Sleeping With Ward Cleaver

Claire Doolittle realizes her life hasn't quite met up with her expectations. Overwhelmed with the demands of motherhood and life in general, it doesn't help that the funny, romantic and thoughtful man she once married has turned into a real-life version of Ward Cleaver, the famously dull, bossy father from the 1950's sitcom Leave it to Beaver. And the last person in the world Claire ever imagined having to sleep with for the rest of her life is a man whose sex appeal more closely resembles that of George Washington than George Clooney.
Throw in an ex-fiance who returns via e-mail to try to woo Claire back with promises of what was, and a sexy young colleague of husband Jack's, whom Claire suspects of some sort of hanky panky, and you have the ingredients for a mid-life crisis that threatens to plunge Claire's world into chaos.

Jenny Gardiner’s work has been found in Ladies Home Journal, the Washington Post and on NPR’s Day to Day. She likes to say she honed her fiction writing skills while working as a publicist for a US Senator. Other jobs have included: an orthodontic assistant (learning quite readily that she was not cut out for a career in polyester), a waitress (probably her highest-paying job), a TV reporter, a pre-obituary writer, and a photographer (claim to fame: being hired to shoot Prince Charles–with a camera, silly!). She lives in Virginia with her husband, three kids, two dogs, one cat and a gregarious parrot. In her free time she studies Italian, dreams of traveling to exotic locales, and feels very guilty for rarely attempting to clean the house.

Marliss Melton
Marliss Moon