Accidental Happiness

By Jean Reynolds Page

Book Overview

Someone once told me that groupings of objects should be displayed in threes. Three provides both tension and balance among items of varying size and heft. My sister's accident made me an only child; my husband's accident made me a widow. Part of me will always believe that Angel was the third, the one that left me with hope.

After her husband's unexpected death at the age of thirty-six, Gina Melrose becomes a "live-aboard" on his boat, docked at a marina in coastal South Carolina, near the home she and Ben once shared. In this temporary, borrowed existence on the water, she settles into numb survival. But Gina finds her life taking yet another dramatic turn late one night when a woman named Reese disrupts her quiet world. With Reese comes a daughter: a charming girl named Angel.

After a rough start, Gina realizes that, strange as it may seem, she's drawn to both Reese and Angel. Their sudden appearance shatters the stillness-and Gina is remade. She is fascinated by Reese, who seems both invincible and vulnerable-and whose past may hold the key to Gina's future. Gina begins to realize that for the first time since Ben's death, she's getting her senses back. As both pain and joy reenter her world, Gina discovers that she is able to accept feeling in order to live fully once more.

But the biggest surprise for Gina is her relationship with Angel. After the painful loss of her sister during childhood, Gina had decided that she would never have children of her own. Struggling through conflicted emotions, Gina's finds her life unexpectedly transformed by the precocious little girl who may be Ben's daughter.

This tender, poignant novel movingly explores the bonds of family and the resilience of hope. In the accomplished tradition of the novels of Elizabeth Berg and Anita Shreve, Jean Reynolds Page's Accidental Happiness is a lyrical, enthralling drama unafraid to examine complex relationships with a clear eye and an honest heart.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345462181
• ISBN13: 9780345462183
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Accidental Happiness

This was a really good book. The story was very "different" than most chick lit that is out there, and the characters were very real. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it!

An amazing story, intriguing, involving and moving

I couldn't quit thinking about "Accidental Happiness" for a long time after I read it. It's the kind of book that takes what you think you know, what you'd bet your life on, and turns it upside down. This novel is beautifully written and plotted, but to me, it also read like a wonderful mystery. (I love mysteries, my favorite kind of book.)Only the mystery here involves human emotions, tragedies and, eventually, the best kind of hope. That is, the hope that the future will be better. I've shared this book with many friends. One called me, even though she knew I was in another state on vacation, just to talk to me about the book. "I just wanted to tell you how wonderful it was," she said. She and I had both read Jean Reynolds Page's first novel, A Blessed Event, and we both agreed it would be a hard act to follow. Now we both agree that Jean Reynolds Page not only lived up to the promise of her first novel, she exceeded it on every level. Not an easy thing to do when "A Blessed Event" rated as one of my all-time favorites.

Wonderful Book!

I listened to this book on cd and it is just wonderful. What a wonderful story!

A Lovely Story, Beautifully Told

Accidental Happiness was that most wonderful thing, a great read, as substantial and satisfying as dinner at a five-star restaurant. The book was perfectly paced, beautifully plotted, with the authority and precision you only get with first-rate storytelling. It has an especially brilliant plot twist near the end, yielding a Tah-Dah! sort of moment when you smack your forehead and say, of course! It all makes sense now! How could I have not seen it coming? And yet, you don't. I loved these characters for their flaws and their transcendent moments, something Jean Reynolds Page does through the kind of small epiphanies that happen to us without witnesses or guides. Gina and Reese are both vivid, real, and damaged in absolutely believable ways. There are no goddesses here, only people held together by love and a keen desire to do what's right, when it's not at all clear that there IS a right. Page's excellent critical reviews are both well-deserved and well-earned. If you enjoy Accidental Happiness, than you'll also love the author's first novel, A Blessed Event.

intriguing extended family drama

Three months ago Benjamin Melrose died in a car accident leaving behind a grieving widow Gina whose feelings are compounded by guilt as she insisted he, not AAA, pick her up when her car was out of gas during that fatal drive. Struggling to cope with remorse, Gina moves into her late husband's sailboat River Rose. Late one night Gina sees movement on her sailboat and fires a gun, shooting Angel, the daughter of Ben's first wife Reese. Gina joins Reese at the emergency room where Angel is provided medical care. As Angel recovers, she and her mom move in with Gina, who feels she is doing the right thing by her late husband. Soon Gina begins to heal mostly because of Angel who she wonders if the kid is Benjamin's child, a question Reese refuses to answer. As Angel and Gina become close and in many ways more like a daughter-mother relationship than Reese has, the first wife begins acting bizarre making the second spouse determined to keep the potential offspring safe and nurtured at any cost to herself. ACCIDENTAL HAPPINESS is an intriguing extended family drama in which the five key players (the two spouses, the child, the deceased and Georgie the dog) contain different personalities as each one seems real and their interplay authentic though strange. The characters make the story line with the varying relationships between each of them interesting and supportive of their particular values to include a well designed look at mental illness. Contemporary fans will appreciate this deep look at the extensive modern day family whose foci has recently passed away leaving guilt and remorse behind. Harriet Klausner