Author Jessica Caris is as successful as a careerwoman can be: she is the founder of Caris Communications (www.cariscommunications.com, a consultancy that provides writing, publicity, public relations and communications services. A nationally acclaimed and award-winning public relations executive and writer, Jessica has worked with many publicly-traded and Fortune 100 companies, including New York Life, Wyeth Pharmaceutical, BearingPoint, Deutsche Bank Private Wealth, Smith Barney Private Wealth, Bessemer Trust, Old Mutual Asset Management, Bridgepoint Education and many others. Jessica was an on-air reporter at Bloomberg TV and a producer and writer at CNN in New York.

Where she has seen ultimate success professionally, she had less luck in love. The California mother of two went through the traumatic and rare experience of divorcing while pregnant, with a toddler in tow. To offset her mounting legal costs – and find a bit of theraputic release – Caris used the inspiration she found in her own trauma as the basis for Naomi Carter, the heroine in her recently-published debut novel, Breeding in Captivity.

Most novels (and films) offer me an escape from whatever daily tasks I’ve been stalling on completing – laundry, dinner, or other housework. When I’m feeling particularly stressed out – with work, relationships, motherhood, or bills, I love finding, and losing myself in, novels and films with heroines who have it all – Carrie Bradshaw’s wardrobe with Cinderella’s Prince Charming at her side – all the perks in life and not a responsibility in the world.

When I received an offer to review Breeding in Captivity, my first mental image was of Meryl Streep in She Devil, meeting with her publisher about her latest novel, Love in the Rinse Cycle, a follow up to a series of overly-romantic, Fabio-esque love stories. “What is this chapter on laundry?” I wasn’t sure that the story’s heroine, a woman divorcing during pregnancy, would be the type of escape I’d enjoy – I was sure Streep’s fictional agent was right in advising her against publishing a novel about a woman with two children facing real life challenges. I couldn’t have been more wrong.