Sexy advertising executive Jillian Campbell Marks is about to leave her job, her marriage and her city – on the same day. Fresh from her husband’s stinging affair with a twenty-five year old account executive on the Best deodorant account, she’s ready to wed again – this time to her new job at Boston’s second biggest advertising agency. There, she’ll work on the sexy new convertible account. And now maybe she’ll have time to connect with her estranged father and develop some hobbies – like restore her new two hundred year old farmhouse, learn how to prepare a meal and make some new friends.
But life in small town New England isn’t quite as charming as those features on NPR would have you believe. Jill’s adjustment it tricky at best, and it turns out that politics rule even the most provincial of offices. The new assignment isn’t exactly what they promised in the brochure, and Jill finds herself attending brainstorm branding sessions for beef, not BMWs, while withering under the steely glare of an icy Human Resources executive named Ellie Stewart.
To complicate matters, owning a beautiful old house nine hundred miles from nowhere without a man around to fix things isn’t easy. And being single and childless in a small town is like having an exotic virus – it fascinates and repels people. Her father’s glad to have her back in town, but is more focused on his new wife and stepdaughter – who just happens to be Jill’s junior by twenty-five years. When her well meaning but demented grandfather insists on donating some lonely animals for her barn to keep her company at, it’s all Jill can do to keep the ark afloat. And he’s got some hell bent notion about fixing her up with the town’s most eligible bachelor, an agricultural entrepreneur with sandpaper hands whom Jill can’t help but call…The Grain Man.
Enter Sarah, a feisty twelve year old tomboy with about as many issues as thirty-five year-old Jill. The two form an unlikely bond based on Jill’s fierce desire to be childless and Sarah’s bitter distaste for becoming a grown woman (yuck). Sarah teaches Jill how to care for the animals and property while Jill helps Sarah come to terms with getting her period. When an ugly discovery at Jill’s company begins to complicate matters, their relationship, and their ideas about friendship, children, parents and advertising - will be tested.
Published January 2007 by Simon & Schuster's Downtown Press. Read more at simonsays.com.
Real Women Eat Beef is available at amazon.com and barnes&noble.com(LINK