Ready to Fall

""I feel as if the only time anyone even talks to me is to complain or criticize or to place an order for something they need,"" laments frustrated wife and mother Beth Riordan in this debut novel of frustrated domesticity. Indeed, Cook gives ample proof at the outset that Beth's husband Pete and children Margot, 14, Chloe, 13, and PJ, 10, notice Beth only when they run out of coffee or toilet paper. But Beth finds a secret way to make her life exciting. In between driving the kids to predawn swim practices, keeping the household running and working as a freelance quotation researcher, Beth starts an e-mail friendship with travel writer Thomas Marsh, her older neighbor, whose wife has recently left him. (She is Swimslave; he is Wanderlust.) Soon their e-correspondence escalates to e-flirtation, and the tension of whether or not their budding relationship will be consummated keeps the plot going at a decent clip. While the premise is entirely believable--lonely, insecure housewife living in a pokey Boston suburb pours out her heart electronically--the plot takes several contrived, unrealistic turns. Beth signs up for an expensive female-bonding wilderness week, but when the group arrives at their secluded island, she whines about the lack of air conditioning. The adolescent tone persists, ending at Beth's high school reunion when she walks out of the bathroom with toilet paper hanging out of the back of her pants. Despite its cliched elements, the narrative has some witty scenes of domestic miscommunication, and Cook's perky take on midlife angst will undoubtedly appeal to women who fantasize about changing their lives. (May)