Back In the Game
Holly Chamberlin
Strapless, Jun 2006, $12.95
ISBN: 0758207972

In Boston, the four women are recently divorced, but not as upset by the split as expected. Perhaps that is because the quartet knows that fifty percent of that sacred institution that need amendments to keep pure end up broken. Each of the women is concerned whether to dive into the icy depths of dating.

Matt and Jess Marlowe married in love, but divorced in hate as she became an adulteress. Richard and Nell Keats stayed together through two decades plus and two children until he informed her he loved Bob Landry. Laura (Nell's sister) and Duncan Costello disagreed vehemently over having children as she wanted rugrats while he wanted to remain a dink (double income no kids) family. Grace and Simon Henley ended their marital relationship because he slept with others, but she still supports him financially and emotionally especially when he breaks up with his latest flavor of the hour

These four single females want to take Boston like a northeasterner, but that dive into the harbor is so frightening yet each takes the plunge seeking the right man or men this time around.

The ensemble lead female cast rotates perspective in this fine look at relationships after the marriage is over. That approach provides the reader with a wider scope of reactions, but also feels slightly disjointed. Though well written with interesting protagonists struggling with to date or not to date, the aptly titled BACK IN THE GAME would have been better suited as four novellas to ease tracking of the stars, all of whom are worth knowing.

Harriet Klausner