"Brave, boisterous, ballsy and just downright fun to read."
In this uplifting memoir Billie Best tells the truth about her life. Things look perfect on the outside, but she's faking it. Inside she's a mess. After 32 years of marriage, she's a widow alone in her dream house keeping up appearances as she discovers the details of her husband's affair. Yet she protects his secret, even from her friends, because she feels like a failure. It takes years for her to embrace her mistakes, let go of her past, and reinvent herself, but with gutsy determination she does it. Women challenged by the need to adapt to a new life, downsize and start over, will be inspired by this story of strength and resilience.
Best's story about finding love both sensually and architecturally-along with disaster in both realms-is brave, boisterous, ballsy and just downright fun to read. The voice is accessible but intelligent, candid but heartfelt. Get copies for your favorite friends because if they borrow it, they'll never give it back! -Courtney Maum, The Year of the Horses
A force of pure energy and determination, there is nothing Billie won't tackle: the perfect marriage, the mid-life career change from successful executive to idealistic farmer, and even, when her husband falls terminally ill, orchestrator of a flawless death-plan according to his wishes. But it takes her ten years of denial and suffering to confront and then triumphantly overcome the cracks in this ideal picture, the specter of infidelity beyond the grave, her obsessive need for tidiness and order, and her attachment to ephemeral things. -Hester Velmans, Slipper
Billie Best knows her way around rock bands, corporate America, small scale farming, and the most complicated business of all: matters of the heart. With her powerful writing, sentences that can lasso, seduce, inspire, and bring tears to eyes, Ms. Best ventures where few dare with such naked honesty. -Maria Nation, The Beach House
Autorentext
Billie Best is the author of two inspirational books for older women and a weekly blog called Aging Beyond 60: Loving Life, Staying Relevant. Her memoir is titled "How I Made a Huge Mess of My Life (or Couples Therapy with a Dead Man)" and her anthology of blog posts is titled "I Could Be Wrong." She lives in central Oregon with her boyfriend and their dog and enjoys doing dishes. Her first novel will be released in 2022.
Klappentext
A provocative, at times hilarious, account of a woman's midlife crisis as she evolves from corporate executive to organic farmer, from adoring wife to angry widow, and from resentfully single older woman to adventurous road-tripper living life for herself. Raw truth in an emotionally charged page-turner from a smart, sassy woman, we ride along with her as she discovers her soul mate is a cheating husband with a secret mistress, and then faces the financial collapse of the farm she loves. An inspiring tale of a woman's rite of passage from her 40s to her 60s when everything in her life changes and she discovers herself again wise and strong.