Interesting book. Liked Bennet. Loved the women. ( )

This tasty delight is the debut novel by Kate Russo, daughter of the fabulous Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author. It's a benign and relatable view of a man who just can't make up his mind. Bennett, a successful London artist whose career sunsetted when he stopped painting nudes, rents out his luxurious home for income and sleeps in his tiny painter's studio. The first few chapters describe the unhappiness of two of his guests, but, when in between visitors, a fuller portrait of the artist as a relative failure emerges. Bennett's wife Emma left him after twenty years of marriage and he clings tightly to his art student daughter as his only tenuous link to the outside world. When he meets an attractive and flirtatious barmaid, she tempts him into painting her nude and into bringing his mojo, income, and hopes back to life. But then, another attractive woman rents his home and they seem to be instantly sympatico. And Bennett finds out that his wife might be returning to London. Now what? In a time when everything seems fraught, this is like a reader’s vacation, filled with humor and relaxation.

Quote: “She definitely wasn’t wearing mascara yesterday. He’d have noticed because he finds the stuff disturbing, like spider legs crawling out of a woman’s eyeball.” ( )