Multiple Choice

A new laugh-out-loud novel from the national bestselling author of Must Love Dogs.

There was a time when March Monroe thought she and her daughter Olivia would never really cut the cord. Now Olivia is off to college and March is secretly doing the same thing. It's a high-voltage shock when they run into each other as student interns at the local radio station. From the author of Must Love Dogs, this effervescent story will strike a chord with women of all ages-whether they have kids in college or are just now choosing their majors. Required reading for absolute enjoyment!

March Monroe and her daughter Olivia are going to college. Not together at the same school, of course, just at the same time. March knows that Olivia is going, naturally, since she and her husband have just made their first exorbitant tuition payment. But Olivia doesn't exactly know the arrangement . . . yet. It's not as if March plans never to tell her; she just figures she'll wait a bit——until they've had a little time to miss each other. So imagine Olivia's surprise when one day she shows up for training at a local radio station and finds out that one of the other interns is . . . her mother.

Sharing an internship with her royally ticked-off daughter is not March's only new challenge. Among the multiple decisions on her mind are what to do about a slightly tired marriage, a fourteen-year-old son who probably won't be speaking to her for much longer, and a midlife crush, not to mention Quantum Physics and You——the class that just might put her over the edge. Laugh-out-loud funny, Multiple Choice is an effervescent novel of family life that will strike a chord with women everywhere——whether they have kids in college or are just now choosing their own majors. Required summer reading!

Publishers Weekly

A midlife back-to-school adventure propels a suburban housewife into an unlikely radio career in Cook's third novel, set on the South Shore of Massachusetts. March Monroe is the spunky protagonist who left college life behind to marry a civil engineer named Jeff and raise a daughter and son while working as an aerobics instructor, party planner and finally a life coach. With Olivia off to college and Jackson not far behind, March finally takes her husband up on his longstanding offer to send her back to school. The degree requires an internship, and when March explores her limited options she finds herself inadvertently working together with Olivia as fellow interns at a local radio station. Exploiting the friction between March and Olivia, handsome programming director David Callahan proposes that the two do a mother-daughter call-in show that quickly takes off and becomes popular. Cook wrings some humor out of family life, March's mild flirtation with Callahan and the back-to-school experience. But the story meanders, detouring into asides about family pets, the generation gap, the stresses of being overscheduled and other typical suburban family disasters. Despite (or because of) the stabs at domestic insight, the cluttered result reads like warmed-over Erma Bombeck. Agent, Lisa Bankoff. 5-city author tour. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

"Late starter" Claire Cook is an inspiration for aspiring writers and women in midlife transition. She wrote her first novel when she was in her 40s, sitting in her minivan at 5 AM, waiting for her daughter to emerge from swim practice! Since then, she's gone on to limn the lives of plucky middle-aged women in a series of bestselling romantic comedies like Must Love Dogs.