Marriage Made Me Do It: An addictive dark comedy you will devour in one sitting. Ashley Fontainne
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Marriage Made Me Do It
ASHLEY FONTAINNE
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Killer Reads
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Ashley Fontainne 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com
Ashley Fontainne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008266899
Version: 2017-08-16
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 This Is The Life I Wanted, Right?
Chapter 2 Don’t Bite The Hand That Feeds You
Chapter 3 I’m Supposed To Handle This How?
Chapter 4 Fifty Shades Of Ginger
Chapter 5 Book Club Revelations
Chapter 6 Welcome To Hell – Also Known As Entering The Workforce
Chapter 8 Rambling Dreams Of A Crazed Housewife
Chapter 9 Unraveling At The Seams
Chapter 10 Fun Q&A At The Police Station
Chapter 12 Hot Headlines – Suburbia Made Her Do It!
Chapter 14 Orange Is Not A Good Color On Anyone
For Rebecca Roberts - voice talent extraordinaire, relentless cheerleader and amazing friend
This Is The Life I Wanted, Right?
Ignoring the droning voice of the old man talking up front, I let my thoughts wander. As usual, they went back to my youth. Growing up in the Seventies and Eighties, I was blissfully ignorant of how screwed-up my life would turn out when I reached the A-word: Adulthood.
I’m the oldest sibling of three girls born into a middle-class family. We grew up living in the suburbs, safely hidden from the dangers of “the big city.” God, life back then had been a breeze. We walked to school, without fear of stranger danger, on sidewalks wide enough for three people to stand side by side, with shade provided by sprawling oak trees. We played with our friends—outside, mind you—until the streetlight in our cul-de-sac buzzed, ready to come on. We didn’t have electric gadgets to tether us inside, weakening our bodies and turning our minds to mush. Nope! We survived skinned knees and bike wrecks, eager to go out and do the same thing again the next day after school. We’d run to the house and land on the porch before the streetlight sparked to life and eat a home cooked meal at—of all places—the dinner table.
We weren’t rich, like my best friend Elizabeth Gelmini’s family—they had a swimming pool and a tennis