SWAPPING LIVES

Author: Jane Green ISBN: 0452288509 6/2007 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: PLUME

What if a successful, single Londoner and a comfortable, Connecticut mother of two were to walk in each other's shoes for a month? Vicky Townsley is the director of Poise! magazine and lives a glamorous London life. She has everything she wants-except marriage, children, and a house in the country. Amber Winslow has a stone mansion in Connecticut, two kids, and a nanny, but she hasn't found the fulfillment she had expected from being a wife and mother. When she spots an intriguing contest in Poise! Amber impulsively enters, never expecting to be picked.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

SWAPPING LIVES is the fictional London magazine Poise's version of ABC's Wife Swap. There is a little less drama, a bit more soul searching, and certainly more attractive people on paper, but those are about the only differences between the two.

Listening to the woes of upscale suburbia in the States and bored English singles who "shag" without thought in London, is not my idea of a good contemporary. Life is what you make it, and if you have been spending thousands of dollars on one-of-a-kind clothes and bags, have nannies raising your children, never see your spouse, and cannot figure out why you are so bored, you honestly shouldn't need a trip overseas to pretend you are single to tell you that you should actually try DOING something to bring meaning to your life. Duh.

There is no escapism from the daily grind in SWAPPING LIVES. Or real excitement, engaging characters, or true grab-me-by-the-heart plot, and at least for this reader, that is definitely what I look for in the books set in the here and now. Anyway, I can find this stuff in any neighborhood and just go talk to the people that live there about their lives instead of reading this book. No doubt those conversations would be more interesting.

Shannon Johnson