, which will make me sigh and feel even more tired. You see this aging thing is a vicious circle.

Anyway, after reading the amazing 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, I needed a break. I picked a thriller called The Other Woman by Sandie Jones. Honestly, I chose it because it is recent and shorter, just under 300 pages. This book was a great break for my character-laden brain. It follows a girl, Emily, who falls in love with Adam. Unfortunately Adam has a wicked Mother, who doesn't like Emily.  Seemed like a plot that has been done quite a bit. Just turn on the TV any Saturday afternoon, bypass the 9,000th showing of Shawshank Redemption (still love ya Stephen King) and Dirty Dancing, to see Jane Fonda in action in Monster-in-Law. The common plot didn't bother me, obviously, since I bought the book and it called to me from my stack to read. I'm glad it did. Sandie Jones is the kind of writer I like. She skips the BS. Not that background story is BS, but...how do I explain it? If she says something is going to happen on Wednesday, the story immediately skips to that event on Wednesday. I love it. No waiting while the characters do their laundry on Tuesday night, making me wonder why I'm spending so much time reading this book instead of doing my own laundry. Nope, Sandie Jones skips to the good stuff. THANK YOU! This made the book so much faster paced and so much more pleasant to read. The story moves quickly to a conclusion which I am certain I had figured out, but alas was happily wrong again.

A very pleasant read, would make a great plane or beach read.