Behind Closed Doors

By Kimberla Lawson Roby

      Kimberla Lawson Roby is the author of nationally best-selling novels “Too Much of a Good Thing,” “A Taste of Reality,” “It’s a Thin Line,” “Casting the First Stone,” and “Here and Now.” Roby’s recent novel, “Behind Closed Doors,” is about two African-American women, their friendship, and their individual relationships with their husbands.

   Regina Moore and Karen Jackson are lifelong best friends and together they have shared the successes of being highly educated and married to wonderful husbands. Regina and Karen both have satisfying careers and live in beautiful, upper-class homes in the suburbs of Illinois. Their lives are essentially dreams come true and their marriages make their lives complete. Regina is married to Larry and Karen is married to John. Both couples are childless and with Regina and Karen in their late 20’s and with full careers, neither woman particularly has parenthood in mind at this stage in her life.

    At the beginning of the novel, Regina and Karen both begin having doubts about their marriages. Regina’s husband is frequently having “nights out with the boys,” or so he claims, and Regina is hurt that she and her husband are not spending as much quality time together. Karen is having problems with her husband, too. Larry has been spending time at the racetrack and he is regularly losing his entire weekly paycheck betting on the horses. Each woman realizes that her idyllic existence is on the brink of change and neither one is happy.

  Regina and Karen share a special friendship and their friendship deepens as they both learn shattering truths about their men, who are turning out to be not-so-perfect-husbands after all. Clearly, nothing is going to be the same for either marriage and Regina and Karen face the painful prospect of starting over. As doors are opened and their lives start anew, Regina and Karen learn the power of friendship, honesty, and the true meaning of love and commitment. I highly recommend “Behind Closed Doors,” as it is a well-written novel with considerable depth that explores friendship and love.