In the Beginning: A Marriage Survivors Club book: The Marriage Survivors Club, #1

By Annette Nauraine

Six women meet at the funeral of the ex-husband of two of them, leading to bonds that last a lifetime.  

 

The Marriage Survivors Club is a diverse group of six, single 50-something women, drinking, cursing and praying their way through menopause…all while sidestepping the pitfalls of romance. 

The Marriage Survivors Club Series are six uplifting stories about how faith, friendship, love and acceptance sustain us through life's most difficult challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Annette Nauraine
• Release date: Jul 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223188384

Book preview

Marriage Survivors Club

MARRIAGE SURVIVORS CLUB

IN THE BEGINNING

PREQUEL

ANNETTE NAURAINE

BEASLEY BOOKS

Copyright © 2023 by Annette Nauraine

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

If you uploaded this book to, or downloaded it from, any free file sharing, torrent, or other piracy site, you did so in violation of the law and contrary to the author’s wishes.

ARRGH! Please don’t be a pirate.

All persons described herein are total figments of my imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely accidental.

If you see yourself in this book, remember: If you don’t want to appear in a book, don’t be friends with a writer.

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This book is dedicated to my wonderful husband, Peter, who has encouraged me throughout my writing journey, and to my two sons, Lincoln and Ulysses, who understand what my writing means to me.

This series is a Valentine to St. Paul’s on the Green and all the people I’ve met who’ve become my friends.

Remember: if you don’t want to see yourself in a book,

don’t be friends with a writer.

Marriage Survivors Club Prayer

From the Ionian Church Community

Dear Lord,

Please give me a few friends who understand me and remain my friends.

Addendum by the Marriage Survivors Club:

And who will tell me when I'm full of bullshit.

CONTENTS

In the Beginning

Afterword

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Annette Nauraine

IN THE BEGINNING

Huffing and puffing, Francine 'Frankie' Carter raced up the front steps of St. Paul's Episcopal Church on the Green. Father Gabriel had asked her at the last minute to help with a funeral for someone she didn't know, and she didn't like letting him—or anyone else, for that matter—down.

She would not be like her mother, no matter how hard she had to work.

Frankie was fifty-something, with tiny black and silver braids, sienna skin, shoulders broadened from carrying carpentry tools, hands toughened by work, and a fierce, can-do disposition. Her signature plum-colored lipstick added a touch of glamour to her paint-spattered jeans and her scuffed bright red work boots. She reached the working sacristy, a small room filled with a jumble of ecclesiastic accouterments.

Olivia Maxwell, already dressed for the Mass, was in the sacristy. Frankie figured they were about the same age, but she didn't know the other woman well. Olivia was about the size of a twelve-year-old, but she projected a kind of emotional radar that put Frankie on guard. On the other hand, Frankie prided herself on being direct and knew sometimes people thought she was a bit of a hard-ass.

Frankie's parents had started going to this church at a time when interracial marriages were still considered odd. As an only child and the only biracial kid in school, she'd found St. Paul's to be a refuge. On Sunday mornings, the old ladies pinched her cheeks