My Year of Really Bad Dates

After two life-shaking events--losing her father and divorcing the man she''s spent half her life with, who happens to be an actor from a famous family--Rachel Lithgow leaves a thirty-year career to write full time and pursue a relationship with a calming, delightful man she recently met online. She thinks she has it all figured out . . . until he announces he''s joining a cult and moving to Phoenix with a blonde real estate agent.

Through a year of terrible dates, peppered with a few great experiences and a lot of pinot noir, the author learns that patterns can be changed, that asking for help is sometimes necessary, and that there''s only one way to repair her brokenness: by facing her trauma and demons head-on.

With a unique mix of humor, self-deprecation, and gritty vulnerability, this dark yet hopeful memoir tackles divorce, dating, single motherhood, PTSD, grief, loss, and starting over in midlife. From emotional rock bottom to a peaceful acceptance of the woman she truly is, Lithgow finds the humor in the blackness, redemption in the pathos, and fulfillment in the idea that "happily ever after" isn''t always a storybook ending--and doesn''t need to be.