Book ~ "Someone Else's Shoes" (2023) Jojo Moyes

From Goodreads ~ Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope - she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in.

That’s because Sam Kemp - in the bleakest point of her life - has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about a lost gym bag - she’s struggling to keep herself and her family afloat. When she tries on Nisha’s six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes, the resulting jolt of confidence that makes her realize something must change - and that thing is herself.

Sam's life is stressful. Phil, her husband, recently lost his father and his job and has sunk into a deep depression and won't do anything to help himself or around the house. Sam's company was recently bought out and her new boss hates her and is always looking for reasons to give her grief. One day at the gym, she's in a hurry heading off to a meeting and runs out with the wrong bag. In the bag, she discovers a pair of expensive high heel shoes which she's forced to wear that day because she left the gym in flip flops. When she tries to return the bag to the gym, she discovers it's closed down.

Nisha is married to Carl, an very rich man, and does everything for him. It's Nisha's bag that Sam has mistakenly taken at the gym and Nisha wants her shoes back!  As if her day isn't bad enough, that's the day that Carl cuts her off financially. He's not taking her calls, she has no money or friends, so she's forced to take a job working under the table at the hotel they were living while she schemes to get her clothes and passport from their room.

I thought this story was okay and there was a lot going on. There were a few things I found unbelievable, though. For example, why didn't Nisha go to the police or the U.S. Embassy (she's an American stuck in England) after Carl shut her down rather than lucking out and getting a menial job in the exact hotel she had been living in where she could work illegally? Or if Phil was that depressed, why did Sam and their daughter allow him to keep going as he was rather than making him help (I would have been afraid to leave him alone)? As if she didn't have enough going on with work and Phil, why did Sam put up with her demanding elderly parents for so long who were more sympathetic to Phil?

It's written in third person perspective bouncing back and forth with the focus on Sam and Nisha. As a head's up, there is swearing.