The Great Divide: A Novel by Janet Goss

The Great Divide: A Novel.  Janet Goss.  Penguin Group (USA). July 2013. 336 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780451239266.

It’s fun to be a rebel, to be immature for a certain period of life!  That’s the label Vera Van Loon has; she’s got a lightweight albeit talented calligrapher’s job, Daddy pays many of the bills, and others make her life in the city with a summer vacation in rural New York swell, indeed!  So now she wonders why others are trying to keep her summer lark delayed.  An “Uncle Cyrus” is the man they’re trying to make sure she never meets because they are so obviously wild and wacky!

Newcomers enter Vera’s life, the first being Georgie across the hall from her place who on first meeting her accidentally informs her that a member of her family is not the staid person she thought, a very upsetting realization.  Then he tries to cover his tracks by hinting it’s somebody else and at the same time bringing a disastrous dessert treat that totally belies his culinary abilities! Very funny scenes grace these pages!

The story then gets even more bizarre with the appearance of her landlord’s gay, pot-smoking son who it turns out is actually a very, very talented guy who will be part of the inspiration that changes Vera’s career direction but that will take a while.  Meanwhile, Vera finally meets “Uncle Cyrus” who is a hot “sex” as others call him.  The sparks between them were already primed by the photographs she saw of him, but when they meet it’s a mixed bag of flight or passionate embraces!

We get to go back to Vera’s past and meet an artist who earlier broke her heart and an elderly art connoisseur who enables Vera to live where she wants and opens up inspirational doors to reveal the real talent Vera doesn’t even know she has.

The Great Divide: A Novel is a fun read that proves that distance, misunderstandings, and the past can’t block a woman from emerging into a beautiful soul and finding the one who complements her in every way.  Delightful read!