Dirty Diana

This entertaining debut novel, which chronicles a woman’s midlife crisis, is the first in a trilogy based on the eponymous fiction podcast produced by Besser and Feste and starring Demi Moore. Diana Wood, a 41-year-old lapsed artist, feels disconnected from her husband, Oliver, and wants more than the suburban life they’ve built in Dallas as parents to a six-year-old girl. She pounces on the opportunity to return to her former home of Santa Fe, N.Mex., where she once worked as an artist’s assistant and aspired to a creative career of her own. In Santa Fe, she flashes back to her 25th birthday, when she was still with her long-lost love, a famous photographer and heartbreaker named Jasper. Diana’s past couldn’t contrast more deeply with her present, and as she returns to a long-abandoned creative project in which she interviews women about their sexual experiences and fantasies, her marriage disintegrates. “Whatever this new path we’re on is, it’s scary and unsettling, nothing like the warm safety of mediocrity,” Diana muses as things with Oliver fall apart. “I miss it, suddenly. Feeling nothing.” Chock-full of erotic sex scenes, this raucous romp ends on a tantalizing cliff-hanger. Readers will have a tough time waiting for the next installment. Agents: Anna Worrall and Alia Hanna Habib, Gernert Co. (Nov.)