Digital List Price:	$16.99
Kindle Price:	$9.99 Save $7.00 (41%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

Read with our free app

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the author

Lian Dolan

+ Follow

More books from this author

Elizabeth the First Wife Kindle Edition

by Lian Dolan (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 468 ratings

See all formats and editions

The Los Angeles Times–bestselling author of Helen of Pasadena offers a “charmingly funny and effortless read” about new love, new life, and Shakespeare (Library Journal, starred review).

English professor Elizabeth Lancaster is living her perfectly orchestrated, perfectly dull life when action star FX Fahey—her college boyfriend and one-time philandering husband—shows up with a job offer she can’t resist. In order to snag some positive buzz for his upcoming flick, the studio wants FX to gain some serious acting cred. That means taking a part in an avant-garde version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. And it’s up to Elizabeth to make sure FX doesn’t humiliate himself.

But the job gets complicated when Elizabeth meets a man who may actually be a good guy. Suddenly she’s learning to let go of the past and go after the life that she truly wants for herself . . .

As she did so wonderfully with her first novel, Helen of Pasadena—which spent more than a year on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list—Lian Dolan spins a lively, smart, and very funny tale of a woman reinventing her life in unexpected ways.

From the Publisher

california, romcom, shakespeare, festival, romance, self-discovery

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A charmingly funny and effortless read . . . [A] wonderfully developed cast of characters” —Library Journal (starred review)

“Whipsmart . . . Elizabeth the First Wife . . . tackles reinvention, love, and finding yourself—all with a delicious soupcon of Shakespeare.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times–bestselling author of Pictures of You

“Brings humor and warmth to a contemporary story about a woman coping with family, career, and romance.” —Tampa Bay Times

“A joyous and delightful tale.” —Shelf Awareness

About the Author

Lian Dolan is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestselling novel Helen of Pasadena, and the co-author of The Satellite Sisters' Uncommon Senses. As part of the Satellite Sisters, Lian and her four sisters found national acclaim first on NPR, then on ABC Radio and XM Satellite Radio. She writes the popular blog Chaos Chronicles.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00CCTXSRE
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Prospect Park Books (April 26, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 26, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3765 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 283 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #511,611 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,940 in Women's Divorce Fiction
- #3,097 in Sisters Fiction
- #3,983 in Contemporary Literary Fiction

Customer Reviews:
4.3 468 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Lian Dolan

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Lian Dolan is a writer and podcaster. She is the author of four best-selling novels, Lost and Found in Paris, The Sweeney Sisters, Helen of Pasadena and Elizabeth the First Wife. Her latest book, Lost and Found in Paris, comes out in paperback in April 2023. She has written regular columns for Pasadena Magazine, O Magazine and Working Mother Magazine. She is the creator, producer and host of Satellite Sisters, the award-winning podcast she created with her four real sisters. In 2017, Lian was given the Podcast Pioneer Award by Women in Podcasting. Lian graduated from Pomona College. She lives in Pasadena, California with her husband, Berick Treidler. She has two adult sons and a senior German shepherd.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

468 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Welsh Corgi fan

Well written and engaging

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2023

Verified Purchase

I very much enjoyed this well written and engaging novel, peopled with fun characters (including a dog). The plot is lively, although I enjoyed the people more, and it all comes to a satisfying conclusion.

It is important to remember as you read it that it was written in 2013. A lot of people who were famous at the time are mentioned briefly in the inter-chapter musings, but ignoring the ones I had never heard of was not a problem for me and didn't affect my enjoyment of the book.

Incidentally, Hamlet was 30 when the play takes place.

Helpful

Constant Reader

Light Romantic Tale with Shakespeare

Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book was a Kindle deal purchase for me so my expectations were not high, which may have made me like it more. It is a relatively charming, slightly quirky, romantic tale of Elizabeth, a community college Shakespeare professor who was once married to a movie star. It never delves too deep and is never really believable, but it is an enjoyable light read. The story begins when the movie star ex, FX, appears in her classroom. He wants her to help with his performance in A Midsummer’s Night Dream at a Shakespeare Festival in Oregon. The performance is directed by an avant-garde bad boy director and FX wants a respected performance to support his bid for an Oscar. Normally, Elizabeth would have told him to move along, but this summer job would pay for a new kitchen in her perfect little house. Each chapter begins with quotes from different plays by Shakespeare and commentary that relates it to pop culture celebrities or some such. I really enjoyed those chapter headings as little reminders about different Shakespeare plays and characters. The plot revolves around the play, Elizabeth’s colorful family, and the romantic interest. Most of the complications are provided by her family which includes her Noble Laureate (Physics) father who is a professor at Cal Tech, her social mover and shaker mother, her sister who is married to a Congressman (about to run for Governor of California), that sister’s step-daughter, and so on. There are interesting inside looks into the fishbowl life of politicians and the threats of social media trolls. It is not a book that will change your life or the world and it would not be a book group book for my group, but it was a quick, diverting read that did not require much attention.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Patty Willey

Fun

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2024

Verified Purchase

A fun simple read. Loved the Shakephere references

Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2015

Verified Purchase

Fun, light reading. Lian Dolan is a clever, accomplished writer with a good sense of humor. I liked her earlier book, Helena of Pasadena, better; but this one was a good read. (The copy I received had been autographed by the author.)

One person found this helpful

Helpful

BJ

This book never takes the easy road, but the scenic road is just fine.

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2014

Verified Purchase

I love this book. It did not take the expected route and gave the reader a fine ride. Elizabeth went to a good college and met Frances Fahey. She had a crush on him and did his papers while he dated other women. One day they did a Shakespeare scene and he noticed her. They stayed together and impulsively married. She helped him pick his stage name of FX Fahey and right before he hit it big he cheated on her and let her know he planned to continue. She gets a cheap divorce and he signs a three picture deal before the ink dries and she gets nothing and he forgets he knows her. Her family helps her get into grad school and she get her PhD and starts teaching the Bard at a Pasedena Community College. Her father is a Nobel Laureate physicist and her mother a social mover and shaker. One sister is a Doctor married to another Doctor and the other a PR women married to a Congressman. That make Elizabeth the underachiever is her family.

One day in the midst of class, Elizabeth is doing a scene with one of her students. She had one student who was late for class every day and very good looking so she did not even look when the girls started talking to each other. Her scene was interrupted by a voice from her past and Elizabeth looked up to see FX Fahey giving her the next line. There was a rumor going round Pasadena for years that they had been married, but he never mentioned her on any of his bios and they were never together. She finishes class and takes him to her office to find out what he wants. He had a great part as George Washington before he crossed the Delaware and there was Oscar buzz. His people decided FX needed to do a serious Shakespeare role to help build his cred as an actor. He came to Elizabeth to get help really making a Shakespeare role his own and offers her whatever she wants to help him.

This could have been a funny second chance at love romance, but it wasn't. It was not really a romance at all. It was about how sometimes just letting the past go and just going for what you want is worth the risk. Since divorcing FX, Elizabeth has not really taken any risks at all: either personal or professional. Her sister calls in a favor to Pasadena's top decorator and he fell in love with her cottage and agreed to design her remodel. At the time she made up her mind to wait a few days to make FX crazy and then turn him down, she looked down at the perfect remodel to turn her home into perfection and give her a dishwasher. So Elizabeth packs up her stuff, charges FX enough to cover her time and remodeling and takes a chance of trying something new and coming to terms with her life. She also told her mother she was doing the outline for a new book so she has that and her niece in tow to Oregon for the Shakespeare festival, while her sister tries to get pregnant.

I loved this book because it never took the easy path, but the scenic route was just fine. Elizabeth finds love and closes the door on her past while making her ex a new friend. I bought the other book Ms. Dolan wrote and I cannot wait to read it.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

D. C. A. Price

Witty and fun.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 6, 2020

Verified Purchase

As a Brit, I found this a very American novel, but loved it even though at times there was the odd phrase I didn’t quite understand. But I loved the idea of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (especially when I discovered this is a real event and I WANT TO GO!) at which Elizabeth and her ex-husband, now a famous film star, must work together on a very modern version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. This is a witty and thoroughly enjoyable novel, and I’ll be reading more by the author.