Serendipity

Fern Michaels

6/24/2002

Jory Ryan has returned to Philadelphia in the early 1950's after a disastrous marriage and exile in Florida. Her husband, Ross Landers, has informed her he has filed for divorce. She has been freeing herself during her exile, learning to be independent, earning her college degree. It is time to begin living on her own. She returns to the home her father left when he died a year or so earlier.

She finds a job and adds pets to her household. There is another intrusion that unnerves her. Her soon-to-be ex-husband keeps stopping by to visit. His best friend, Pete, rents and lives in her carriage house. Both are having feelings for Jory - unexpected by Ross and renewed by Pete.

Ross' mother has changed the family magazine into a scandal, gossip magazine. The wedge between Justine Landers, her husband, and her son grows wider. She "retires" old employees, brings on new, go-getting reporters. She is certain she can pull the magazine out of the red and have it making money within two issues.

This novel is uneven. At times I couldn't put it down. Then I could not care overly much what was happening. During the first half of the book Pete's character is too good to be true. Ross appears to be the main focus of the saga, yet his emotions are often unbelievable. Jory, although set as the main character, often disappears. I was caught up in the triangle romance by the last quarter of the book, unsure where the author was taking the characters. Then the ending left me flat.

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