Eileen Randahl Un-Bridled

Un-Bridled

Eileen Randahl

Downtown, Mar 2006, $13.00

ISBN: 1416507493

In California, at the altar of their Jewish wedding, Mark Hutchinson steps on the glass, but fails to break it. His bride Chloe Sachs suddenly hears a voice that says "run". She flees the service leaving a bunch of shocked people, especially the groom and her relatives, as Chloe has always been the normal one.

With no home of her own having given it up to get married, Chloe hides in her grandmother's rental property, a bungalow undergoing renovations, to work on her conflicting feelings about Mark. While in hiding, she finds some hidden letters between Laura and Jesse from WWII and soon meets a local veterinarian, Daniel Stein, who keeps coming up with reasons to visit Chloe.

UN-BRIDLED is an interesting contemporary chick lit tale starring a protagonist whose doubts explode when the groom fails to crush the glass as is traditional at a Jewish wedding. Chloe is a likable individual struggling with guilt over jilting Mark, but needs time to sift through her feelings. The aside guides for the runaway bride is unnecessary, as Chloe through her story provides a much stronger assessment. The letters add depth to a fine tale of a young woman struggling with the decision crossroads of her future, simplified by her analysis of Mark over the course of the novel.