Cathleen Schine (The Three Weissmanns of Westport) is at her writerly best in Fin & Lady, an irresistible story of half-siblings who share a father. When Fin is five, 18-year-old Lady leaves her groom at the altar and runs away to Italy. Her father and his second wife and Fin leave for Italy to search for the runaway bride. Lady and her father are constantly at odds, but he manages to bring her home to rural Connecticut--for a while.
Fin and Lady meet again six years later when Fin's mother dies and Lady is his only kin. She takes him straight from the funeral to Manhattan, where she lavishes him with attention and affection--and he falls instantly in love with this vivid, lovely young woman.
Lady tells Fin that she has to find a husband in a year--and then proceeds to take on three suitors, none of whom she views seriously as potential partners for life. One is Tyler, the man she left at the altar. Another is Jack, a dumb jock slightly younger than Lady, without much to recommend him; the third is Biffi, a Hungarian who befriends Fin. After entertaining these gentlemen serially, Lady disappears one day. It develops that she has gone to Capri--again. Shortly, she sends for Fin, and he finds her madly in love with an Italian photographer, and expecting his child.
What happens next is joyous, sad, poignant and a sheer, unalloyed delight to read. Fin and Lady are fully realized characters--people we would like to meet, talk to and be friends with. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.