The Penny Pinchers Club

Strohmeyer's bubbly farce finds a shopaholic New Jersey wife worried about hanging on to her husband and trying to curb her lavish lifestyle. Katarina “Kat” Griffiths, a 40-something interior designer, joins the eccentric supersavers of the Rocky River Penny Pinchers Club to get out of debt, put her daughter, Laura, through college and save her marriage to Emerly College economics professor Griff Griffiths. Suspecting that Griff is having an affair with the more economically sound Bree, his sexy assistant, Kat vows to save her marriage, even if it means giving up her Lexus and her Starbucks triple venti lattes. Hilarity ensues as Kat discovers, among other things, two Mint Tingle condoms in the pocket of her husband's khakis right before their 20th anniversary as well as his secret $10,000 bank account. When newly divorced Liam Novak, Kat's first love, returns to town, complications ensue. While Strohmeyer's plot may appear overly cutesy, she (The Cinderella Pact ) finds ample humor in her family-centric story, and the list of Top 15 Dos and Don'ts from the Penny Pinchers Club is spot-on. (July)