Friday, February 12, 2016

The Ramblers by Aidan Donnelley Rowley


They should be fabulously happy.  Clio, Sarah and Tate all live in New York City and have found professional success.  Yet each is stumbling in life, their professional success not mirrored in their personal lives.

Clio was the scholarship girl in an Ivy League university.  Her middle-class parents didn't bode well for her fitting in with her classmates from fabulous, wealthy families.  Clio also has childhood secrets that she wanted to hide and that even in her mid-thirties keep her from forming a committed relationship.  She has been seeing Henry, a charming Irish man who has just opened a successful hotel in midtown Manhattan.  He's ready for commitment but Clio just can't make the leap.

Sarah comes from old money.  She lives in an apartment right off Central Park, a college graduation gift from her parents, who live in the same building, as does her sister.  Clio was her college roommate and still lives with her, each hesitant to live on their own.  Sarah's younger sister is getting married in a week, a fact that fills her with envy.  She thought she had met the love of her life, but he crushed her by leaving her before their marriage.  Sarah has created her own business, but the fact that she had to get the money to do so from her father still gnaws at her.

Tate, with a college friend, created an app that they sold for millions.  At the same time, his marriage imploded and he is left without work or love.  He thinks he would like to pursue his lifelong fascination with photography.  He meets Sarah at a Yale alumni game, and although they weren't friends in college, they have an immediate connection.

Aidan Rowley knows the subject area she is writing about.  She lives in New York with her family.  She is a graduate of Yale and Columbia Law School.  She understands the difficulty in finding one's way in both personal and professional arenas, and how one must make a conscious decision to be happy.  Readers will be invested in all three character's lives and decision points, although they may question why these difficulties weren't resolved before the characters' mid-thirties.  This book is recommended for readers interested in relationships and life struggles.

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