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Wife Dashes Off For New Life After Fight With Husband

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By STEPHANIE REBEIN

Published: September 16, 2007

'Mad Dash,' by Patricia Gaffney (Shaye Areheart, $23)

This novel probably qualifies as chick lit, but it's not so fluffy that one needs to feel guilty about reading it.

The main plotline has to do with Dash Bateman, who leaves her husband of 20 years after a fight about whether to keep a puppy they found nearly frozen to death on their front stoop.

Dash and the puppy head off to the country to live in the rural cottage she and her husband had purchased many years before as a second home.

Dash deals with many emotional situations common to women her age: sadness over her daughter going off to college, her mother's death only a year before and confusion about her marriage and career.

She feels something is missing but is joyful about her new friends, new choices and new change of scenery.

Her husband, Andrew, meanwhile, goes through some career upheaval of his own, while adjusting to the departure of his daughter and trying to cope with the unexpected departure of his wife.

Andrew's story isn't all of woe. Dash's departure provides him with a bit of a clean slate on which to work through some of his own situations, including an ailing and estranged parent, office politics and even a flirtation.

This is a fun, light, well-written novel and likely to resonate in parts with most readers.

Stephanie Rebein is a new product/initiative manager for the Florida Communications Group.

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