Theresa Alan Getting Married

Getting Married

Theresa Alan

Kensington, May 2007, $12.95

ISBN: 0758209967

In Denver thirty-one years old management consultant Eva Lockhart meets Will online. They hit if off and soon he moves in to her place although the paranoid Eva fears he will not stay long because she will not satisfy his needs and operate her business.

However, she feels euphoric when Will proposes and she accepts. Now she is planning her wedding, but the paranoia returns en masse that she cannot satisfy his needs, get the wedding plans accomplished, and continue her work. Instead of Will she turns to drugs to balance her overwhelming missions and control her fears of failure, but soon the drug is controlling her.

The key element is the addiction, though symbolic of deeper problems, will prove difficult to accept by readers for someone even as paranoid as Eva appears. Still she is an interesting lead character as her neurosis borders on the psychotic caused by a fear of failure makes her a unique chick lit protagonist; her asides and insight into her fears feels genuine, which also in turn leads to the audience feeling sympathetic yet not like her. Theresa Alan provides a deep look at a woman whose emotional issues have limited her relationships and seems heading like a self generated torpedo to destroy that she has with Will. Not an easy book to read, this is a discerning glimpse from the inside of a woman in trouble.

Harriet Klausner