Another Mother's Life » (Bargain)

Rowan Coleman worked in bookselling and publishing for seven years, during which time she won the Company magazine Young Writer of the Year award. She lives with her husband and her young daughter in England where she is working on her next novel.

Can you ever mend a shattered friendship?

From Rowan Coleman, author of the acclaimed bestseller The Accidental Mother, comes a deeply moving novel for every woman who was ever a teenager in love, a mother, or made a heartbreaking decision.

For wealthy Alison James, moving with her family to her hometown of Farmington presents more than a case of relocation jitters. Fifteen years ago, she fled town, eloping with her best friend's boyfriend. Now, blessed with three children, but uneasy in her marriage, she wonders if that decision led her away from the life she was meant to lead.

Catherine Ashley, broke, the mother of two and almost divorced, can't help but wonder the same thing. Although she's content with her children, she finds herself returning again and again to those few weeks fifteen years ago when she fell deeply in love, only to be betrayed by her most trusted friend.

Now, once more living in the same town, Alison and Catherine are about to find out just how different their lives could still be. But this time around they are adults, and while their own happiness is at stake, so is their children's.

Wise and warmhearted, Another Mother's Life will make you laugh and cry — and think about what you would do when confronted by some of life's most difficult choices.

Publishers Weekly

Coleman explores in her underwhelming second novel (after The Accidental Mother) the long-term repercussions of rash, romantic and destructive decisions made in mercurial youth. Growing up, outgoing, attractive Alison James and introverted beauty-who-doesn't-know-it Catherine Ashley were inseparable in the way that only teenage girls can be. That is, until 17-year-old Alison, in a moment of youthful passion, runs off with Catherine's boyfriend, Marc, leaving an emotionally scarred Catherine and a bad reputation in her wake. Sixteen years later, Alison and Marc-now married-move back to the girls' hometown, forcing Alison and Catherine to finally confront their pasts and one other. The book's concept is promising, but clunky dialogue detracts, and the many passages of introspection grow tiresome, repetitive and melodramatic. It's like listening to a romantically inept friend recount the latest relationship woes: it's amusing enough, but after a while you'd like to change the subject. (Oct.)

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