The New Me by Mary Marcus is her contemporary literary/women's fiction novel exploring the insights and occasional satirical humour surrounding a bored empty-nester's attempted stealth makeover of a younger woman in similar discontent-with-her-current-life straits into a new and improved version of her own younger self, free courtesy of small publisher The Story Plant's Fiction Studio imprint, which is run by ex-Big 6 editor Lou Aronica (
ISFDB,
Wikipedia), who used to handle Robert Silverberg's stuff, among other prominent sfnal genre names.
This was the B&N Free Fridays selection and the publisher is also holding a $1.99 sale on selected other works in their catalogue, which you can see in the
B&N blogpost here, along with the weekly free game app.
Currently free, probably just for the rest of the day @
B&N (also
UK).
Description
Harriet is floundering. She’s in her early forties, her kids have gone to college, her marriage feels empty, her cable TV cooking show has lost its sense of inspiration, and she longs to leave the West Coast for New York. Then one day she meets Lydia, a gorgeous woman in her late twenties. Lydia reminds her so much of herself a decade or so past, and her husband, who hardly likes anything, likes Lydia as well. It slowly dawns on Harriet that Lydia could be the answer to everything that’s ailing her. All she needs to do is turn Lydia into “the new me.”
Reminiscent of the work of Susan Isaacs and Nora Ephron, THE NEW ME is a witty, poignant, perceptive, and beautifully written novel about change and the price of becoming who you want to be.