Time Off for Good Behavior

This effervescent debut novel will strike a chord with every woman who has ever been tempted to give her life an extreme makeover.--Wendy Markham, author of "Slightly Single." Expressing anger is healthy. Wanda's gonna live forever. For Wanda Lane, life has been one long string of screw-ups. Her abusive ex-husband keeps threatening to kill her, she just lost her crappy job, and a head injury (sustained while diving off the witness stand to attack an obnoxious attorney) has left her hearing phantom music no one else can hear. It isn't until she hits the rock bottom of her bottle of scotch that she begins to wonder if maybe -- just maybe -- the problem is her. On her pothole-ridden path to becoming a decent human being, she makes friends with Elizabeth, a single mother looking for her own solid ground; Father Gregory, the patient priest who counsels Wanda, even though she's not technically Catholic; and Walter, a Jimmy-Stewart-ish lawyer who is smart, sexy and single... and so far out of Wanda's league that she thinks he must have been sent from God as one last punishment for her past transgressions. Can an angry, lost woman find her way back from failure, or are second chances the stuff of myth? Wanda's gonna find out. You may want to move out of her way.