A truly enjoyable book for anyone who lives in a small town. Everybody knows everybody and if you have a secret - rest assured the whole town will eventually find out. This town is full of secrets and  everyone just waits for the next shoe to fall on another neighbor.

Loved this book.  Switchboard operator Vivian Dalton considers her listening in on the calls she connects harmless.  That is until she hears a rumor about her whispered over the phone lines.  While she knows who received the call, she doesn’t know who placed it.  And therein lies part of the story. Vivian is determined to find out who is spreading the rumor, and why.  But, as with most secrets, hers isn’t the only one she uncovers.  Vivian reminded me of Olive Kitteridge, while you may not love her, but you do root for her.

I was totally charmed by this book which evokes a time of switchboards and operators eavesdropping. The roles of women during mid-century are very well described. The central character is Vivian, a socially ambitious switchboard operator who hears something which changes her marriage and her life. 

She begins a quest to find out about the “secret” she heard. She is incredibly resourceful and manages to uncover many difficult truths. As she digs into the secrets, she uncovers much more than she had expected. 

This novel is very well plotted and very engaging. The author does a wonderful job of leading the reader into conclusions and then surprising results. There is a very interesting subplot which also unfurls in a most unexpected way 

I highly recommend this to reading groups. Women will find endless possibilities for discussion and debate.  Thank you Netgalley for giving me the privilege of reading this debut novel.

I thoroughly enjoyed this humorous book about Vivian and her small town life. She’s not a likable character, what with her being an eavesdropper on conversations and her jealousy of others in her town, but I don’t think we have to actually like the protagonist in every book. No character was truly likable, except perhaps for Charlotte, who’s just an innocent daughter who has to suffer through the humiliation brought on her family.

The twists and turns in the story were well written and never was there any clue as to what would be revealed. I certainly will recommend this book.

In 1950s Wooster, Ohio, two rivals, Vivian and Betty, are engaging in a game of gossipy one-upmanship that begins when Vivian, a switchboard operator for Dell, eavesdrops on one of Betty's phone calls. While Vivian is poor and Betty is rich, these antagonists have more in common than they think: they were both raised by overbearing, critical mothers and both have deep insecurities. The gossip showdown upends the delicate social structure of the town.

Titanic shifts in small-town life ought to be intriguing. I was bored by these bored housewives, bored by the "shocking" revelations, and bemused by the abrupt insertions of recipes and snippets of nursery rhymes (which Vivian gets wrong). Betty is evil, and Vivian is a moron. Both are annoying. I had no sympathy with either of them, even though I assume that since Vivian is based on the author's grandmother, I was supposed to be rooting for her. 

All of the rest of the characters are completely flat. Descriptions of people and places are either absent or ineffective; I got no particular small town, warm-and-fuzzy vibe even though it was Christmas. I have no idea why Vivian's boots reappear over and over, crunching in the snow, or why her purchase of a hat is so significant. In one story line, the scene changes from Ohio to Canada to meet another completely dull set of characters. No spoilers, but the Canadian group had every imaginable reason to be interesting and they were not. At the very least, they might have been used as comic relief.

The author seemed to be trying to decide whether she was writing a mystery, a cozy, chick lit, or literary fiction and managed to write none of the above.