Tanya Michaels Dating the Mrs. Smiths

Dating the Mrs. Smiths

Tanya Michaels

Harlequin Next, Nov 2005, $5.50

ISBN: 0373880685

In Florida recently widowed Charlotte Smith figures things could not get any worse as she raises her children Ben and Sara alone though Rose,her mother-in-law, pleads with her to move to Boston so she can help. However, things do when her boss at Kazka Medical Supply informs her that part of the company including her job were being transferred to another state. Deciding instead to see Rose, Charlie takes her two young children and drives fifteen hundred miles to spend the holidays in Boston.

The kids love being with their only living grandparent, but Charlie has problems as she and Rose has never been close. Still for the sake of the kids, they try to compromise, but that is difficult when two strong-willed opinionated female adults battle for supremacy as in many ways Charlie is a chip off the old block even if Rose is her in-law not a blood relative.

DATING THE MRS. SMITHS is a warm contemporary tale that centers on two generations of adults struggling with a loss of the loved, one that bound them together while trying to nurture the two children. The conflicts between the two Mrs. Smiths seem genuine as both are portrayed as real people with needs and desires including time to mourn while also considering what is best for the children especially the sensitive Sara. Tanya Michaels uses humor to somewhat defuse the conflict in which nobody is wrong, but two rights may not prove positive.

Harriet Klausner