Best Enemies

by Jane Heller

Book Overview

New York Times bestselling author Jane Heller focuses her sly wit on female bonding in this hilarious story that proves there are two sides to every friendship. . . . Jane Heller is: "Wildly inventive!" -- People "Fresh . . . Spirited!" -- Publishers Weekly Amy Sherman is doing just fine--she has a nice apartment in Manhattan, a good job as publicity director at a publishing company, and a decent social life--until she runs into Tara Messer, the beautiful...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312288492
• ISBN13: 9780312288495
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 341 Pages
• Weight: 1.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Impossible to put down

BEST ENEMIES explores the complex relationship between female friends. Author Jane Heller allows us to see that there are always two sides to a story and when it comes to matters of the heart, no one is ever completely innocent. After a tumultuous ending of their friendship over matters of infidelity, Tara and Amy learn that the dramas of life effect everyone equally. Together they realize that it is how you handle obstacles in your life that defines your character. Throw in an unexpected romance, a missing person and some members of the Russian mob, and you have a great novel by a great author. BEST ENEMIES is impossible to put down and is the best addition to your summer reading list.

Some Romance/Some Mystery/Some Surprises

The cover blurb seems slightly misleading when it promises "sly wit" and "hilarious." Fresh from reading several Sophie Kinsella Shopaholic stories, I was looking for another breezy, laugh-a-minute chick novel. Best Enemies is in another category. The plot sounds like something straight from a paperback romance, but Heller elevates the story with her solid dialogue and snags the reader into emotionally pulling for Amy as she deals with her betrayal by her fiance and her best friend. A surprise switch in narrator gives you the "former" best friend's view of the whole scenario. Little surprizes along the way keep the reader hooked. Enjoyable and well worth a read, but not what I would call a comedy. Read it for some romance, some mystery, some feminine psychology and its trendy NY setting.

Hilarious!

I was laughing the whole way through!! Love it!!!

The Best Addition to Your Summer Reading List

What do you do if you find your fiancé and your best friend/maid of honor in a "compromising" position just days before your wedding? If you are Amy Sherman, the star of Jane Heller's most recent novel BEST ENEMIES, you throw them both out of your life and vow never to look back. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try to forget your past, life has a funny way of forcing it back into your present.Best friends Amy Sherman and Tara Messer are now the worst of enemies after Amy catches her fiancé, Stuart Lasher, in bed with Tara. While Amy had always been the thoughtful, hardworking plain Jane, Tara was the beautiful, confident, homecoming queen. Losing her fiance to the one woman whose shadow she had always lived in was devastating to Amy. She decided that focusing on her career in publishing and pushing the betrayal out of her mind would help her move on in life and in love.However, years later, Amy, now a publicist for the large publishing house Lowery and Trammel, is unexpectedly reunited with Tara when she learns she has to publicize her new book, SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL. The theme of Tara's book is her perfect life with her perfect husband Stuart. Things could not get any worse for Amy until she lies to Tara about having moved on from the heartbreak with Stuart straight into the arms of a loving man who has now become her fiancé. Now, Amy not only has to willingly parade Tara around and turn SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL into a bestseller, but she also has to make a fiancé appear magically before Tara's perfectly beautiful, flawless face. Amy tries to turn one of America's most reclusive mystery authors into her stand-in fiancé without him knowing of her complicated plan. The twists and turns that Amy must face in trying to keep up the façade are hilarious and unpredictable. Amy is one of the most likable, intelligent and honest characters in women's fiction. The majority of the novel is from Amy's point of view, but three quarters of the way through the book we are introduced to Tara's thoughts and feelings and no longer see her as the villain. We begin to see that no matter how perfect a life looks from the outside, everyone has secrets that they try to keep hidden from others. Tara may be beautiful and live a "simply beautiful" life, but sadness and betrayal lurk beneath her perfect surface.BEST ENEMIES explores the complex relationship between female friends. Heller allows us to see that there are always two sides of a story and when it comes to matters of the heart, no one is ever completely innocent. In rediscovering their discarded friendship, Tara and Amy learn that the dramas of life affect everyone equally, and it is all about how you handle what is thrown your way that defines your character and turns you into the person you are meant to be. Throw in an unexpected romance, a missing person and some members of the Russian mob, and you have a great novel by a great author. BEST ENEMIES is impossible to put down and is the best addition to your summer r

Definitely up to Jane Heller's usual standards!

Jane Heller is one of my favorite authors. She never disappoints, and this wonderful novel is proof. Amy and Tara were best friends for years until one act of betrayal rips them apart, and then makes them both pretend to be people that they aren't, and have things they don't really have in order to impress each other. Anyone who has a best friend will see a little bit of themselves here, as Jane Heller explores the underlying competetiveness in all relationships with her usual humor and skill. Highly recommended.