Prudence, a smart, lovable and perceptive brown tabby cat born with extra toes who used to live on the streets of Lower Manhattan, narrates Gwen Cooper's Love Saves the Day. Prudence believes that she adopted Sarah, a middle-aged, artsy single mother and former owner of a hip, downtown music store. But when Sarah suddenly doesn't come home to their apartment, Prudence gets worried that something has happened to her roommate of "three years, one month and sixteen days." And when Laura, Sarah's lawyer daughter, and her new husband arrive at the apartment days later and pack up the cat and take her with them, Prudence must relearn how to navigate the world and find a way to appeal to her new caretakers, who seem less than fond of felines.
But the challenges Prudence faces in adapting to her new environment are only part of the problem. Laura, too, is trying to adjust to a motherless world while facing work demands, grappling with her own maternal leanings and dealing with her recently unemployed husband. In the end, Prudence's presence becomes the impetus to reconcile the complex feelings and tenuous history of a vexing mother-daughter relationship and the strain of the couple's marriage.
The interspersed viewpoints of Prudence, Laura and Sarah enrich Cooper's sensitively told novel that unravels a story (based on actual events) about a century-old tenement building--and the inhabitants therein. That story ultimately serves as the basis to understanding the emotional subtexts of these authentic, well-drawn characters. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines