Muffled laughter erupted from Veronica’s office. Like a red-hot curling iron it seared Shira’s already twisted insides. The door opened to Veronica’s melodic scales and Nigel’s loud theatrical staccato. Shira's anxiety hit a new level.

Something cold and wet ran down her pant leg. In her tightened fist was the crushed paper cup. She glanced down. The sticky contents had produced an ugly brown stain—like a caffeinated oil spill—down her cream slacks. Her eyes traveled up to see Veronica and Nigel in front of her.

“Shira, love, have an accident?” Nigel brought his fingertips to his mouth and shook his bulbous head, barely stifling a giggle.

She ran back to her station to grab some tissues. With quick frantic strokes she tried cleaning her pants. Instead she left a trail of tissue dandruff. Veronica came up behind her and handed her a towel.

“New suit?”

Their eyes met. Shira hoped to read sympathy in the smoky gray, but something more like amusement sparkled.

“Yes.” Try as she might, Shira couldn’t stop her lips from quivering. Her Crisis104 pantsuit—the Dad-Forgot-My-Birthday-Again outfit—looked the way she felt. Ruined.

Nigel snickered. His response revived her annoyance. She mustered up an angry glare then shot it in his direction.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, girlfriend.” He tugged on a cuff and adjusted the lapel of his Ralph Lauren suit. “Veronica, love, meet you at Savoy?”

What?

Shira turned toward the woman she had trusted with her future. Veronica glanced down at her gold alligator-skin flats. Her friend’s pale cheeks colored.

Oh, the betrayal. Shira had helped Veronica pick out those shoes.

“Yes, Nigel,” Veronica nodded toward him. “Run along.”

He pranced through the salon lifting his arms and pointing to his head. “I got Beverly Hills,” he bellowed.

Someone let out a moan. Shira realized it had come from her. Her heart pounded against her chest, wanting out of her body. To run somewhere safe.

A crowd formed around Nigel. The shampoo staff took turns hugging him. Squeals and laughter fell like verbal balloons and confetti. Shira watched as her best friend Fawna looped her arm through his and planted a kiss . . . on his lips?

Shira blinked. The scene before her turned soft and fuzzy. Everyone seemed to move in slow motion.

Was this a dream?

“Shira?”

Was someone calling her?

Veronica’s face moved into Shira’s view. “Dear?” Veronica wrapped her thin arms around Shira and tried to guide her away from the celebration.

Except Shira’s legs had turned to rubber and all she could hear was a strange ringing in her ears. She glanced back toward the swarm of well-wishers.

As if on cue, they stopped talking and stared at Shira. Everything went dark—

A hair stylist on the fast track to salon fame is yanked back to her hometown when she inherits a rundown salon with three beauticians stuck in the '80s and certain to make her life a tangled mess.

Shira Goldstein's life takes a drastic turn when she goes from styling the
wealthy and famous at a premiere salon in Manhattan, to humiliated and
unemployed in one day. Just when she thinks things couldn’t get worse, her Aunt
Edna passes away.

Her aunt leaves Shira her run-down salon, The Hair
Mavens, but an unwelcome surprise accompanies the inheritance. According to her
aunt’s dreamy lawyer, Jesse Fox, the salon comes with three beauticians—the
mavens—Harriet Foster, Beulah Montgomery and Kathy Smith.

Harriet isn’t interested in any new fangled changes and wants to make sure she comes out on
top—whatever it takes.

Beulah was Aunt Edna’s prayer partner and wants to support Shira, but knows the three mavens are about to be fired. Besides what
would a star in the salon field want with a behind-the-times beautician?


Kathy, afraid of her own shadow, bears a secret Edna took with her to the grave.

Only God could bring four such unlikely women together to make a difference in each of their lives and eventually the whole community—if
they don’t kill each other first.