Otherwise Engaged

What if you could live the life you've always dreamed of -- but never pursued? What if your choices -- married or single, career or motherhood, city or country -- could be made all over again? Bestselling author Eileen Goudge ponders "what might have been" in this tender, provocative tale of two best friends who exchange lives -- and discover the surprising places where their deepest joys and satisfactions live.
Jessie Holland is a journalist on the rise in New York City -- and she wouldn't trade her walk-up apartment or her 2:00 a.m. sushi takeout for anything. Only lately, she's been in search of a hot story, and praying her career isn't cooling off. When her editor at Savvy magazine poses a compelling question -- can you ever really go home again? -- Jessie spins the fantasy into a feature story. Could she return to her western hometown and be truly content? Can a bona fide New Yorker exchange her subway pass for an SUV and find happiness?
Erin Delahanty appears to have an enviable life as the owner of a popular bed & breakfast in a picturesque Arizona town. What's less visible are the escalating fights between Erin and her husband, Skip, and the tensions that are affecting their teenage daughter. When Skip unexpectedly leaves her, Erin turns to her best friend Jessie for comfort -- and is handed a stunning proposition: Come live in Manhattan for six months, while Jessie runs the inn and steps into her shoes.
Neither woman has anything to lose: Jessie's romance with recently divorced news bureau chief Jonathan Silver is at a crossroads, while Erin needs time to sort out her marriage. But the choices and challenges they face in their new worlds take them both by surprise....What began as a daring magazine article will change both women forever. Can you go home again? Find out in this surprising and emotionally compelling novel from one of the freshest and most original storytellers of our time.

Eileen Goudge is one of the nation’s most successful authors of women’s fiction. She began as a young adult writer, helping to launch the phenomenally successful Sweet Valley High series, and in 1986 she published her first adult novel, the New York Times bestseller Garden of Lies. She has published fifteen novels in all, including the three-book saga of Carson Springs, Thorns of Truth—a sequel to Gardens of Lies—and 2012’s The Replacement Wife. She lives and works in New York City. Visit her website at EileenGoudge.com.