Three women, Ellie, Alice, and Joan know each other because their children all went to the same school. Now with their children grown and away from home, these three women feel lost. When a terrible tragedy takes place at their kids' former school, all three women show up to a vigil and decide to get together to have lunch after so many years of drifting apart. Joan is trying to keep up with her husband's family's lifestyle, going shopping and keeping her home spotless. She is so bored with her life she decides to go the casino to pass time and ends up with an addiction. Ellie has her own bookkeeping business that is growing, and a new customer challenges her worldview. And Alice, feeling neglected by her husband, decides to take up running again to get back in shape. After this first reconnection, they decide to get together for lunch every other Wednesday.

One day Alice is out running and attacked. The man gets away, but now Alice feels unsafe and decides to get a gun for protection. During their regularly scheduled lunch, the three women find themselves at odds about Alice's purchase: Ellie supports her friend, but Joan is against it from the start.

This conversation makes the three women rethink their lives. Joan knows she has to quit going to the casino, Ellie has to make a huge decision on her lifestyle. Alice really has to rethink the gun purchase, especially after finding her attacker following her on the beach. What decisions will these women choose?

Susan Kietzman's EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY gets to the heart of what women go through once they have an empty nest. Kietzman writes how women no matter what background they come from can become great friends. Susan also shows that no matter how long you are married, there are little secrets that you keep to yourself. While reading this book, I felt sorry for all the women in my own way at times. Ellie has mixed emotions on her marriage. Does she want to stay married, or live the life that she always wanted but kept it a secret? Then you have Joan, a rich and bored housewife that feels she has to follow the way her mother in law lived her life. Alice misses her husband but spends way too much time at work. Kietzman really has the inside track of what women want and need in their lives.

Book Summary

Three women, each facing an empty nest, come together to cheer and challenge one another in this insightful, poignant new novel from acclaimed author Susan Kietzman.

For years, Ellie, Alice, and Joan enjoyed a casual friendship while volunteering at their children’s Connecticut high school. Now, with those children grown and gone to college, a local tragedy brings the three into contact again. But what begins as a catch-up lunch soon moves beyond small talk to the struggles of this next stage of life.

Joan Howard has spent thirty years of marriage doing what’s expected of Howard women: shopping, dressing well, and keeping a beautiful home. Unfulfilled, her boredom and emptiness eventually find a secret outlet at the local casino. Meanwhile, Ellie’s efforts to expand her accounting business lead to a new friendship that clashes with her family’s traditional worldview. And Alice, feeling increasingly distant from her husband, and alienated from her once fit body, takes up running again. But a terrifying ordeal shatters her confidence and spurs a decision that will affect all three women in different ways.

Over the course of an eventful year, Ellie, Alice, and Joan will meet every other Wednesday to talk, plan—and find the freedom, and the courage, to redefine themselves.