Best friends Annie and Sarah come up with a money-making scheme to sell anti-aging face cream to the wealthy, image-conscious women in Annie’s community. Annie’s young son needs expensive treatment after being diagnosed on the autism spectrum, while Sarah needs to finance another round of IVF. But what product manufacturer Annie, a chemist, doesn’t tell saleswoman extraordinaire Sarah, a lawyer, is that the secret ingredient is a dash of cocaine. Although the book club connection was a stretch, this is a very promising debut from a lawyer, with plenty of tongue-in-cheek humour. Really enjoyed it.
Crimes Against a Book Club, the debut novel by Kathy Cooperman, is about two women looking to make some quick cash. The summary says: "Best friends Annie and Sarah need cash - fast. Sarah, a beautiful, successful lawyer, wants nothing more than to have a baby. But balancing IVF treatments with a gruelling eighty-hour workweek is no walk in the park. Meanwhile, Annie, a Harvard-grad chemist recently transplanted to Southern California, is cutting coupons to afford her young autistic son's expensive therapy.
Desperate, the two friends come up with a brilliant plan: they'll combine Sarah's looks and Annie's brains to sell a luxury antiaging face cream to the wealthy, fading beauties in Annie's La Jolla book club. The scheme seems innocent enough, until Annie decides to add a special - and oh-so-illegal - ingredient that could bring their whole operation crashing to the ground." Crimes Against a Book Club is out in May 2017.