Moving in with her widowed mother, who owns and lives above a rundown beach bar called The Sandbox, is less than ideal. So is attending court-mandated weekly "divorce recovery" therapy sessions with three other women and one man for whom betrayal seems to be the only commonality.
When their "divorce coach" starts to act suspiciously, they decide to start having their own Wednesday "Ladies' Night" sessions at The Sandbox and the unanticipated bonds that develop lead the members of the group to try and find closure in ways they never imagined. Can Grace figure out a new way home and discover how strong she needs to be to get there?
Grace is a former interior decorator who is now a lifestyle blogger. One night she discovers Ben, her husband, in the garage doing things he shouldn't be with her assistant, J'Aimee. She runs J'Aimee off and then drives Ben's prized car into the pool. The police are called and Grace leaves and moves in with Rochelle, her mother, who lives above the bar she owns.
Grace then discovers that Ben and J'Aimee have taken over her blog. Plus, she is locked out of her house and bank accounts so is left with nothing. When they go to divorce court, the woman-hating judge takes Ben's side and orders Grace to go to divorce counselling classes to learn how to control her rage. There she meets Camryn, Suzanne, Ashley and Wyatt. They meet and bond after each class at her mother's bar ... hence the name of the book. Wyatt's wife, Callee, recently left him for a neighbour. Wyatt and Callee have a young son together, who Callee doesn't hesitate to use to rile up Wyatt and his father. Grace and Wyatt end up dating.
I've read quite a few books by this author and thought this one was just okay. It is written in third person perspective in Grace and Wyatt's voice. The editing could have been tighter as there were typos and grammatical errors. Plus there was some weird math. Wyatt says he's 38 with a six-year-old son. He tells Grace that he had his son when he was 36. Wouldn't that make him 42 not 38?! As a head's up, there is swearing and adult activity.
I thought it was odd that Grace moved out of the house the night of the blow-up ... the police didn't force her to. They lived in a mansion with lots of bedrooms and Ben had locked himself up in the den. Why couldn't she lock herself up in another room? If it was me, I never would have left because it was MY house and because of what happened to her (Ben locked her out and the security guard wouldn't let her into the complex).
It was hard to believe she was 38 as she had the sense of someone much younger. As successful as she was, she left everything up to Ben and didn't even have her own bank account. He was able to shut down access to their bank account and credit cards no problem. I found this unbelievable. I'm assuming she could have showed up at the bank and made them give her access.
They landed in divorce court very quickly. Could a judge really be that judgmental and have that much power that he could make Grace go to counselling but leave Ben free (with everything) to do as he pleased. I might be inclined to check the laws before I'd be writing this into a story because it sounds ridiculous.
Wyatt and Grace met and fell in in love so fast after both had devastating experiences with the long term spouses.
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