The view from Alameda Island

Bestseller Carr (The Wanderer) falls short with this novel of a woman who pivots from a mid-40s divorce to a surprising new romance. Lauren Delaney is extricating herself from marriage to a surgeon who has spent 24 years inflicting emotional, verbal, and physical abuse on her. She can afford the services of a good lawyer and a lease on a house of her own in the Bay Area enclave of Alameda Island. She also has the support of her sister and close friends. But, straining credulity, she jumps right into a new relationship with Beau Magellan, an affluent landscape designer she meets at random in a church garden. He too is in his mid-40s and mid-divorce. Their coming together and struggles through entirely predictable obstacles thrown down by their irredeemable exes are written like a case study: heavy on omnisciently narrated backstory, and simplified to the broadest brushstrokes of character and motivation. Lacking any real examination of how a middle-aged woman leaving a miserable marriage might think or feel about singlehood, this story neither engages nor enlightens. Agent: Liza Dawson, Liza Dawson Associates. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

For 24 years, Lauren Delaney has navigated the minefield of marriage to a cruel, verbally abusive, narcissistic-and quite wealthy-surgeon, but with her younger daughter's graduation from college, she's finally moving out and filing for divorce. She has no illusions and knows it will be hard, but then she meets landscape architect Beau Magellan during a visit to her favorite garden on the secluded grounds of an old Catholic church. She learns that he, too, is in the midst of a divorce, allowing them to bond over shared angst while trying to ignore the flame that flickers between them. Naturally, problems arise as children and others weigh in and difficult, unbalanced exes become involved. Beau and Lauren know their plans will soon go off the rails, but they have no idea how violent and ugly things will get. VERDICT Brimming with insight, tender sensuality, sympathetic characters, and family anxiety, this story blends painful realities with healing love in a strong, uplifting tale that will lure both women's fiction and romance fans. Carr (The Family Gathering) lives in -Henderson, NV. [See Prepub Alert, 10/29/18.] © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.