Olivia Goldsmith

Olivia Goldsmith (1950 - January 15, 2004) was an American author, best known for her first novel The First Wives Club (1992). She was born Randy Goldfield, but changed her name to Justine Rendal. She took up writing following a divorce in which she said her husband got almost everything (including her Jaguar and the country house). Before becoming a writer, she was a partner at the management consultants Booz Allen Hamilton in New York.

Many of her books can be described as revenge fantasies; a constant theme is the mistreatment of women by the men they love, but with the women coming out the winners in the end.

Goldsmith died from complications of having plastic surgery. Her final two books will be published later this year.

Bibliography

• The First Wives Club (1992), made into a movie in 1996. The story deals with three friends who have been left by their husbands for younger women. After a friend (also a "first wife") kills herself, they decided to extract revenge.
• Fashionably Late (1993)
• Flavor of the Month (1994)
• Marrying Mom (1996)
• The Bestseller (1996)
• Switcheroo (1998)
• Young Wives (2000)
• Bad Boy (2001)
• Pen Pals (2002) in which an ambitious Wall Street financier agrees to take the rap for her boss in an insider dealing case. She finds herself abandoned by both her boss and her fiance, and ends up serving prison time.