Like Mother, Like Daughter

Alice is a "life coach" and divorced amiably from Richard, with whom she still shares a close friendship. She has not really wanted to jump back into the dating pool. Her mother Suzie is a social butterfly who cannot imagine not having a date or two and challenges Alice to find a date to take to Suzie's 60th birthday. The challenge is on... only three months to go. But while Alice isn't really interested in making the effort, Suzie is managing to lasso them in by the handful - her most promising date is a handsome younger man she met on a train named Tom. Alice hopes that best pal Zoe will join them in the internet ads and speed dating, but she is busy trying to locate her birth parents. When Tom takes Suzie up on her recommendation that he could benefit from working with a life coach, he son finds himself attracted to Alice. Unbeknownst to the trio, Tom is soon involved with them both. Diving back into the dating pool can be hard enough, but Sigaloff turns it on its ear with her mother/daughter twist in a wry and humorous manner. The two could not be more different. I loved the relationship between Alice and Richard - they might not have been cut out to be lovers (he was gay), but they were still very close friends. And Alice's relationship with Zoe brings out further vulnerability - and a nice surprising twist in their relationship.

Fifty-nine years old Suzie has plenty of dates while her twenty-nine years old daughter Alice has none. Suzie wants her daughter to be happy so she concocts a plan in which her birthday wish is for both of them to be dating by the time she turn sixty in a few weeks. Though she hates the dating scene, Alice reluctantly agrees to find a man to join her at her mom's sixtieth birthday bash Alice looks around at work and sees few men eligible to escort her to her mom's birthday bash. At the same she struggles to find date, Suzie hones in on a younger man, which makes Alice wonder if her mom is being devious and setting her up to be with this man. Also her best friend Zoe enlists Alice's help in finding her biological parents taking time away from finding her dream date as the countdown reaches two weeks. The strong cast especially the mother and daughter roommates keep this somewhat madcap tale from becoming inane. Instead, with strong secondary characters providing sometimes zany support, Suzie and Alice seem genuine as each seeks in their own way the right man for the big date. Jane Sigaloff provides a warm relationship chick lit tale. Harriet Klausner