"Live a Little"

New from 5 Spot: Live a Little by Kim Green.

About the book, from the publisher:

-What do you do if you have two bratty teenage kids who don't give you the time of day?
-What do you do if your husband is more interested in his remote than you?
-What do you do if you're forever being compared to your perfect sister--who just happened to marry your perfect boyfriend?
-And what do you do if you're told you have stage 4 breast cancer?
Well, if you're Raquel Rose, you tell your family your diagnosis, and then you watch them go from treating you like dirt to treating you like a queen. Then you go on to raise unprecedented amounts of money for breast cancer research. You fulfill your early artistic promise. And you find you love this new life of yours, no matter how fleeting it may be.

So when the doctor calls to tell her that there was a mistake and she's actually perfectly healthy, instead of sharing her good news, Raquel can't relinquish the sudden attention and love from her family. Soon Raquel's lie by omission snowballs and the wise-cracking 40-something becomes a sought-after figure on her sister's popular talk show, elevating her "illness" to local rock star status. Her mistaken diagnosis becomes the fated opportunity to fix the glaring problems in her life--her stalled career as an artist, her lackluster marriage, her unappreciative children, and her highly dysfunctional family.

And while she wants to tell the truth, she's afraid to give it all up--would her family go back to taking her for granted? Would the donors rescind their checks if they think she was a fraud? In the end, it's up to Raquel to find her real "cure": an ending that befits the second chance she's been granted.

Visit Kim Green's website and her blog.