{"product_id":"2940153831480","title":"Believing in Rita","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor her entire life, Rita Strathcote has lived in the same stifling small town, working in and living above the struggling second-hand bookshop that has been her family’s for three generations – and now she’s had enough. What was once a haven has become a prison and the confinement of narrow-minded, small-thinking Brainbridge threatens to overwhelm her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut Rita and her sophisticated (self-proclaimed) friend Kylie have dreams; big dreams; dreams of travelling to exotic faraway places and a lifestyle usually reserved for the rich and famous. Rita spends hours trawling through National Geographic magazines, planning their life of liberation and self-indulgence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe only challenge to the fulfilment of their dreams is that Rita’s bookstore hasn’t turned a profit for years. Rita owes a lot of money – a fact Jackson Grant, the puffed-up mortgage manager of the local bank, reminds her off at regular intervals. If Rita is to find freedom, she needs a plan.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe local policeman, Dwayne Kearney, who has doted on her since high school, has long since been discounted as an option – Rita would rather be buried alive than marry a local man and settle down to the mundanity of Bainbridge life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat’s when Carl Delamore arrives in town. Scruffy and crass he may be; he is also a man of apparent wealth. Rita hatches an audacious plan to befriend Carl and secure the finances she needs to buy her freedom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe idea is quite ridiculous, implausible even, but Rita quickly becomes convinced of its worth. Her plotting becomes an obsession that reveals a dark side of Rita; a side Rita herself didn’t know existed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlienated from her friend, Rita blunders on, finding herself the cause of a suicide, an attempted murder, and the death of the one person who truly loved her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough it all Rita discovers, sometimes you gotta lose everything to find out what you really want.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gregory P Knowles","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47082333995248,"sku":"2940153831480","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940153831480_p0.jpg?v=1764057279","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940153831480","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}