Daniel Maunz

This is the story of Sam, a young woman just going through the motions of life after her husband dies. She has built a cocoon of work and reading that keeps the world safely at bay. Suddenly, her father-in-law Harold bursts into her life to tell her he is getting re-married, and he wants her to be part of his new family.
Marcie, Harold's bride-to-be, has never put away her child-like wonder and love for the world, but this love is too overpowering for Sam to embrace.
Marcie has three manipulative children who do not want the marriage to take place, and try to enlist Sam in making sure it doesn't.
Although Sam initially decides to simply not get involved on any side, Marcie persists in reaching out to Sam. As Sam gets to know Marcie, she decides to do what is necessary to make the marriage happen. In the process, she confronts her own pain and ultimately decides that life is worth living, and not just surviving.… (mere)

What a delightful read! This story played out in my head like a movie I would absolutely watch. The first thing that impressed me about this author is that he could write a (peripheral) character that I disliked so much without him being an actual villian; he just sucks. The back and forth of the various motivations kept me guessing clear until the end what would happen. The author also hits us with such fun phrases such as "He had left the realm of drunk and was firmly ensconced in hangover town", and "...and as a general rule of thumb, that if the last time you showered was on another continent, you're probably due". I can't wait to read more from this author!… (mere)

I loved this novel. It touched my heart and it's a story that I won't soon forget. It made me smile and it made me cry several times because the author gave his readers such a realistic look at well written people that have significant decisions to make that will affect the rest of their lives.

Several years earlier, Sam's husband and mother in law were killed in a car accident. Sam's way of coping with her grief was to become isolated from the world around her. She did her hours at work and then came home to her house and read books. She didn't want to spend social time with her work friends and didn't want to make new friends or even have a relationship with her father in law. Her isolated life begins to crumble when her father in law, Harold, shows up at her house to tell her that he plans to get married again and since Sam is his only family, Harold wants her to become part of the extended family including Marcie's 4 children. Sam refuses and works to get back at her isolated life until one of Marcie's children connects with her to tell her that the children are opposed to the wedding. She decides that she'll do what she can to help with the upcoming wedding, even to the point of trying to convince the four children that the marriage should happen. She suddenly find that she's part of a family - something that she has avoided since the death of her husband. Through her encounters with Marcie's children, Sam is forced to confront the one question that she had sought to avoid since her husband's passing-whether she is done with the notion of "family" after all.

It's putting it mildly to say that Marcie's children are dysfunctional. First off, they all have different fathers and even though they grew up together, they are all very different. The three boys let Sadie, the only girl in the family, take the lead on everything in the family. When she starts planning on ways to stop the wedding, they all agree with her - but are they really agreeing or are the afraid of their sister? By the way, Sadie is one of the meanest and most manipulative character that I've read in a long time. Will Sam getting involved in the family issues help make the wedding happen or will she decide to continue her isolated life and let Harold and Marcie work it out for themselves?

Not to get too personal but I have (and probably still am) in Sam's shoes, grieving a loved one and not sure how to get beyond the lives of the characters in the books that I read. The author did a fantastic job of writing Sam and the ways she was handling her grief. My other favorite character was Marcie, who was a bit of a hippy and always saw the good in everyone. She loved her children and even though they were not always nice to her, she always forgave them. This is a fantastic well written book about family -- sometimes the family you create out of the people you love can be more meaningful than those that are related to you by blood.… (mere)