Girls' Night Out: A Novel

Authors Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke relate that writing a follow-up to their best-selling The Good Widow wasn't just challenging. Penning Girls' Night Out "broke us open, hard and wide, before putting us back together again. Our friendship and our partnership were put to the test in a way we'd never experienced before. . . . We argued. We cried." Even though they have been friends for thirty years, during the year they worked on Girls' Night Out, they wondered if the book would ever be completed and published. The premise mirrors their own relationship: Two longtime best friends find their relationship disintegrating when the business they founded together becomes wildly successful. For the authors, life was imitating art but, eventually, as Girls' Night Out came together, so did their friendship. As a result of their experience, they dedicated the book to friendship.

Friendship is the theme of Girls' Night Out, the story of three women who have stood by each other for two decades, but find themselves unable to continue doing so. When Natalie invented the BloBrush, a combination blow dryer and hair brush, she and Ashley founded BloMe. Eight years later, and after their appearance on Shark Tank (they didn't make a deal with a shark because Ashley refused the offer from Lori Greiner), they have a pending buy-out offer from Revlon about which they cannot agree. While Natalie is desperate to convince Ashley to agree to sell in order to solve her family's financial crisis created by her husband, Ben, Ashley cannot bring herself to give up the company they have worked so hard to establish. Ashley has her own marital troubles and confesses on their first night in Mexico that she is considering leaving her husband, Jason. Natalie and Ashley each have two young daughters. Lauren was suddenly widowed a year ago, and Fenton and Steinke reveal early on that the breakdown of her relationship with Ashley was related to that event. In the year since her husband's death, Lauren has established a close friendship with another widow that she met in a support group, but drinking too much and engaging in other reckless behavior.

Their friendship has always revolved around Ashley, the undisputed leader and spark of the trio. Female friendships are complicated, often difficult, and frequently steeped in competition. In female friendships, three is a particularly difficult number. Lauren and Natalie have spent their lives vying for Ashley's attention, competing for her attention, wanting her to like each of them better. As Lauren puts it, "[l]ike two puppies wanting to be adopted by the same person." Despite the problems in their relationships, during a trip designed by Ashley to help them find redemption, forgiveness, and renewal, nothing has changed. Natalie and Lauren are so self-involved that they continue competing for Ashley's favor, not recognizing that Ashley is lost and confused, and seeking peace and clarity.

After a night of drinking, Natalie wakes up on the beach alone, rather than in the hotel room she shares with Ashley . . . and with no memory of how she got there. Worse, when she goes to their room, Ashley is not there and is not answering her cell phone or responding to text messages. Together with Lauren, Natalie commences a frantic search to find Ashley -- and regain her memory of exactly what happened the prior night.

In order to enjoy Girls' Night Out, readers must suspend their disbelief to accept that educated, successful women are capable of making very bad choices. And in Ashley's case, her first bad choice is taking up with Marco, a charming and handsome local she meets in a yoga class, who claims to own a smoothie stand. He talks about spirituality, capitalizing on Ashley's evident vulnerability, convincing her to engage in outrageously risky behaviors designed to help her let go and find peace, clarity, and contentment. Concerned that Marco is a skilled conman, Natalie and Lauren end up going along in order to protect Ashley, as well as gain her favor, but not without rancor. After all, the three of them came to Mexico to spend time together in an attempt to heal their relationship and Ashley seems to them to be more interested in wasting time with Marco.

Additionally, readers must establish an emotional connection to three deeply flawed characters. Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren are all women who, at forty years of age, don't yet understand the depth of their own resilience and power, much less how to wield that power. They have all experienced great successes and failures -- the latter in their marriages and other personal relationships -- but are teetering on the edge of survival. And for the past year, instead of leaning on each other and their shared histories, they have all been turning inward for answers. The status of their relationships demonstrate that they are much poorer for having done so. The dramatic tension in the story is focused upon whether they can re-establish their bond while there is still time to do so.

Fenton and Steinke explore the friendships of Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren in a surprisingly satisfying manner, despite the patently ridiculous backdrop for the tale. The story is told from the perspective of each woman, detailing her struggle over the course of the previous year that has led her to the Mexican reunion and examining her feelings about reconciliation -- her anger, resentment, and grief about the various aspects of her life that have proven disappointing and heartbreaking. As the search for Ashley continues and Natalie's memories come flooding back, horrible, unchangeable truths are revealed. Readers will likely question the manner in which Fenton and Steinke opt to resolve the mystery of Ashley's disappearance and the story's conclusion long after they read the last page. And perhaps that's their intent because despite its imperfections, Girls' Night Out delivers an emotional impact and the characters' relationships and journeys provide plenty of material for vigorous discussion.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Readers' Copy of the book.