The Ex-Debutante - Linda Francis Lee
The Devil in the Junior League Author’s Look Inside Society Life
Apr 12, 2008
Carlisle Wainwright Cushing moved to Boston, Massachusetts, on a whim twenty five years ago. She wanted to escape her past – most notably, her less than stellar performance as a debutante at the Annual Willow Creek Symphony Association Debutante Ball, which her family has been in charge of for decades.
As a debutante, Carlisle failed to execute the Texas Dip — "a deep full curtsy where a girl sinks so low that she touches her forehead to her skirt" — properly, to the horror and chagrin of her high ranking society family. She picked up and left one day, leaving behind her society life and starting a new life north of the Mason Dixon line. She found work as a lawyer in a prominent Boston firm and became engaged to Phillip Granger, a fellow lawyer.
Home Again
Carlisle is summonsed back to Willow Creek by her mother, Ridgely Wainwright-Cushing-Jameson-Lockley-Harper, whose marriage of the moment is once resulting in divorce. But when Carlisle finds out that the lawyer representing her soon to be ex-father in law is Jack Blair, the “bad boy” she dated in high school and one of the reasons she fled to Boston, suddenly her life becomes more difficult.
Love Triangle
Carlisle is shocked by the flood of emotions that quickly fill her heart – she realizes that she still has feelings for Jack, and has to decide whether to let them come to the surface. Meanwhile, she must explain to Phillip and her boss in Boston why she must suddenly take an extended leave of absence to represent her mother, keeping it to herself that she is also single-handedly organizing a debutante ball. She had allowed her friends and colleagues in Boston to believe that she was a poor southern girl, and must keep up appearances while still representing her diva mother and protecting her numerous assets from her husband.
Mending Fences
Surprisingly, Carlisle’s return to Texas forces her to make amends for her quick departure several years ago, and helps her to realize whom she really is. A contemporary romance, The Ex-Debutante reads like the secret diaries of a former debutante, her stories told with southern charm and a great deal of humor.
About the Author
Linda Francis Lee is a former Texas Junior Leaguer, who once served on a very real JL New Project committee. A graduate of Texas Tech University with a bachelor's degree in Advertising, she is also a former Texas Debutante, who once competed for the Maid of Cotton crown. The daughter of a former two-term Texas mayor, she now lives with her husband in New York City.
Francis Lee, Linda
The Ex-Debutante
New York, St. Martin's Press, April 1, 2008
