Running Against Traffic

Gaelen
Vandenberg
ISBN Number: 
978-1626460966
Genre: 
Contemporary

Paige Scott lives in a beautiful home.  She’s married to a man with beautiful teeth.  She shops.  She plays her role within her husband’s social life.  Paige’s life is not so bad.  She can live with it.  Fortunately, her husband can’t.  In a drastic change of events, Paige is taken on a long drive away from her cosmopolitan life to a dilapidated house.   Then she’s abandoned like an unwanted pet in a remote town.  This pampered woman, raised by nannies and house staff, is about to learn valuable lessons one step at a time.  

Between the charming pages of this debut novel readers will find a heartening story about self-discovery, humility, friendship, and empowerment.  Paige Scott does not choose a personal journey by stepping off a bus onto a Tuscan road; she is practically shoved out the door and left to eat the dust of a car’s rapidly spinning wheels.    At first, she seems hopeless and pathetically lost, but respect for her character is earned with each challenging encounter.   Despite her helplessness, Paige manages to rise each morning and go through the motions doing little things to make a difference.  Strength is found in friendships and other unlikely places.  The small town’s misfits enrich the story with their own weaknesses and strengths; they accentuate Paige’s development.  Running Against Traffic includes indomitable spirits, compassion, sexual tension, humor, and wisdom.   It flows naturally until its rewarding conclusion.  A wonderful read.

 

Anna Fitzgerald