cover image The Ninth Wife

The Ninth Wife

Amy Stolls. Harper, $14.99 trade paper (448p) ISBN 978-0-06-185189-6

Bess Gray, single and in her thirties, is starting to despair of ever finding a decent man in the Washington D.C. area. But that all changes when she meets Irish musician Rory McMillan. They hit it off immediately and within a few months he asks for her hand. What he doesn't say is that she would be accompanying him on his ninth walk down the aisle. Once he confesses he's been married eight times before, Bess doesn't know what to think%E2%80%94or what to do. So she takes a cross country trip with her older neighbor, Cricket, a gay man, and her grandparents, who will move into an assisted care facility when they reach Arizona. Along the way, Bess hunts down Rory's ex-wives and try to figure out what sort of a man could have eight of them, in the process learning a great deal about relationships, love, and trust. Stolls's (Palms to the Ground) first foray into adult fiction offers a nuanced take on relationships. Though the book shines most brightly in Rory's reflections, the contrivance of the road trip mars an otherwise interesting tale. (May)