Whether or not you are one of the 15 million or so divorced women in America, you will appreciate this novel of survival, resilience, and above all friendship. This empowering and totally entertaining novel follows the lives of four Los Angeles women who are each in their own stage of the dreaded D word, struggling to make sense of it all and come out of it intact.

These women - Diane, Lana, Annette and Bonnie - are as different as can be yet in so many ways experience the same journey as they move from the fairy tale to reality, and find out that there can still be a fairy tale on the other side. As they each suffer their own brand of heartbreak, these women interact and lean on each other - not quite so readily at first - in ways that truly prove that it’s your gal pals who can see you through what you may not make it through alone.

Lehr skillfully weaves the four stories together, and the jumps between one woman’s tale to another are seamless and smooth. Her characters are strong even in their weaknesses, and Lehr has developed them into rounded, real women we can all relate to in one way or another.

Watching Diane evolve out of her boring, dull marriage; seeing Lana make the comeback of a lifetime; standing with Bonnie as she finds her courage to up and leave; and cheering for Annette as she comes to see the light – reading this novel left me, a divorced woman myself, feeling stronger, happier and, well, freer than ever. It’s good to have role models, even if they are fictional ones.

Divorce is a club nobody wants to join, but as Lehr shows, it can be one hell of a club once you find yourself there!