REVIEW: Changing Lanes by Kathleen Long

In Changing Lanes by Kathleen Long, Thirty year old Abby Halladay has had a monumentally bad day. She lost her job as an advice columnist. She recently purchased her first home only to find out today it has extensive termite damage. And her fiance has unexpectedly left the country two months before their wedding. Oh, and she has to move in temporarily with her parents due to said termite damage. Just when she thought her day couldn’t get any weirder, she sees Mick O’Malley, her childhood best friend and neighbor, on her parent’s roof making repairs. The last she knew he was in Seattle working as an architect. She hasn’t seen him since that fateful night their senior year when they had accidentally set a fire, causing Mick to abruptly leave town.

“The man I thought I’d be seeing that night had left the country. Hell he’d left me. The man I thought I’d never see again stood before me like a ghost from years gone by.”

With her life in shambles, Abby takes solace in her family and in her beautiful hometown of Paris, New Jersey. She drives her dad’s cab Bessie around the small town now that he’s retired, so she can have something to fill her time while she’s soul-searching. She reconnects with two close girlfriends, Destiny and Jessica, who also live in town and have their own businesses. They help keep her grounded and try to help Abby sort through her feelings. She realizes how precious everyone in this town is to her and that there are moments every day that make differences in their lives.

“Life was unpredictable. As I took stock of that moment, the people, and the impacts they’d each had on my recent life, I realized it was in the letting go and allowing life’s moments to happen that we truly lived.”

Abby calls her fiance Fred daily to no avail for quite a while trying to figure out what went wrong in their relationship. But as she starts to live her life again, she stops leaving him messages and begins the process of finding out what makes her happy. Being next door to Mick brings back wonderful childhood memories and a rush of feelings she thought she had long since forgotten. He’s still as handsome as ever. But he’s almost a stranger to her after living so far away for over a decade. She finds out bits and pieces of his life in Seattle from her mother and her friends and realizes she’s not the only one dealing with life changing events.

The Halladay family rallies around Mick and his mother when her health fails, proving how strong bonds can grow in small towns. Abby especially wants to help him but doesn’t want to overstep boundaries and has to decide how involved she should get. Her feelings intensify the more time she spends with him, realizing how wonderful a man he has become. He still has ties to his old life in Seattle so it’s up to Abby to be supportive and help him find his way through it. But to help him do the right thing for his own life, it may mean she has to live hers without him.

Kathleen Long has written an insightful story full of love and life changing moments. Abby was the type of character with which I could instantly feel a connection. She tried to work through her issues by using her sense of humor and the love of her family and she came out stronger in the end because of that support. The pace of the book was perfect. I’ll admit I had a hard time putting it down and may have lost track of time, ending up reading into the wee hours of the morning! I wouldn’t recommend reading this if you look for steamy love scenes, as this was more about the changes in Abby’s life and getting reacquainted with Mick. However I would highly recommend this book if you enjoy well written stories full of love, personal growth and heartfelt moments.

Book Info

Publisher: Amazon Publishing (May 14, 2013)

Abby Halladay has the perfect life. Or, rather, she will…as long as everything goes exactly according to plan. Abby never leaves anything to chance—not her job as a syndicated columnist, not her engagement to her fiancé, Fred, and certainly not her impending wedding in Paris (New Jersey, that is).

Unfortunately for Abby, even the best-laid plans often go awry—like when Fred runs away to Paris (France, that is), her column is canned, and her dream home is diagnosed with termites. Forced to move back in with her parents and drive her dad’s cab, Abby’s perfect life has now officially become the perfect disaster.

Then a funny thing happens. Slowly but surely, Abby begins letting go of her dreams of perfection. As she does, the messy, imperfect life she thought she never wanted starts to feel exactly like the one she needs.

Poignant and heartfelt, Changing Lanes celebrates the unexpected joys of everyday life—and the enduring promise of second chances.