Gretchen

The ladies are back in Orange County tonight, all in various stages of recovery from their trip to Costa Rica. For her part, Vicki is content to forget all about it and move on to making life in the O.C. more tolerable for herself and her man. In her confessional interview, Vicki laments that she cannot handle any more attacks on Brooks, which is an appropriate segue to the scene where she fires her own stealth missile against her beau on national...

TOP 40 SINGLES 1 Maroon 5, "She Will Be Loved" 2 Ashlee Simpson, "Pieces of Me" 3 Avril Lavigne, "My Happy Ending" 4 Black Eyed Peas, "Let's Get It Started" 5 Ryan Cabrera, "On the Way Down" URBAN SINGLES 1 Ciara featuring Petey Pablo, "Goodies" 2 Terror Squad, "Lean Back" 3 Jadakiss featuring Anthony Hamilton, "Why" 4 Nelly, "My Place" 5 Alicia Keys, "Diary" COUNTRY SINGLES 1 Keith Urban, "Days Go By" 2 Tim McGraw, "Live Like You Were Dying"...

Pat Green After spending the summer as the surprise standout on a tour that included Gretchen Wilson and Kenny Chesney, Texas native country musician Pat Green performs with opening act Hanna-McEuen at Rams Head Live on Saturday. Green's current single, "Baby Doll," co-written with Rob Thomas, highlights his newest album, Lucky Ones. Doors open at 8:30 p.m. for the 9.30 p.m. show. Tickets are $20 in advance, $23 day of, and can be purchased online at ramsheadlive.com, over the phone at 410-244-1131, or at the Rams Head box office at 20 Market Place.

The Village Bride of Beverly Hills By Kavita Daswani (Put-nam, 288 pages, $23.95) The tension between duty and freedom has long been a favorite subject for American novelists of Indian origin, from Bharati Mukherjee to Jhumpa Lahiri. Usually weighty, the theme gets a more light-handed treatment here. Daswani, author of a well-received 2003 novel, For Matrimonial Purposes, was born in Hong Kong to parents from Bombay and now lives in Los Angeles, as does Priya, the heroine of her new book.

Gretchen has her own place now, but dreams about the days when she wandered the streets 18 hours at a stretch in a shroud of manic-depressive illness.Virginia's life has been a cycle of violent relationships, angry departures and ill health. "You name it, baby," she says, "I've been through it."This past spring, Marcia was in a car wreck, became unemployed and was left without a home for herself and her two young sons.ITALICS After a night on the street, away from a controllinghusband, Karen seems shellshocked.

To 3-year-old Grace, who woke up from a nightmare in the middle of the night recently and climbed into bed with her, Gretchen Wilson is just "Mom." To the rest of the world, though, she's "Redneck Woman," the country singer whose song of the same name shot up the charts so fast that the relative newcomer can now travel in comfort: two tour buses instead of one. It was lunchtime yesterday when Wilson talked on her cell phone from one of those buses, but...

"Redneck Woman" Gretchen Wilson recently signed a deal with Warner Books to publish her story of going from a small-town bartender to a Grammy Award-winning artist. She performs Sunday night with Randy Owen, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of Alabama, and 20-year-old guitarist Blaine Larsen at Merriweather Post Pavilion, Little Patuxent Parkway in Columbia. Tickets are $30-$45 for the 7:30 p.m. show. Call 410-547-SEAT or go to ticketmaster.com.