The Goodbye Cousins
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $6.99
-
- $6.99
Publisher Description
A tender, funny, effervescent novel about reconnecting cousins, family secrets, and a season of change
“Your family will find you.” It was the last thing Diotima Linzer’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 father—and the FBI—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 Alecia’s fiancé, Ben, in a Pittsburgh apartment crowded with wedding gifts.
If that’s not already a recipe for disaster, Di soon finds herself falling for the wealthy, handsome, “nearly divorced” 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 hasn’t mentioned to her fiancé, has to cope with the sudden reappearance of her estranged mother—who may hold the secret to Di’s parents’ past. Suddenly these two very different cousins—one searching for direction in the universe, the other desperate to stop her well-ordered life from unraveling—are about to discover that the family they thought they’d lost may have found them instead.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her sophomore effort, Leffler spins another heartfelt tale about the search for love and acceptance, focusing on minor characters from her debut, The Diagnosis of Love. Di, a young woman with a two-year-old son, was kidnapped as a child by her mother and taken to England. Now, she's returned to the U.S., hoping to finally impose normalcy on her life. After moving in with her cousin Alecia, who's engaged, Di begins working as a nanny for the troubled son of wealthy (and newly single) Augustus Catalano. While staying with the Catalanos, Di also meets their handsome gardener, Dave, and soon finds herself torn by her feelings for the two men. Meanwhile, Alecia's relationship begins to break under the strain of the upcoming wedding and the quotidian pressures of work, family and finances. Struggling with similar emotional scars, the two cousins' attempts to build new families and identities is grounded in loving, complicated relationships. The characters are endearing and the plot straightforward (if sometimes clich d), making this an excellent summer read.
