Eliza Starts a Rumor

By: Jane L. Rosen

Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan

The author of Nine Women, One Dress delivers a charming, unforgettable novel about four women, one little lie, and the big repercussions that unite them all.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. When Eliza Hunt created the Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board 15 years ago, she was happily entrenched in her picture-perfect suburban life with her husband and twin preschoolers. Now, with an empty nest and a crippling case of agoraphobia, the once-fun hobby has become her lifeline. So, when a rival parenting forum threatens the site’s existence, she doesn’t think twice before fabricating a salacious rumor to spark things up a bit.

It doesn’t take long before that spark becomes a flame.

Across town, new mom and site devotee Olivia York is thrown into a tailspin by what she reads on the Bulletin Board. Allison Le is making cyber friends with a woman who isn’t quite who she says she is. And Amanda Cole, Eliza’s childhood friend, may just hold the key to unearthing why Eliza can’t step out of her front door.

In all this chaos, one thing is for sure.... Hudson Valley will never be the same.

Funny, romantic, raw, and hopeful, this is a story about being a woman and of the healing power of sisterhood.

©2020 Jane L. Rosen (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Jane L. Rosen has done it again. She has created intriguing, likable characters and woven them into a story that will keep you guessing until the very end. Bravo!" (Laurie Gelman, author of Class Mom)

Worst narrator ever

The book itself was good but do yourself a favor and skip the audible version. The narrator ruined this book, and it was painful to listen to her awful narration. I’m not that picky and I’ve never left a review, but it was seriously AWFUL!

Boring

Just didn't love it. Trying to go back to do this review and trying to recall why hates it. Think had politics in it and just seemed immature behaviors

Love the community of strong women!

I wanted a self indulgent weekend and this second book from Jane Rosen was a perfect way to do it. A community of smart and strong women, all facing challenging issues, overlap beautifully in this book. One rumor starts a cascading series of events where each woman is challenged and thus becomes stronger for it. I fully enjoyed it and look forward to some time in the future when Jane Rosen puts out another book for me to plan another self indulgent weekend!

Great Women’s Literature

The friendship that binds and saves each is astounding. The underlying stories are ones that break your heart, feed your soul, and rebuild your spirits. It’s got all the feels and a little humor. Highly recommended!

Definitely enjoyed this story!

Eliza Starts a Rumor by Jane L. Rosen is the story of a middle-aged wife and mom that is suffering from agoraphobia, but also intense boredom now that her kids have grown and moved on to college. When her children were younger she started a message board called The Hudson Valley Ladies' Bulletin Board, but over the years the women have gotten older and the board has become a bit stale. Eliza overhears some younger women discussing a new 'hipper' message board and becomes intrigued. She checks out the board and desperately wants to start a trending topic, one that receives a lot of attention with tons of responses. Problem is that she lives a boring life. So what does one do in that situation, well if you're Eliza, you make up a salacious story to go along with what you think you see going on at the house next door from out your window. This is a problem because what you think you see is actually pretty close to the truth and there are real people behind these actions that the rumors hurt and cause immense problems for all involved. Aside from the rumor, and the mess it causes, there are wonderful stories of friendship in this book, one a long deep one, others that are new. There are also deeply buried hurts that come to light and a lot of support from these friendships. Overall, this book held my attention and I genuinely liked the characters and cared for their situations.

A moving story of women’s strength

I absolutely loved this story & the varying degrees of women’s suffering, resilience, teamwork, and strength. The end few chapters had tears falling from my eyes. Beautifully done.

Engaging, with likable characters

I enjoy multi-perspective stories like this. The characters (most of them) are interesting and likable. I stayed engaged throughout the story. The narrator does a good job.

Kept my interest.

At times, I expected the book to be trite, but then the author was able to navigate away from that. Appreciated that the ending wasn’t completely storybook.

Good Read to get out of your own head

I enjoyed the intertwining stories between the various characters. I could have used more suspense and conflict, but overall a good read.

A little too much

Predictable. The story wasn’t too bad. It just seemed a little overly man-bashing and woke. And of course, all the strong, independent women triumph in the end.