Review: Happily Ever After: A Novel by Elizabeth Maxwell

At forty-six, Sadie Fuller's life isn't exactly romantic. She's an everyday mom in many ways, a little overweight, over-committed and struggling to raise an eleven-year-old girl as a single parent. But Sadie has a secret, while the rest of suburbia sleeps, she makes a living writing erotica under the pseudonym K. T. Briggs. Though her own sex life is nothing worth noting, she's fabulous at creating steamy fantasies with perfectly waxed, incredibly fit, scantily clad characters.

But everything changes when she encounters a strangely familiar man during a routine visit to Target. Is Sadie losing her mind, or has her latest hunky character wandered out of her manuscript and into reality? As Sadie tries to negotiate this bizarre new world, her eyes begin to open to romantic possibilities in places she never dreamed of looking . . . places where happily ever after might not be so far-fetched after all.

Paperback, 336 pages

Expected publication: March 18th 2014 by Touchstone (first published March 4th 2014)

Terri's Thoughts:  

I received an advanced readers copy of this novel from the publisher Touchstone via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.  The expected publication date is March 18th 2014.

This was a very odd read for me.  If I were to compare this book to a song, it would be a mash-up where multiple genres come together to create one piece of work.  From the synopsis of this story I thought this would be chick-lit read however right from the opening chapter I was proven wrong. The story opens as an erotica read as you are reading the story that Sadie is creating as an author erotica novels.  Then it plunges in to contemporary fiction as you learn about Sadies life.  For a while the two genres are interwoven and then all of a sudden throw in some paranormal.The result is an eclectic read that gives a little something for fans of each genre.

While at times I felt the multiple genres didn't work together I thought it was interesting how Maxwell wrote it.  It is written from the perspective of an author (Sadie) and gives a little bit of insight in to the world of a writer and the formulas and expectations that go along with it. Although I do not know how close to reality these tidbits are I would think that they are pretty close.  By having Sadie acknowledge the mixture of genres Maxwell is also acknowledging that she is mixing things up with this read.

Altogether the result is a quirky albeit slightly odd read that had me entertained for a couple of hours.  There is a bit of everything in here to satisfy fans of most genres however perhaps not enough to satisfy those who do not stray from one genre to another. Warning that there is some graphic language and scenes of a sexual nature.

        

About the Author 

Elizabeth Maxwell lived for a long time in the east until one particularly snowy February when she couldn’t take it anymore, packed up her angry cat and moved west. She’s been hanging out in the Northern California sunshine ever since. (well, except for a decade in San Francisco where it was foggy all the time but the restaurants were really good so there was that.)

Elizabeth currently lives in Davis, CA with her husband, two kids and the same angry cat (who is now 97 cat years old.)

Website:  http://www.ElizabethMaxwellAuthor.com

Twitter:  maxwellwrites