Mommy by Mistake-Rowan Coleman

Mommy by Mistake
Rowan Coleman
Pocket, Mar 2009, $15.00
ISBN: 1416583882

She is stuck on a train when she meets him where they talk. The next thing Natalie Curzon knows is that they are in Venice enjoying the sights in between making love. Jack tells her he will call her soon, but does not; breaking her heart. She soon learns she is pregnant and keeps her baby Freddie. When her electricity fails, she tells Gary the electrician that her spouse Freddie’s daddy is in Dubai.

Natalie meets Gary’s assistant teenage girlfriend Tiffany, also as a single mom is raising a child who black and tells her the same lie. The pair attend a first aid class where they meet Meg who believes her husband is cheating. They begin to form a single moms’ group with two other women. Jack is back and wants to be a father to Freddie, but shows no interest in Natalie, who detests the word platonic because she loves Jack. She also wonders how to tell her new sisters that she is single having made up a spouse in Dubai.

The latest Rowan Coleman mommy lit (see THE ACCIDENTAL MOTHER and ANOTHER MOTHER'S LIFE) will remind the audience of family dramas by Eileen Goude and Barbara Delinsky. Natalie learns the hard way that raising a baby nukes the parent’s lifestyle as does her new friends who forge a support group to help control the nuclear waste. Points of view rotate so the audience knows what the prime characters are thinking and feeling, but Natalie is the focus as a likable vulnerable single mom.

Harriet Klausner