Switcheroo

Sylvie Schiffer at 40 has a life most women dream about: a gorgeous home in the exclusive suburb of Shaker Heights, two perfect teenage children, a successful husband with a lucrative luxury car dealership. Sylvie has everything, it seems, but what she wants most: passion and romance -- moonlit cruises, holding hands, gazing at the stars. "When you're married," Sylvie sighs, "you don't even get kissed on the mouth." With building the business, raising the babies and creating their home, she and Bob hadn't found much time to focus on love. But now that the twins are off to college and the business is blooming, Sylvie is sure they will make their marriage bloom. So she believes until one day she does the laundry and notices those incriminating credit card receipts. Her husband has found romance, but it isn't with her. Bob is having an affair. Shocked and enraged, Sylvie fantasizes about a bullet to the leg (just to make Bob lame) -- followed by a hefty settlement. Her mother begs her to calm down: Her marriage is worth saving. Sylvie's having none of that. Out for blood, she sets off to confront Marla, the other woman. What she finds, however, is not what she expects. Looking at Marla is like gazing back in time: Except for 10 years and 15 pounds, Marla could be her twin. Marla has the best of Bob's love -- flowers, hot sex, breathy phone calls, candlelit dinner -- yet she admits to Sylvie that she lacks the thing she wants most: a husband and home of her own. "When you're single," Marla sighs, "you have to smell good 24 hours a day." Going beyond revenge, Sylvie hatches a brilliant scheme to make them both winners and bring Bob to his knees. But will they end up with what they want or walk away empty-handed and broken-hearted? No one defines modern love, work and sexual warfare better than New York Times bestselling author Olivia Goldsmith. In her most surprisingly ingenious novel yet, she once again speaks as the voice for her gender when she points out a truth not universally acknowledged until now: All wives yearn for the romance of being a mistress and all mistresses yearn for the security of being a wife.