Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club by Diane Bergner
What happens when gossip becomes reality? In her debut novel, Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club (Meridian Editions), author Diane Bergner shares the trials and tribulations of ladies who lunch.
Julia Wild is sure the transition from attorney to fundraiser for an affluent performing arts center will be everything she wanted, and more. But that was before she caught her boss, Chrissy, in bed with one of the Addison Center’s most high-profile married donors.
Suddenly, giving up the courtroom for her dream job doesn’t seem like such a good idea. Especially not when her boss refuses to give her any credit for the work she does, and not when she works with a team that she’s not sure she can trust. A little healthy competition is a good thing, but when a donor’s check goes missing, Julia finds herself questioning just how loyal they are.
Plenty to Gossip About
Things aren’t any better at home.
With her husband, Mark, busy getting his new firm’s office up and running, he has little time for Julia. She and Mark used to be partners, but now they’re like ships passing in the night. While Julia hosts events for potential donors late into the night, Mark spends more and more time at the office with his new, younger attractive associate, Olivia Woods.
Wining and dining isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not until Julia meets Julian Jorge Mendoza, a handsome former ambassador to Argentina. JJ is a stunner both physically and professionally and it’s all Julia can do to stay away from him and his high-powered wife. JJ doesn’t make it easy and, before long, the two of them are making plans to see each other one-on-one.
Not wanting to lie to Mark, but growing ever dissatisfied in her marriage, Julia finds solace in the Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club — a place for her and her friends to come together to dish about all of life’s woes.
Things Start to Heat Up
It’s meant to be a fun lunch outing with her closest confidantes, but as her feelings for JJ intensify, Julia finds she needs her friends’ support now more than ever. Especially since a missing donor check isn’t the only strange thing to happen to Julia at work.
As the team works to meet their donation goals, more mysterious errors are made, and Julia finds herself facing the firing squad more than once. Things really start to heat up when Chrissy decides to leave the Addison Center to pursue a new opportunity and Julia is promoted, putting her at the top of the list of people to blame, should something go wrong.
And everything does.
Will Julia and Mark be able to work out their differences and find common ground, or will her flirtation with JJ take center stage? And can the Addison Center survive a scandal that could rock it to its very core? Pick this one up to find out!
About Diane Bergner:
Diane Bergner is vice president of Development at the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida. Before joining the Kravis Center, Bergner was an attorney in her native New York City, and the Director of Public Sector Career Services at Hofstra University School of Law, where she earned her Juris Doctor degree. As a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy, she has served in leadership roles on several not-for-profit boards in Palm Beach County. She is a member of The Writers’ Academy at the Kravis Center and was the runner-up in the Best Writer in Palm Beach County, hosted by the Palm Beach Book Festival. Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club is her first novel.
