When my pile of books starts looking like an avalanche of high-falutin’ literary la di da, I turn to Claire Cook for an antidote to this madness, and she never fails. If you haven’t read her books, she writes in an enjoyable, funny voice and each of her books focus on a woman who’s life has taken an unexpected turn and who may stumble and fall but always in a laugh out loud, true to life way. This one is coming, as usual in June, timed for the beach read crowd, and it will not fail to satisfy the reader. I find that ‘beach read’ books tend to be fluffy romances or funny chick books that are a bit short on funny and somewhat long on stilted writing, this is not the case with Clare Cook’s writing. We (women of a certain age) can identify with her characters, divorced single mothers, who learn to adapt and survive by following a dream they didn’t even know they had.
In Time Flies, Melanie is newly divorced and has developed an alarming highway driving phobia. She has also become a metalwork sculptor and trying to get her quirky work out in the marketplace. She has relocated from the south shore of Massachusetts where she grew up to the suburbs of Atlanta, thanks to her ex-husband. So when her high school reunion looms and a friend won’t take no for an answer, she has to face her fears and start living. Along the way she discovers that her life is much more interesting than she thought it was as friendships are tested and the another chance at love is once more a possibility. Loved it, and I’m not just saying that because I appear in this novel’s acknowledgements thanks to a very generous Claire Cook!
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