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THE GOODBYE COUSINS

The Goodbye Cousins, July 2009
by Maggie Leffler

Bantam
384 pages
ISBN: 0385340478
EAN: 9780385340472
Trade Size
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"Searching for your true family can have many repercussions."

Fresh Fiction Review

THE GOODBYE COUSINS
Maggie Leffler

Reviewed by Viki Ferrell
Posted June 10, 2009

Women's Fiction

Diotima Linzer (Di) is returning to the United States, searching for a memory of her dead father and trying to piece together the life that was taken from her. She's actually coming for her cousin's wedding, with all her earthly belongings in tow (there isn't much) along with her two-year-old son. Di is searching for something more than just family memories, but even she is not sure what that "something" is.

Di and her cousin, Alecia, never had a chance to say goodbye. At 11, Di's somewhat eccentric mom kidnapped her and took her to England so that her father could not have custody of her in their divorce. Now Di and Alecia are catching up on almost 20 years. Correspondence through letters, however, has kept them in touch with each other since Alecia found Di through an Internet search.

As Di is searching for her past and trying to make sense of her present, Alecia has her own set of problems. She is putting more effort into her career than her relationship with her fiancรฉ, Ben, and her upcoming marriage. And she is keeping secrets from Ben, secrets that could lead to her destruction. Alecia is also keeping secrets from Di, as she is looking for some truth about her family and what really happened all those years ago.

In an effort to find her own way, Di works as a nanny and a cook for a wealthy divorced man who tries to take advantage of her, but also helps her realize some things about herself and about life in general. Di seeks out Alecia's estranged mother, recently released from rehab, and learns some of the secrets of the past. And her trip to Philadelphia to see her father's widow really opens her eyes in her search for family and what life is all about.

Dave, the landscaper, adds a little charm and romance to this delightful novel that is sure to have you wondering if Di and Alecia are going to come out all right. Will Di learn that she cannot change the past and that she also cannot predict the future? In her search for her family, closure about her father and the truth, will her deceased mother's final words ring true: "Your family will find you."?

Learn more about THE GOODBYE COUSINS

SUMMARY

A tender, funny, effervescent novel about reconnecting cousins, family secrets, and a season of change

โ€œYour family will find you.โ€ It was the last thing Diotima Linzerโ€™s mother, Roxanne, ever told her. But this was the same mother who kidnapped Di when she was eleven and fled to Europe where her broken-hearted fatherโ€”and the FBIโ€”would never find them. Now a single mom herself, Di is making a belated return to the States with her two-year-old son, Max, searching for the father she lost. That means moving in temporarily with her cousin Alecia and Aleciaโ€™s fiancรฉ, Ben, in a Pittsburgh apartment crowded with wedding gifts.

If thatโ€™s not already a recipe for disaster, Di soon finds herself falling for the wealthy, handsome, โ€œnearly divorcedโ€ father who hires her as a nanny for his troubled teenage son, while her cousin Alecia, preoccupied by her promotion to television news anchor and a prenup she hasnโ€™t mentioned to her fiancรฉ, has to cope with the sudden reappearance of her estranged motherโ€”who may hold the secret to Diโ€™s parentsโ€™ past. Suddenly these two very different cousinsโ€”one searching for direction in the universe, the other desperate to stop her well-ordered life from unravelingโ€” are about to discover that the family they thought theyโ€™d lost may have found them instead.

EXCERPT

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