That Special Summer

In this debut romance, newly divorced 52-year-old Paula Howard returns to college in Alabama for a summer to study and tutor in a program for problem students. There she is courted by 45-year-old Derek Vogel, a retired naval officer, and by Greg Winthrope, a wealthy man whose family owns a nearby paper mill. To complicate matters further, Paula's daughter, Amy, is engaged and wants to get married earlier than Paula had expected. Paula's insecurities stemming from her divorce are realistically portrayed, as are her reactions to learning that her ex-husband's new love interest is a 25-year-old country-and-western singer named Bootsie and that he now drives a BMW. But many elements here seem outdated even beyond what one would expect in the conservative South, such as Paula's dismay when she finds out that Amy is pregnant and the horror of Amy's future mother-in-law when she discovers that Amy's parents are divorced. The university setting is equally old-fashioned: the sneering director of Paula's program assumes that she is in school to find a husband, and a graduate student claims never to have tasted beer. (Jan.)