Martha Moody - Sometimes Mine

Sometimes Mine

Martha Moody

Riverhead, May 2010, $14.00

ISBN: 9781594484681

In Columbus, Ohio, cardiologist Dr. Genie Toledo and married Turkman State basketball coach Mick Crabbe have been seeing each other for two hours every Thursday for the past dozen years. Outside of Mick, her patients are Genie's life.

As the fifty something Mick's team gains national prominence, Genie becomes involved with his wife and one of his adult children. Mick's twenty-something daughter single mom Claudia has a coronary disease so at her father's prodding becomes Genie's patient. This turn leads to his wife Karn "consulting" with Genie about their mutual interests in her family. Meanwhile Mick's 1999-2000 squad had high expectations but is not coming together as a unit at a time he learns he has a fatal form of prostrate cancer.

This is an entertaining character study that focuses on the life of a mistress who has no one else but her lover yet must conceal her fears that if he dies she is alone unable to even share her grief overtly with anyone. The cast is solid as Mick and his family seems genuine especially as his health deteriorates while Genie holds the story line together. Although the ending appears off kilter in its Madame Mitterrand demeanor, readers will relish the aptly titled Sometimes Mine.

Harriet Klausner