title: The Importance of Being Married: A Novel (Jessica Wild)
author:  Gemma Townley 
description: Townley (<i>Little White Lies</i>) misses the mark with this chronicle of the tangled web spun by Jessica Wild and her cohorts after Jessica unexpectedly inherits a fortune. After befriending Grace Hampton, a kindly woman at a nursing home, single workaholic Jessica fibs to her hopeful friend, saying she's datingand eventually married toadvertising giant Anthony Milton. Upon Grace's death, Jessica discovers that she, or rather, Mrs. Milton, is the heir to Grace's vast fortune. A clause in the will states that she has 50 days to claim her newfound riches. Rather than admit her lie, Jessica decides to try and get Anthony to marry her. So begins a whisper-thin plot that involves a high-paid escort who teaches Jessica tricks (like pushing her cleavage out) and a matchmaker who advises Jessica to play hardball. After a couple of dates, Anthony caves, and the second half of the book is eaten up by wedding planning and Jessica's pining for Anthony's friend. A salvo of screwball surprises explode in the third act, but these only help sink the book. <i>(July)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: **YOU WILL**  
   **NEVER KNOW**
  
   **A NOVEL OF SUSPENSE**
  
   **S. A. PRENTISS**
  
  ![](Images/image00162.jpeg)
  
   **SCARLET**
  
   **NEW YORK**
  
   _For my parents_
  
   **YOU WILL**  
   **NEVER KNOW**
  
   **CHAPTER ONE**
  
   **T** he second worst night of Jessica Thornton’s life began on Tuesday.
  
  After a long day of teller work at Warner Savings Bank, she came home and
  prepared dinner for her daughter, Emma, and stepson, Craig. With dishes done
  and put away, she sat down on the living room couch, aching feet up on a
  footstool, and glanced through the latest course catalog from the Northern
  Essex Community College in Massachusetts.
  
  The shiny pages with the bright-eyed students and promises of a better life
  caused something inside her to feel a tingle of desire. Even though her home
  here with Ted was in both their names, she had always felt like an interloper,
  not earning enough to do her fair share for their blended family. Her house in
  Haverhill, with her first husband, Bobby, had felt like a home, e