Babyville by Jane Green (2004, Paperback, Reprint)

Jane Green’s rise to reigning queen of commercial women’s literature has been positively meteoric. Jemima J, Mr. Maybe, and Bookends all took international bestseller lists by storm—and went on to knockout paperback success (Jemima J has 390,000 copies in print)—thanks to Jane’s fresh perspective on dating and marriage. Now she applies her golden touch to the next phase in a woman’s life, in an insightful, bighearted tale of three friends grappling with their biological clocks.

Convinced that a baby will spice up her lackluster relationship with an apathetic boyfriend, Julia launches into a frenetic round of doctor’s appointments and fertility rituals that threatens to send her over the edge. Samantha, happily married and confident that she’s the next June Cleaver, is appalled to find that her little bundle of joy leaves her exhausted, overweight, and ogling a girlfriend’s hottie husband. Meanwhile, glamorous Maeve knows she’s allergic to rugrats—until a steamy one-night stand leaves her with more than one surprise. As the three heroines confront their maternity dilemmas, each one discovers a long-lost part of herself and stumbles toward her own unexpected happy ending.

In Jane’s trademark luminous and compassionate prose, Babyville beautifully tackles that rite of passage that crosses every woman’s mind at least once—whether it takes her breath away or knocks the wind right out of her: having a baby.