Shortly before turning the big 5-0, boisterous party planner and Cooking with Gusto! personality Augusta "Gus" Simpson finds herself planning a birthday party she'd rather nother own. She's getting tired of being the hostess, the mother hen, the woman who has to plan her own birthday party. What she needs is time on her own with enough distance to give her loved ones the ingredients to put together successful lives without her.

Assisted by a handsome up-and-coming chef, Oliver, Gus invites a select group to take an on-air cooking class. But instead of just preaching to the foodie masses, she will teach regular people how to make rich, sensuous mealsreal people making real food. Gus decides to bring a vibrant cast of friends and family on the program: Sabrina, her fickle daughter; Troy, Sabrina's ex-husband; Anna, Gus's timid neighbor; and Carmen, Gus's pompous and beautiful competitor at the Cooking Channel. And when she begins to have more than collegial feelings for her sous-chef, Gus realizes that she might be able to rejuvenate not just her professional life, but her personal life as well. . . .

"The book's greatworth reading now."

--Glamour

"If you are looking for an inviting group of gals to spend a few winter evenings with, pull up your afghan (you knitted it yourself, right?) and snuggle in with The Friday Night Knitting Club. Kate Jacobs' breezy first novel reads like Steel Magnolias set in Manhattan. . . . Club makes you yearn for yarn, even if you're not a knitter." --Publishers Weekly

"Without resorting to stereotypical personalities or over-the-top plot twists . . . Jacobs does something unexpectedshe changes things up, and [Club] goes from being a good book to being a really great story." --Marie Claire