Karen Kendall, Fit To Be Tied

Fit To Be Tied

Karen Kendall

Signet, Mar 2007, $6.99

ISBN: 0451220781

In the Hartford area, this should be the happiest day of her life. Yet with each step towards the altar and the groom, Jen Canby feels like a condemned woman facing a firing squad. She wonders how she ended up on death row, as kindhearted Tom Brookhaven calmly waits, apparently due to imbibing for her to exchange I do with him. Cowardly she goes through the vows rather than flee as her gut insists she do because $35,000 would go down the toilet.

At the ceremony afterward, Jen's parents are living up to what she expects from them, causing havoc as they fight publicly over every nuance. Their upcoming divorce sounds like the Paris Peace Accords to end some war. Tom is drunk when an uninvited, six-foot Amazon arrives, claiming she is the groom's former wife. Perhaps Jen needs a divorce or an annulment though she admits to herself she loves Tom, but her only concern is who would gain custody of the dog.

Though humorous, contemporary readers will want to admonish Jen for not taking the time to talk with her new husband instead of saying I do want a divorce as she insists after she feels he got drunk to marry her and hid his first wife from her, which reminds her too much of her parents. Tom tries to atone for his poor performance, but Jen refuses to listen to his apologies. Told from Jen's perspective only, the audience sees the dysfunctional relationships (there are several) from her limited tainted viewpoint. Karen Kendall provides a lighthearted, chick-lit tale that has amusing moments and asides, but Jen fails to obtain reader empathy.

Harriet Klausner