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'JOY' OF LIFE IN TOWN ON SEACOAST OF MAINE

book review of "The Secret of Joy" by Melissa Senate

Date published: 11/22/2009

MELISSA SENATE, author of "The Secret of Joy," is a best-selling chick-lit novelist with a TV movie in her credits.

Her eighth book will entertain those women who like to read about their fictional 20-something peers struggling with jobs and relationships.

This story benefits greatly from its evocative setting--the little town of Wiscasset on the coast of Maine. Rebecca Strand goes there soon after discovering, at her father's deathbed, that she has a sister, the result of a summer affair 25 years ago.

With no other family left, Rebecca can't put aside her desire to try to find the young woman. Against her boyfriend's advice to leave well enough alone--and not risk having to share the huge inheritance she will soon receive--Rebecca travels to the quaint New England village to find her half sister, in hopes she is as eager to meet as Rebecca is.

But Joy is not eager--in fact she shuns this stranger's advances. Rebecca takes a room at a nearby inn to buy time to get closer to her.

Adding to the mix are other women with relationship problems, Rebecca's boyfriend, a handsome carpenter, an orphaned puppy needing a home and colorful townspeople.

"The Secret of Joy" is engaging and affords the casual reader a pleasant diversion with an appealing locale.

Beverly Meyer is a copy editor at The Free Lance-Star.

THE SECRET OF JOY By Melissa Senate(Simon & Schuster, $15)

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Date published: 11/22/2009