"But I love you anyway" by Sara Lewis

I liked this book. I really did. I thought it was a great book. Right away I got hooked in on the first chapter. Okay, well it was sort of an accident. The chapters all have titles so when I was skimming through the book I thought it was a book of short stories, and the first chapter was really short so I said "Hey, I can read this!" And then I started the second chapter and realized I was reading a novel. DUH! But it was good. It was very well written, the dialogue was believable, the characters were believable, it was very real. It's written in first person and the narrator is widowed and divorced, has her own business, and kids. Lots of room for drama, troubles, and room to grow. The ending kind of went too quickly, but I say that about a lot of stories. Here's a couple of other quotes about the book just to give you an idea:

Two sisters in their forties search for love. They are Eve and Mimi Burke, owners of a shop in San Diego. The narrator is the once-widowed, once-divorced Mimi, who is being wooed by a man both younger and shorter. By the author of Hard Conditions.

"Summary

Two sisters confront love, marriage, and a failing business in this ?charming and deceptively breezy second novel? (Publishers Weekly) that ?deftly explores big issues like loyalty, trust, sorrow, and disappointment in sure, bright, effervescent prose? (New York Times Book Review)."
http://umass.worldcat.org/title/but-i-love-you-anyway/oclc/33244277&referer=brief_results

From Publishers Weekly

In her charming and deceptively breezy second novel, Lewis (Heart Conditions, 1994) stakes further claim to the fictional territory defined by Laurie Colwin. Set in San Diego, the plot presents the romantic misadventures of a pair of 40-ish sisters, Mimi and Eve Burke, who own and run a small mail-and-parcel shop. At Eve's wedding to John, an unemployed restaurant manager with a mysterious source of income, Mimi, who narrates, collapses into tears ("I'm forty years old, I've been married twice, and I've never had a white dress or a honeymoon"). Soon, a third potential mate comes into Mimi's life, however, in the form of Henry, who's 12 years younger and "five inches shorter" than she. But Mimi's joy at newfound love is threatened by a series of crises that begins when John is arrested for embezzling from his former employers and escalates with an unpleasant discovery about Henry and the arrival of some stiff business competition in a nearby mall. Lewis tracks the ups-and-downs of her well-drawn characters with graceful prose and winning humor. The novel's romantic resolution may lack realism and leak sap but, even so, in this winsome tale Lewis displays her rare ability to capture the emotional lives of characters.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  I highly recommend this as a good chick-flick kind of book. I'm not sure if the guys will like it, but I think a lot of women will.


I did read the reviews for some of her other books (Heart Conditions, The Answer is Yes) and unfortunately I'm not motivated to go looking for them right now.  This book was good though.