Tracey Bateman, I Love Claire

I Love Claire

Tracey Bateman

Faith Words, January 2007, $12.99

ISBN: 0446696072

Novelist Claire Everett has moved past her cheating ex husband Rick to become engaged to kind hearted Greg Lewis. She thinks he is nice, especially to her four children. However, she has some doubts about marrying Greg because she feels inadequate to being a pastor's wife, as she knows it took too long to turn the other cheek towards Rick and his new wife and her ambition to be interviewed by Oprah.

External factors also enhance her hesitation, as her agent dumped her while she struggles to change genres, and now Greg is talking about canceling their Hawaiian honeymoon because of a ministry opportunity. Symbolically she cannot afford the wedding dress she chose, so she takes odd jobs in the neighborhood. Finally, her seventeen year old daughter Ari seems in the midst of her first real romance; her fifteen year old son Tommy is skateboarding with the rowdy and dangerous; and her preadolescent boys Jake and Shawn are locked into electronic gaming and couching.

The third Claire Everett tale continues to focus on her struggles between being a working mother, caring for her offspring who bring new issues to their relationships, and her fianc 's chosen vocation. Though most of her sting is gone as she no longer feels acrimonious, especially towards Rick (that evolution was completed in the previous novels LEAVE IT TO CLAIRE and CLAIRE KNOWS BEST), Claire's insecurities make for an interesting look at a middle age changeover.