Norma Ever After

September 15, 2005
With her name, Norma Dale knows she'll never live the life of an Ashley or a Jessica. Most Normas have to settle. So it is for Norma Dale after her passionate tryst with the prom king ends with him sobering up and declaring, "Oh no, not you." So Norma settles for a not-awful pharmacist, and life chugs along boringly until she catches him in bed with another woman. Then it's off to nurse her dying father, whose last words reveal a secret inheritance and a plea for Norma to use it to "escape." So it's off to the Orkney Islands, where various other options (and men) unveil themselves as Norma's sabbatical from life does just what sabbaticals should do: recharge batteries. Baxter's depiction of the small-town--gossiping-but-deep-down-good-hearted islanders borders on caricature, but she still manages to cast an alluring light on a locale not often visited in fiction. Norma's search for self-esteem makes perfectly pleasant if mostly predictable fare, but most of all, the book is likely to make readers want to pick up a travel guide to the real Orkneys.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)