How to change a life

Eloise works as a private chef and likes her life quiet. Her days are filled with clients, her corgi, and a chocolate cream pie she considers the best in the world. Then her favorite teacher, Mrs. O'Connor, dies, and the wake brings back the two friends she knew in high school, Lynne and Teresa.

Seeing them again shows Eloise how lonely she has become. In memory of Mrs. O'Connor, the three women rework an assignment from their senior year. Each must complete a bucket list of goals before turning forty in May, and the friends pick the goals for one another.

Lynne, who likes to control everything, has to get a dog. Teresa has to bring some life back into her marriage with pole dancing classes. Eloise has to start dating, which she dreads.

She meets Shawn, a former athlete and the first man she can picture herself falling for. Forty starts to look less lonely. Then a chance encounter reveals that Shawn's ex is Lynne, and the friendship the list was meant to rebuild is put at risk.

This is women's fiction about friendship and midlife, with a light, comic tone and a countdown to a birthday deadline.