By Lynne Kaufman

Even though she has been married twenty years with two children (teenage Davey and pre-adolescent Wendy), Los Angeles Community College Professor Julia Benson feels as if her life can fit inside a packed sardine can. She is unsure whether she loves her husband Mark or ever did while her dying mother residing in a Bronx slum, tells her to live life to the fullest. Julia hopes the two-week trip to Greece in which she, another professor Michael, and the office assistant Sabrina will chaperone thirty female sophomores, will lead to some healthy flirting.

The trip proves a bust as Michael spends his time with Sabrina and the natives flirt with the students. Depressed on the way home, she meets Ted, an oceanic archeologist with his head in the clouds dreaming of finding Atlantis. As they hit it off, Julia wonders if she should run away to help Ted find his dream or be responsible to a spouse and two kids who cherish her.

Readers will appreciate the gender bending middle age crisis as Julia has her second identity issue after having obtained a new role when she returned to school to obtain a Masters and a teaching job so that she could be a professor, not just a wife and mother. That proved not fulfilling enough making fans wonder whether the delightful protagonist will take flight with Ted or return to her adoring family. This character driven tale entices the audience because no one is nasty or abusive driving Julia away; to the contrary her family loves her. Lynne Kaufman provides a fabulous tale of a woman on the crossroads taking stock of where her life is going while readers and her will wonder who she chooses.

— Harriet Klausner

Taking Flight

I was debating whether I’d blog about this Lynne Kaufman title. But some parts of it, most of it, in fact, I loved so much that I just have to. Community college Prof. in twenty-year ho-hum marriage (exact mirror of my life, so being the egoist I am, I love that part) goes to Greece with her students and finds unexpected love. I adored that Kaufman made the whole falling in love thing so absolutely unexpected and real. And I loved all the literary Greek talk. And the new age stuff, too, like Atlantis. Yes, Atlantis. I’ve always been fascinated by that legend, and Kaufman is too.

The real reason I bought this book, though, is because she got a blurb from Tom Robbins, who I used to adore back in my 20s and 30s. Here’s what he says: “Lynne Kaufman has the wisdom to understand that the spiritual and sexual needs of women are really inseparable.” And reader, it’s true.

Source: cynthiaharrison.com