Slow Hands Book

We pay to get our hair done, our houses cleaned, our cars waxed. Why not pay for something we really need?

I am leaving you a nest egg. Let it take you someplace you've never been.

For Sara and Coralee Halprin, their mother's death is a tragedy. And the million-dollar inheritance she leaves them, an unexpected gift. Both sisters are very settled in their lives. Sara has a wonderful husband, a close relationship with her teenage daughter and a busy career as a group therapist. Coralee's life is less structured: she's happy to be single, happy in her carefree job as a caterer.

Now life has handed them an opportunity they never expected.

The final stipulation in their mother's will is that they use the money to go into business together. The type of business is up to them. Unable to walk away from an opportunity, the Halprin sisters embark on a venture that will change their lives.

Under the guise of opening a bed-and-breakfast, they buy a beautiful Victorian home in Berkeley, California, and set in motion a revolutionary new business that no one — not even Sara's husband and daughter — know about.

Slow Hands — part spa, part club — is to be a haven for women, a place to indulge their romantic fantasies, soothe their souls, rejoice in all things female. Staffed by male Zen Buddhists, skilled in the art of sensuality, Slow Hands is an exclusive bordello for women.

With discretion being paramount, Sara and Coralee open their doors first to Sara's therapy clients, and soon realize Slow Hands is the perfect antidote to the women's unhappiness. But as Slow Hands begins to take off, it also begins to cause havoc in the Halprin sisters' lives, putting in jeopardy their relationship, Sara's marriage and ultimately — when the business is exposed — their freedom.

Slow Hands is an irresistible idea whose time has come. And every woman, every reader, will yearn for the opportunity to walk through its doors!

Lynne Kaufman is an award-winning playwright who has had ten plays premiered in theaters in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Her plays have been optioned for film and television. She has published dozens of short stories in national magazines. Slow Hands is her first novel. The mother of two grown children, Lynne lives in San Francisco with her pediatrician husband, where she works as director of travel/study for the University of California Berkeley Extension.