The Aphrodite Sisters Series

The Aphrodite Sisters Series / Synopsis

High Concept: This is a story of redemption that is earned through the pain of lost love and the promise that in each of us just as there is the ability to cause pain, there is the gift of love, which is never lost and has the power to heal all things.

The Story:

When twenty-eight-year-old, interior decorator SAGE PRATT discovers that she is the other woman in her boyfriend lawyer Drew Winner’s life, she does what she has done since high school, she tells her friends, Roxie, Toni, and Kimberly. Known as “The Aphrodites,” the girls like to even the score when one of them has been wronged by an evil boyfriend. In this case, they write Drew’s obituary. And although they do it in jest, it ends up getting published. 

Drew is on the Alumni Board of a local college whose Alumni Club and Hotel is in bad need of an interior remodel. Sage is one of six finalists for the lucrative job, which, if she were to get it, would ensure her mentally disabled father’s future care. As his only living relative, the responsibility of her father has fallen on Sage’s shoulders for the last several years

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Bald at his high school graduation, courtesy of Sage and her Aphrodite friends, LUCAS FORD, a NY Times best-selling author of books involving childhood trauma, sets out to even the score with the Aphrodites. When Lucas reads “Drew P. Weiner’s” obituary and sees a photo of a high school classmate, who he last heard was dating Sage, he decides that it is time to pay his ex-girlfriend, who he has never quite gotten over, a long-awaited visit. 

When Lucas appears at her interior design shop and asks her to find gargoyles for his front porch, Sage is completely overwhelmed. Still feeling guilty about what the Aphrodites did to Lucas ten years earlier; Sage apologizes and tells him that she has tried to find him for years. Sage has never stopped loving Lucas and realizes that her friends railroaded her into breaking up with him when he couldn’t afford to take her to prom. Not being able to locate Lucas, and feeling the need for redemption, Sage has secretly been doing random acts of kindness to the victims of The Aphrodites’ wrath. The other girls have no idea what Sage has been up to, but if they were to find out, they would be angry at her for “undoing all their good work”.

Lucas tells her that he has forgiven her, but they both know he hasn’t. When Sage’s friends put Nair in his shampoo, their actions inadvertently caused Lucas to have a violent falling out with his abusive, alcoholic father. This led to Lucas’s estrangement from his family. When Lucas shares this information, it only adds to Sage’s guilt about her past actions.

Drew threatens Sage with legal action over the obituary, and Lucas starts visiting Sage’s shop more often. A tentative relationship begins between the former lovers.

When Sage is invited to Lucas’s home for dinner, he asks her to let his dog out. Unfortunately, she gets sprayed by a frightened skunk. The anti-skunk solution Lucas mixes up for her turns her hair bright orange and lemon yellow. At the discovery, Sage confronts Lucas and asks if this has finally made them even and if he has forgiven her. He has, and this turns their guarded friendship into a rekindled romance. However, Sage has no idea that Lucas has started plotting a book about “The Aphrodites”, which he is calling “The Pack”. 

Sage confides in Lucas that she is trying to make up for the past. She tells him enough that he hires a private detective and starts interviewing people to find out what Sage has done. He plots his book in an empty room of his home, writing the most horrific and ugly things Sage and her friends have ever done all over the walls.

Meanwhile, Sage confronts the Aphrodites about the obituary. And, in talking to them, she also confesses that she has been doing good deeds behind the scenes. Beyond angry, they question her sanity and tell her to knock it off. By the end of the evening, Sage begins to wonder if she has any friends left, especially after Kimberly admits to publishing the obit.

Lucas appears on her doorstep the following night, and their relationship turns physical. He invites her to spend the next day with him and his dog. Amused, Sage goes along with Lucas on a doggy playdate and meets some of his friends, who ask him to autograph his books. He has told Sage he is a technical writer. He is actually Jordan Fielding. It is a name Sage recognizes. One of the friends also mentions that every woman who reads his books “wants to be his Violet.” One of Lucas’s high school nicknames for Sage was “Violet”. When she confronts him with this information, he gives her one of his books to read and asks that she not read any of the others yet. Wanting to trust him, she does as he asks, but has the intention to read everything he has written.

The next day, Sage visits her father in the nursing home. Her father, who has displayed angry tendencies toward her in the past, attacks Sage leaving her with a black eye. As the Aphrodites are still not speaking to her, Sage confides in Lucas. 

Sage’s family split apart years earlier when she was in high school due to her father’s affair. Her older brother was terminally ill at the time, and when he died, her family had disintegrated. The resulting anger and sadness had gone a long way to forming “The Aphrodites.” It was the protection Sage needed to keep her safe.

Lucas finds Sage much more complex than he had originally believed. After getting to know her on a deeper level, he’s decided to write a different kind of book. Knowing he will have to paint over the book he has plotted in his spare room, he vows to buy paint at the next opportunity. Unfortunately, Sage sees the room when she is searching for towels before her shower after spending the night at Lucas’s house. She steps into Lucas’s plotting room by mistake and reads every horrible thing she has ever done in her life, plastered on the walls in colorful detail. 

Horrified, she leaves and refuses to speak to Lucas when he appears on her doorstep and tries to explain.

The Aphrodites have an emergency meeting, and Sage tells them what she has discovered. They ask her to speak to Lucas and convince him not to write the book. To save her friends from the embarrassment that could break up their relationships and marriages, she reaches out to Lucas. He tells her he is writing the book, but it is focusing on her. He tells her he will contact her when it is finished, and she can be the first to read it.

Lucas continues his interviews, and while interviewing Drew, he discovers the trouble Drew is planning to make for Sage with her Alumni Board project. Lucas threatens to fight Drew and in so doing, fights for Sage’s honor.

Meanwhile, the Alumni Board brings Sage in for a meeting where they tell her they will give her the lucrative job of the remodel. One of the board members confides that her ex-boyfriend, Drew, was caught expensing his dates with the other woman through the University and has lost his board position.

On Christmas Eve, Lucas leaves the manuscript, “Violet’s Redemption” on Sage’s doorstep. By now, she’s read his other books and realizes that he was in love with her in high school. The book he has written is a love letter to Sage. She agrees that Lucas can send the book to his publisher realizing that it will further her redemption. Unable to persuade the Aphrodites that the book is a good idea, Sage ends up with Lucas but has now placed distance between herself and her friends. Although they have found a tentative middle ground, there is still a little anger. But she is confident, in the months to come, Kimberly, Toni, and Roxie will realize what they need to do for their own redemption.