Swapping Lives

This fun but familiar novel from Green (The Other Woman ) follows the seemingly perfect lives of two women—one married with children, one single with a high-powered job—who wish to see how the other half lives, only to have the misfortune to get what they wish for. When Amber Winslow, a wealthy Connecticut housewife replete with wealthy husband, full-time nanny and golden retriever, grows tired of her town's vicious social scene, she responds to British magazine Poise! 's search for a subject to swap lives with one of the magazine's London editors, Vicky Townsley. Serious and successful, Vicky is longing for the husband and children she doesn't have. While both women leave home on a yellow-brick-road quest to find the missing piece of their lives—a sense of purpose for Amber, a suitable mate for Vicky—what they find instead is the saccharine obvious: they already have everything they really want. Green's latest, like her more inspired ventures, is hard to put down, thanks to affable leading characters and interesting, if not particularly revealing, commentary on the cross-Atlantic cultural gap. (June)