Caldwell, Laura: The Rome Affair

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For most of her life Rachel Blakely has led a charmed existence. She was born into money, enjoyed a happy childhood, married a plastic surgeon, and now lives with her husband, Nick, in a charming home in Chicago. Nothing's perfect, of course. When the book opens her marriage is still recovering from the aftershocks of Nick's affair, a week-long fling he'd had during a medical seminar the previous year. Now it's Rachel's turn to go away on business--a meeting in Rome where she's to convince a bunch of Roman architects to buy her company's software. She invites an old friend to come along for the ride: Kit's been taking care of her sick mother and before that was a struggling actress in L.A., so they haven't seen much of one another for a while. The two have some catching up to do, and three days in Rome to do it. Needless to say, things don't quite go as smoothly as planned.

This is the third book I've read now by Laura Caldwell (see my reviews of Look Closely and The Good Liar), and I've enjoyed them all. I really must make a point of thinking of her the next time I'm in the mood for a light, suspenseful read (as relief after I've read something very serious or very boring). The Rome Affair isn't perfect. I guessed what the big shock would be long before it was revealed, and Kit's Roman boyfriend felt to me like a loose end. (I very much expected another shocker related to him, actually, but it never happened.) Still, it was a book that was hard to put down, and it really was just what I needed.