Girls' Night In

Book excerpt: Grab a cocktail and have a girls’ night in! For the first time together, enjoy three stories of bold women searching for their best lives, with the support of their closest girlfriends. Hot Mess by Emily Belden Twentysomething Allie Simon is used to playing by the rules—until Benji Zane walks into her world and pulls her into his. The young chef is as famous for his struggle with addiction as he is for his creative culinary pairings, but Allie convinces herself that loving someone means supporting them no matter what. So when Benji’s offered an opportunity to open a new high-profile restaurant, Allie takes the ultimate risk and invests her life savings in his dream. But then Benji disappears, and Allie finds herself thrust into the cutthroat culinary world, where she can either crumble completely or fight like hell for the life she deserves. Something Like Happy by Eva Woods Annie is stuck in a life no thirty-five-year-old would want. Deep down, she’s mourning the terrible loss that tore a hole through her perfect existence. Until she meets Polly. Bright, bubbly, intrusive Polly is determined to wake her new friend up to life. Because if recent events have taught Polly anything, it’s that your time is too short to waste a single day—which is why she wants Annie to join her on a mission: one happy thing each day for one hundred days. But just as the daily challenge opens Annie up to the possibility of joy, it becomes clear that Polly is about to need her more than ever. And Annie will have to decide once and for all whether letting others in is a risk worth taking. Campaign Widows by Aimee Agresti Cady Davenport is living the American dream…but when her husband-to-be hits the road for the upcoming presidential election, Cady realizes she’s on her own—and that her dream life might not be all she’d imagined. Until she finds herself thrust into the most influential inner circle in Washington, DC: the campaign widows. As friends, they’re an unlikely group, but they share one undeniable bond: their spouses are all out on the trail during a hotly contested election season. With the pressures of the unprecedented election mounting, the widows’ worlds keep turning as they hold down the fort while running companies, raising babies, racking up page views and even reinventing themselves. And their friendship might be just what Cady needs to find the strength to pursue her own happiness.