"electrifying romantic suspense thriller"

In 1980 at the exclusive Rowe Academy for Girls in Tiburon, California, the four unpopular scholarship coeds forged friendships as the Lonely Girls Club. The schools headmistress Millicent Rowe pimps the foursome as prostitutes. However, someone murders Rowe while one member of the quartet Ivy commits suicide. The three survivors (Mattie, Breeze, and Jane) agree to a vow of secrecy. William Broud was convicted of the homicide.

In 2005 at San Quentin, true crime writer Jameson Cross picks up just released William who spent over two decades as the convicted finishing school murderer; DNA proved he did not commit the crime. Jameson offers to pay William if he helps him follow clues as to what happened a quarter of a century ago. The three female survivors are all successful in their chosen endeavors with Mattie as a federal judge, Breeze a business woman entrepreneur and Jane as the First Lady. They do not want exposure that could devastate their respective careers, but Jameson is digging while William feels someone owes him a life.

THE LONELY GIRLS CLUB is an electrifying romantic suspense thriller that grips the audience from the moment that Broud is released from prison and never lets up until the final meeting between Jameson and the Judge. The story line is action-packed, but it is the reaction of the characters to Jameson's inquiries that makes the tale as each of the three prime suspects has reasons to hide even "edit" the Rowe incidents. Thus the audience keeps on reading while wondering which of the former coeds killed the headmistress.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 20, 2005

Summary

At an exclusive California prep school, four young girls form a bond that will endure over two decades -- a bond built on secrets, scandal and murder . . . a bond about to be broken.

Mattie, a federal judge . . . Breeze, a wealthy entrepreneur . . . and Jane, the first lady of the United States, have all enjoyed a meteoric rise to success since their days at the Rowe Academy for Girls. But now the truth behind the suicide of their friend Ivy and the murder of their headmistress twenty years ago is no longer safely hidden.

The man imprisoned for the murder has been exonerated, and a true crime reporter is relentlessly pursuing a loose thread in the decades-old cover-up, one that threatens to unravel the women's pact of silence. But none of them anticipated the twisted depths of the secrets about to be exposed -- or how the truth could shatter all their lives.