An Accidental Woman

AN ACCIDENTAL WOMAN By Barbara Delinsky

Some authors have an uncanny ability to get us to care about their characters, to create a world so real and wonderful that we feel it: we know the breezes there, we know the café and the smell of fresh pies, we know the people and their pickup trucks. We’ve lived in these places that some talented authors bring to life. This is the way I felt about Lake Henry, the maple syrup producing town of Barbara Delinsky’s latest best-selling paperback, An Accidental Woman. Can I just say I loved this book? I just loved it. I loved the main characters. I loved Micah and his girlfriend Heather who is arrested and taken away by the FBI in the middle of the night for a crime she may have committed in her youth when her name was Lisa. I loved Poppy Blake, the feisty 30-year-old town telephone operator who is in a wheelchair after a snowmobiling accident she’s never forgiven herself for. (Some of you will remember Poppy from Delinsky’s bestseller Lake News.) I loved Griffin, the wealthy reporter who falls in love with Poppy and is willing to knock down every wall she puts up in order to win her heart. An Accidental Woman is a suspense novel, a love story, a wonderful telling of the rich tradition of making maple syrup, and an inspirational tale of love for a paraplegic all in one book. I enjoyed it on each of those levels. The suspense worked, the love stories definitely worked and the insights into Poppy’s spinal injury and what her life is like were so interesting to me. OK – I admit a lot of books make me cry – but this one made me cry so much I had to explain to my family that nothing was wrong with me. I just finished a great book. That’s all. I give a heartfelt recommendation to Barbara Delinsky’s latest best-selling paperback, An Accidental Woman.