Balancing Acts »

Zoe Fishman lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband. Balancing Acts is her first novel.

A poignant debut novel about the transformative powers of yoga and friendship for four women on the verge of realizing their dreams

With beauty, brains, and a high-paying Wall Street position, Charlie was a woman who seemed to have it all until she turned thirty and took stock of her life, or lack thereof. She left it all behind to pursue yoga, and now, two years later, she's looking to drum up business for her fledgling studio in Brooklyn. Attending her college's alumni night with fliers in tow, she reconnects with three former classmates whose post-graduation lives, like hers, haven't turned out like they'd hoped.

Romance book editor Sabine still longs to write the novel that's bottled up inside her. Once an up-and-coming photographer and Upper East Side social darling, Naomi is now a single mom who hasn't picked up her camera in years. And Bess, who dreamed of being a serious investigative journalist a la Christiane Amanpour, is stuck in a rut, writing snarky captions for a gossip mag. But at a weekly yoga class at Charlie's studio, the four friends, reunited ten years after college, will forge new bonds and take new chances as they start over, fall in love, change their lives...and come face-to-face with haunting realities.

Publishers Weekly

Fishman strikes the right balance in her warm-fuzzy debut of rekindled friendship and self-empowerment. When four women who'd gone to college together run into each other at an alumni mixer, an instant bond is formed as Charlie convinces Bess, Naomi, and Sabine to join a beginner yoga class for just the four of them at her Brooklyn yoga studio. During the six weeks of class, the foursome proves to be easy to relate to as each discovers the strength to overcome some obstacle in their life. Bess has hard news aspirations, but is stuck peddling celebrity news at a gossip rag. Single mom Naomi has shuttered her photography career for better-paying Web design work. Sabine has worked at the same publishing house since graduation, shelving her desire to be an author. And though Charlie has taken the leap from her Wall Street career to business owner and yoga instructor, she's weighed down by the hurt left by an ex-boyfriend. It's perfectly adequate if not especially distinguished from the trove of other books of female friendship, bonding, and weathering the vicissitudes of life with a little help from a hobby. (Mar.)