If you are looking for a gentle story that will take you to Seattle, make you laugh, and draw you in to familiar, wise (and some are hapless) characters, then Always Gardenia is for you. The main character is Gardenia Pitkin who shines as a resourceful and kind mother, grandmother, and friend as she sorts through her own problems of loss, loneliness, and a low bank balance. Always Gardenia evokes the witty and thoughtful style of Barbara Pym and leaves the reader cheering for endearing characters and hoping for a sequel.Publisher's description:
Two years after the death of her beloved husband, Torre, fifty-six-year-old Gardenia Pitkin is adjusting to life as a widow. She's lonely and struggling financially, but she counts her blessings--her son, Hans, and grandson, Milo; her good friend Sylvie; and a new job as an administrative assistant in the English department of the University of the Northwest in Seattle. And her eccentric boss, the Chaucer specialist Arnold Wiggens, proves to be as besotted with his dachshund as Gardenia is with hers. But enter stage right Lex Ohashi, who seems determined to court Gardenia, and Dr. Laurel DuBarr, a new adjunct English professor, who quickly becomes Arnold's romantic infatuation. Meanwhile, Gardenia suspects that her daughter-in-law, Caitlin Curlew, is carrying on with another man. Should she tell her son? Does she want a new relationship with Lex? And what about her blossoming friendship with the quirky but endearing Arnold Wiggens? With nods to the wry comedic sensibility of Barbara Pym and her respect for the role of "trivialities" in human life, Always Gardenia combines laugh-out-loud moments with wise reflections on friendships, families, and loss, as well as the complex relationship between mothers and their grown sons.