HAPPINESS KEY

Author: Emilie Richards ISBN: 9780778326601 7/2009 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: MIRA

Meet four women who think they have nothing in common except the oyster-shell road that runs between their ramshackle beach cottages on a spit of land called Happiness Key. When her husband is sent to prison, pampered Tracy Deloche is left with twenty-five acres of Florida Gulf Coast sand, five tumbledown beach houses and no idea how to start over. An exile in a strange country, Janya Kapur leaves her wealthy, close-knit Indian family for an arranged marriage to a man she barely knows. Plainspoken Wanda Gray is tired of watching her marriage fail, so she takes a job guaranteed to destroy it—if her husband cares enough to discover what she's doing. Since her daughter's death, widow Alice Brooks has grown forgetful and confused. Her son-in-law and granddaughter have come to stay, but Alice isn't sure she's grateful. When the only other resident of Happiness Key dies alone in his cottage, the four women warily join forces to find his family. Together they discover difficult truths about their own lives and the men they love—and uncover the treasure of an unlikely friendship.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Every once in a while, a book comes along that reminds me just how important female friendships can be. HAPPINESS KEY is just such a book. Filled with promise, expectation and opportunity, it shows that even in the midst of turmoil one can reinvent a life, and find happiness where it seems the unlikeliest.

Tracy is plunged into a drastic lifestyle change when her ex-husband is imprisoned. She must trade her pampered existence for life on the sandy shores of Florida. She becomes a landlady, traipsing through the buggy, sweltering heat in search of rent checks she will use to buy groceries. Tracy has definitely come down to Earth with a thump. The question is: Will she be able to start over, and use these new, albeit rundown, circumstances to her best advantage? It’s apparent that no one can answer that question but Tracy. Initially, it looks like she will fail in this new position, as it’s clear she’s not the landlady type. Fortunately, she has tenants in the beach homes she owns. Unfortunately, one dies almost immediately.

With the death of Mr. Krause, Tracy is forced to get to know her tenants. They come together initially out of necessity but soon grow close. As their friendships evolve, so does Tracy’s outlook. Too, the other women (an elderly, grieving mother, a foreigner lost in the throes of her new marriage, and a not-so-happily-married wife who wonders if life hasn’t passed her by) learn and grow, and face realities of their own lives. It is heartwarming to see each come into her own.

This is a story of sisters of the heart. The relationships are complex, the situations realistic, and the storytelling superb. I was lost in HAPPINESS KEY and loved every minute of it.

Kay James