Catching Air: A Novel
When Kira and her husband, Peter, decide to join his brother, Rand, and his wife, Alyssa, in Vermont to help run their new bed-and-breakfast, it’s a big departure from their previously planned-out lives. Kira trades a demanding, thankless job as a corporate attorney to be the cook, while dependable Peter buries resentment over his brother’s cavalier ways to make this new venture work so he and Kira can regroup and maybe start a family. Meanwhile Alyssa, a free-spirited photographer, is so focused on setting down roots that she hasn’t noticed Rand’s wariness regarding their impending adoption. The foursome’s new normal is further jolted when Dawn, a young woman on the run from a dangerous ex, comes to stay with them. Internationally best-selling Pekkanen (The Best of Us, 2013) writes novels that offer thoughtful examinations of how the past shapes adult relationships and of the differences between men and women. Many of the interwoven story lines are finely wrought, and the book as a whole is compelling. --Aleksandra Walker