Lorna Landvik is the bestselling author of Patty Jane's House of Curl, Your Oasis on Flame Lake, The Tall Pine Polka, and Welcome to the Great Mysterious. She is also an actor, playwright, and proud soccer mom.

THE MEMBERS Fuller Brush salesman had the unfortunate task of trying to sell his wares to the women of Freesia Court during the fifth day of a March cold snap. "They were like caged animals," he complained later to his district manager. "I felt like any minute they were going to turn on me." "Brushes?" Faith Owens had said when he offered up his bright smile and sales pitch on her icy front doorstep. "I'm sorry, but I've got a little more than brushes to worry about right now. Like wondering if spring is ever going to get here. Because I truly believed it might really be coming when boom--here it is, twenty below zero with a wind-chill factor that would bring Nanook of the North to his knees." "Thank you for your time," said the salesman, picking up his case. "You have a pleasant day, now." "And what exactly is a wind-chill factor anyway?" "Faith," called her husband, Wade, from the living room. "Faith, don't be rude, honey." "Well what is it?" she asked, slamming the door with her hip. "What exactly is a wind-chill factor?" "This is Minnesota," said Wade, ignoring her question because he wasn't quite sure of the answer. "What do you expect?" "Oh, I don't know--maybe a little damn relief?" "Might I remind you," said Wade, "how you cried with delight seeing your first snowfall?" "I cried with delight the first time I had sex with you, but that doesn't mean I want it nonstop." "You're telling me," said Wade with a wistful sigh. "Ha, ha, ha," said Faith, surveying her neat and trim husband as he brushed his crew cut with his palm, a gesture he always made after what he thought was a joke. It was no surprise to Faith that her husband had less trouble adapting to the frozen north. Hell, he was flying out of it all the time. Right before Christmas, Wade had been transferred to Minneapolis from Dallas, although to Faith, it may as well have been Siberia. That very morning he was leaving for a three-day trip with a layover in warm and sunny Los Angeles, and as she stomped upstairs to finish his packing, anger seethed through Faith like steam through their loud and clanking radiators--Los Angeles! In just a few hours Wade could feasibly be lying poolside as some flirtatious Nordic stewardess (why did every Minnesota stewardess she'd seen have to look like Miss Sweden?) rubbed suntan lotion on his shoulders, while she, Faith, rubbed ointment onto the chapped little bottom of their son, Beau. She pitched a rolled-up ball of socks into Wade's suitcase with the velocity of a teenage show-off trying to knock down a pyramid of bottles at a carnival booth. There had been a time when she actually enjoyed packing for her husband--when she'd fold his shirts into neat rectangles, slipping a sheet of tissue paper between them so they wouldn't wrinkle; when she'd tuck a love note inside a pair of boxer shorts or dab her perfume on the neckline of an undershirt--but routine had long ago tarnished that thrill. Now Faith had an urge to pack a different sort of surprise--perhaps a used diaper from the bathroom pail that reeked of ammonia, or maybe a sprinkling of itching powder. She smiled then, remembering one of her more innocent teenage pranks. She and Melinda Carmody had ordered itching powder from the back pages of True Confessions magazine and, sneaking into the classroom during lunch hour, sprinkled it on their algebra teacher's cardigan sweater, draped over the back of his chair. When tyrannical Mr. Melscher (who rewarded wrong answers with a sarcastic "Think again, Einstein") put the sweater on, Faith and Melinda held their breaths in anticipation. Although the man's shirt seemed to have blocked much of the powder's itching

"Highly entertaining . . . Almost as hard to put down [as] Mary McCarthy'sThe Group." The Seattle Times "A LIVELY STORY AS DELECTABLE AS A FIVE-POUND BOX OF CHOCOLATES . . . A thoroughly engaging chronicle of friendship and the substantive place it holds in women's lives." ANNE LECLAIRE Author ofLeaving Eden "It is impossible not to get caught up in the lives of the book group members. . . . Landvik's gift lies in bringing these familiar women to life with insight and humor." The Denver Post "A GUILTY PLEASURE . . . THIS LIGHT, SNAPPY READ MAY BE HER BEST YET." Midwest Livingmagazine "Honesty, humor, and profound emotion . . . are the hallmarks of the book. Told alternately from each woman's perspective, and ranging in time from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, Landvik accurately captures the thinking, the culture, and the feeling of each decade. . . . [She] treats her characters, whose stories drive the novel, with the same warmth and love with which they regard each other. . . . For anyone who has connected with another person on any emotional level, this appealing novel provides the special comfort of recognition." BookStreet USA "[A] delicious novel . . . If you love . . . Fannie Flagg, Lee Smith, Adriana Trigianiyou will love this. It's a buddy book, a story of women sharing friendship, love, loss, and laughter." Millbrook Round Table(NY) "Readers might feel a twinge of sadness and loss as they turn the last page ofAngry Housewives Eating Bon Bonsfinishing this book is like leaving five dear friends." BookPage "Witty and wise . . . Landvik's ladies endure the best and worst of times together (and recommend some great reads along the way)." Booklist From the Trade Paperback edition.

The women of Freesia Court are convinced that there is nothing good coffee, delectable desserts, and a strong shoulder can't fix. Laughter is the glue that holds them togetherthe foundation of a book group they call AHEB (Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons), an unofficial "club" that becomes much more. It becomes a lifeline. Holding on through forty eventful years, there's Faith, a lonely mother of twins who harbors a terrible secret that has condemned her to living a lie; big, beautiful Audrey, the resident sex queen who knows that with good posture and an attitude you can get away with anything; Merit, the shy doctor's wife with the face of an angel and the private hell of an abusive husband; Kari, a wise woman with a wonderful laugh who knows the greatest gifts appear after life's fiercest storms; and finally, Slip, a tiny spitfire of a woman who isn't afraid to look trouble straight in the eye. This stalwart group of friends depicts a special slice of American life, of stay-at-home days and new careers, of children and grandchildren, of bold beginnings and second chances, in which the power of forgiveness, understanding, and the perfectly timed giggle fit is the CPR that mends broken hearts and shattered dreams. From the Trade Paperback edition.