CELEBRATION

Michaels (Finders Keepers, 1998, etc.), ever quick to kill or hand out a fatal illness when stuck for a plot turn, takes Kristin Kelly, married to Colonel Logan Kelly under the crossed swords of West Point, from Logan’s German duty station at Bremen in 1987 to farm life in Leesburg, Virginia, now that Logan, after 20 years in the army, is being cashiered for having only one kidney. Logan tells Kris to take their three kids and go back a month ahead of him. She hates the idea, but, once back in Virginia, she makes a horrible discovery: their mutual bank account has been emptied, her eight—million-dollar trust-fund has not arrived, and Logan is not returning after all. So Kris, after two decades as an army wife, must rebuild from the bottom up. Nice banker Aaron Dunwoodie helps her out, and she finds herself going sweet on him. Her kids turn on her, though, not just on their missing father. Then, after eight years, that son-of-a-pup Logan returns. Why did he leave in the first place? And now where’s the eight mill? He’s got the sob story of all time, trying to weasel himself back into his family’s graces, despite Kris’s having divorced him. Will the kids allow him back into their lives, for any reason at all? And will Kris give up Woodie? Michaels in pretty good form, though she’s still fast on the fatal illnesses. (Doubleday Book Club alternate selection)