This Book is about What??

With the title, "A Married Man", I thought I knew the whole plot from the first page. Lucy Fellowes is a young widow struggling to begin the next chapter in her life, four years after the sudden death of her husband in a car accident. A man catches her eye, and she begins to hunt him down in the neighborhood shops, grocery stores, and cafes. When her mother-in-law offers the family housing at the family estate, Lucy jumps at the chance to move closer to this cute mystery man, Charlie. "A ha!" I thought. "He's a married man. I know where this is going."

200 pages later, I was certainly swept up in the dysfunction of the extended Fellowes family, but wondering when exactly Lucy and Charlie were going to have their moment. Things on that front were progressing slowly, but predictably. In the meantime, Lucy tried to understand her place within her in-law's family, make new friends, and find a job. With such realistic characters and circumstances, I was very committed to discovering what was in store for Lucy. It no longer was about Lucy and the married man...just Lucy and her life.

It became suddenly apparent that I had let the title lead myself astray from the actual plot. Married men are everywhere in this book: her late husband; Charlie; her father-in-law; her new boss; single men who want to become married men. Which married man did the author, Catherine Alliott, mean? Where is this all going?

It would be so easy to simply say this book is chick-lit and leave it at that. The plot, however, takes so many unexpected twists and turns in the final 100 pages, becoming at times a mystery and a drama. While the book did, ultimately, end the way I anticipated, the scenes leading to this conclusion were far from what I predicted.

This is the second Catherine Alliott book I've read this summer, and I'm beginning to wonder why her books aren't more widely available in the U.S. market. Has Jodi Picoult saturated this market?

Road Trip #1

Ours was a road trip family. While I'm sure we spent time packing clothes and toothbrushes, what I really remember is the book prep. Getting ready for vacation meant at least three separate trips: 1) 2-3 days before departure, to the library for some books; 2) a bookstore, for a special book or two; and, 3) a second trip to the library minutes before closing the night before departure, where I'd return the books I'd already ready and take another dozen out. Many of our summer road adventures were in our maroon Omni. That hatchback may have given our parents loads of storage, but didn't offer much room in the back. Between the cooler taking up the leg space and the library books spilling out of their bags, Brendan and I hardly had elbow room. But, with the windows rolled down (no AC, of course) and our bodies firmly affixed by heat to the vinyl seats, we were plenty comfortable to read and read and read.

I just returned from our first road trip of the year with my kids (4, 4, and 9) and, while I followed the traditional three rules of preparation, I simply did not get enough reading done. Now sitting shot gun, I have loads more room, but having to play navigator to the driver and negotiator to the kids sucked up all the best car reading time. I was reduced to simply reading at night in the hotel room, and we all know those are the best hours to pilfer bathroom sundries and watch cable channels you can't get at home. I had packed three books and a loaded Kindle, and only finished one. Pitiful.

I had grabbed Catherine Alliott's "A Crowded Marriage" from my mother's library bag just before leaving town and had already slogged my way through the first 100 or so pages before the car backed out of the driveway. This would have been the perfect book to read during the car ride, had I the chance to read. A tried and true plot line (woman questions whether husband's friendship with ex-girlfriend is more than that), one doesn't have to expend much energy to remember plot twists while also retaining what exit the driver needs to take next. The characters are typical, but have a few quirks and details that make them fun. While the ending was nice and neat, it wasn't the conclusion you'd necessarily anticipate; the fast moving final 50 pages brought the characters to their own happily ever after.

So, even though I read the majority of this book late at night while trying to unwind after ten hours at an amusement park, I still count this as a strong contender for your road trip book bag this summer. I'd read more of Alliott's work, but it's somewhat limited in the U.S. market-- leading me to leave this post and commence researching why a title that has a Kindle option on Amazon UK can't be downloaded in the U.S. Can't we all just get along?