Claire Cook's beguilingly original Ready to Fall struck a vibrant chord with its "perky take on midlife angst" (Publishers Weekly). In Must Love Dogs she gives us a contemporary Everywoman in a big rollicking south-of-Boston Irish family-a zany novel with the flavor of Nora Ephron, Susan Isaacs, and Jeanne Ray's Julie and Romeo.
In Must Love Dogs, hilarious missteps abound. Sarah's widowed father, Billy Hurlihy, with six adult kids, is seeing at least two women. And he and Sarah aren't the only Hurlihys with romantic challenges. Her brother Michael, for one, has a rocky marriage that Mother Teresa, his St. Bernard, just may put over the edge. With self-deprecating humor and a laugh-out-loud view of the way we live now, including shar pei/Labrador crosses and a transgenerational body-piercing experience, Must Love Dogs is a perfect beach read that melts the heartache of dating with warmth and humor.