The Pink Ghetto. Liz Ireland

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      Outstanding praise for the novels of Liz Ireland!

      The Pink Ghetto

      “Liz Ireland’s breezy new novel sends a gust of fresh air through familiar chick lit territory. Ireland’s wry prose deftly captures a lovable heroine and a world where overdue rent and padded resumes are as prevalent as roommate crushes and Amex’d takeout pizza. Ultimately, this is a post-millennial Cinderella tale featuring a heroine in a hand-me-down Chanel suit—and rose-colored glasses—instead of glass slippers, entry-level grunts in place of wicked stepsisters, and a Manhattan office building standing in for a castle.”

      —Wendy Markham, author of Slightly Engaged

      How I Stole Her Husband

      “An entertaining read.”

      —Booklist

      “A hilarious and compelling story about first love, lost innocence and payback. Liz Ireland has created a cast of multifaceted characters who are deliciously twisted and yet completely sympathetic. From downtrodden diva, Alison Bell, to the serial adulterer, Pepper Smith, you can’t help being pulled into their tangled web. Wickedly clever one-liners, outrageous abuses, and a page turner of a story make How I Stole Her Husband a must-read for chick-lit fans.”

      —Jennifer Coburn, author of Tales From The Crib

      “How I Stole Her Husband is a wonderfully written, often hilarious story of a young woman’s journey from all-around discontent to hard-won acceptance of life in all its crazy splendor. Alison Bell is the most likeable heroine I’ve met in some time—charmingly down-to-earth, sometimes painfully self-aware, and just a little bit desperate to make something of her life. How she plans to pluck herself from the depths of poverty to which she imagines she’s sunk, how she rediscovers the love of her life, and how she recovers triumphantly from the havoc he wreaks makes for an utterly absorbing read. Liz Ireland takes a clever concept and raises it to an unexpected level of sophistication. Don’t miss this book!”

      —Holly Chamberlin, author of Back In The Game

      Three Bedrooms In Chelsea

      “The three-girls-in-the-city formula gets an extreme chick-lit makeover in Three Bedrooms In Chelsea, an amusing sexy read.”

      —Lauren Baratz-Logsted, author of The Thin Pink Line

      “The sexy singles occupying Three Bedrooms In Chelsea are heartwarming, funny and unforgettable. Liz Ireland has created an absolute delight!”

      —Patti Berg, author of I’m No Angel

      Charmed, I’m Sure

      “Captivating! Charmed, I’m Sure is an enchanting blend of hex and sex! A rollicking romp that will make you believe in magic.”

      —Stephanie Bond, author of In Deep Voodoo

      When I Think Of You

      “Fresh and funny!”

      —Jennifer Crusie, New York Times bestselling author

      Books by Liz Ireland

      HUSBAND MATERIAL

      WHEN I THINK OF YOU

      CHARMED, I’M SURE

      THREE BEDROOMS IN CHELSEA

      HOW I STOLE HER HUSBAND

      THE PINK GHETTO

      THIS CHRISTMAS

       (with Jane Green and Jennifer Coburn)

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

      The

       Pink Ghetto

      LIZ IRELAND

      KENSINGTON BOOKS

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

The Pink Ghetto

      Contents

      Outstanding praise for the novels of Liz Ireland!

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Epilogue

      For a certain type of man—and I plead guilty to being that type to a T—Renata Abner was like catnip to a lean, hungry Siamese tom.

      When we met in college, she was frisky and eager for new experiences as only a recently slimmed-down co-ed can be. Unbeknownst to those around her, her first eighteen years had been as Renata Abner, chubbette; her highest social attainment had been co-captain of the pep choir. Due to a graduation night trauma, she had spent her postgraduate summer on a potent regimen of Jenny Craig meals and Ex-Lax, and was at last a slender shadow of her former self. Now, in her new size-ten incarnation and self-schooled in the Sex and the City Tao of high heels and cleavage, she was eager for those dating experiences her cohort had all been having since crawling out of the post-pubescent ooze.

      She certainly had me fooled. But after three beers purchased with our just-hatched fake I.D.’s, the newly acquired sophistication fell away like her resistance to the cheese straws in the bowl at her elbow, and the real story came spilling out: the rowdy houseful of siblings that a pudgy middle child could get lost in; the taunts of classmates from preschool onward; the playground depredations that led to her finding solace in imaginative but not physical play; the lack of social life in high school, the only compensations of which were an encyclopedic knowledge of old movies and a very respectable 3.6 GPA.

      So what was the big attraction, you ask?

      Simple. Some men go for the geisha types (harder to find these days, but still out there). Others inexplicably veer to those domineering, she-who-must-be-obeyed fright dolls. What’s my poison? She who has been overlooked.

      Chapter 1

      After all that’s happened, most of the people think it was that book that changed everything for me. It’s not hard to understand why. I blamed everything on the book at first, too. I was bitter, I’ll admit that. In my shoes, anyone would have been.

      But recently, thanks to the support of my friends, my family, and the personal growth section at Barnes and Noble, I’ve adopted a more zenlike attitude toward the whole episode. To put it in a string of clichés: I am bowed but not broken. That which did not kill me has made me stronger. I have washed that man right out of my hair.

      Taking the longer view, I can see that it wasn’t heartbreak or even that book that altered my life. Not really. It was the job. The job changed everything, which is weird, because at the time I was so desperate to earn money that I didn’t even pay attention to what I was applying for.

      The ad didn’t name the company. Lodged as it was in the middle of the employment section of the New York Times without a box or even much bold lettering, it seemed anonymous, non-threatening, almost forgettable. A little brown bag of an ad. Well-known publishing house seeks assistant