At fifty, Diane Hollenbeck’s relationship ends in divorce
after having been with her partner (and later wife) for twenty years. Diane has
some close and supportive friends and a dream of writing a book. Fortunately
for her, she teaches in a college and has vacation so she takes up a friend’s
offer to use her cabin in Vermont on the shore of Lake Champlain – the perfect
place to write. Diane’s arrival to the small town is marked by running into a
rude, tattooed woman who ignites Diane’s interest on sight (despite her
rudeness). Turns out that the rude person is Michelle St. Gelais, Diane’s new
neighbour. The next meeting between the two women also doesn’t go well but
Micelle gets into Diane’s head and Diane sets out to make peace with her
neighbour via amazing pies.
This is Diane’s story. The story of someone who has been
cast adrift in life in her middle age. The toll of a bad relationship which
systematically chipped away at Diane’s confidence is evident in many ways –
like, Michelle is downright rude and nasty to Diane in their first few
interactions but not only does Diane find something to blame in herself, she is
the one who decides to make peace and reaches out with a peace offering more
than once.
More disturbingly is the whole episode with her best friend
Maureen, an interior designer. Maureen flies to spend a weekend with Diane.
Diane has spoken to Maureen about Michelle confessing that she maybe attracted
to Michelle. On the day Maureen visits, the two friends are out and run into
Michelle in a local artisan’s market. Maureen forces Diane to work on a
centrepiece for a restaurant that Maureen is working on despite Diane repeatedly trying to avoid it during the
conversation. After that, for the rest of the day Diane is understandably not
happy. At the end of the day, Maureen lashes out at Diane who apologises
repeatedly and takes full blame. This is an upsetting reality in life. Someone
behaves badly and the recipient of the bad behaviour reacts – and voila! the
person reacting is coloured the bad guy. (BTW, Maureen did that whole forcing
Diane and Michelle to work together thing for “shits and laughs” which makes
her a very poor friend to have.) At least in the flow of this book it goes with
Diane’s seriously damaged self-confidence and self-worth.
Despite all her self-effacing-ness and needing to please, Diane
doesn’t come across as a total doormat. She is quite likeable. You feel bad for
her and feel sorry for what life has done to her but you also admire her spirit
and willingness to keep on trying and moving on.
We didn’t particularly like Michelle despite the fact that
as the book progresses she has more heart than just the nasty exterior
presented in the beginning. In fact, the way she deals with Diane when the
latter brings up the fact she needs to go back home to Florida was entirely
immature and hurtful.
There are grand gestures from both (bigger from Diane who
totally upends her life) towards the end.
This is an age-gap romance (more than a decade between the
MCs) but there is just one scene where it is mentioned (a dialogue between the
two the morning after their first time together). So that is not really the
focus.
The best thing about this book is that in the end, you
believe that this relationship is going to last – something that is always what
we want in a romance.
⭐⭐⭐
