Author Lolly Winston's first novel, “Good Grief” was published in 2004, garnered good reviews and was a best seller. I didn't read it, but when her second book, “Happiness Sold Separately” was published in August of this year, I decided to give it a read.

The novel is told from different points of view. Elinor Mackey is a hardworking lawyer whose career came first. She married her husband, podiatrist Ted, when she was 35. For the past two years, Elinor and Ted have been unsuccessful in their attempts to have a baby. Now she is 40 years old, and the window of opportunity is closing for them.

They have undergone all kinds of medical tests, and Elinor pumped herself full of hormones and received painful injections in her attempts to become pregnant via in vitro fertilization.

Everything has revolved around trying to getting pregnant, and all of this has taken a tremendous toll on Elinor and Ted's marriage.

Both Ted and Elinor are good people who always do the right thing. They love each other, but the stress they are undergoing has pulled them apart. They have stopped communicating and have no joy in their marriage. While Elinor buries her sorrow in her work, Ted starts going to the gym to feel better about himself. He loses some weight and eats healthier.

Ted becomes friendly with his trainer at the gym, a lovely woman named Gina. Gina is sweet, kind and very supportive of Ted and his goals. She is very different from Elinor, who is sarcastically funny, very intelligent, but she remains emotionally distant from Ted. Winston has a great line to describe this - “They are each in their own orbits, somehow incapable of holding each other up.”

Gina and Ted begin an affair. Gina makes Ted happy, and she falls in love with him. One day, Elinor overhears Ted on the phone arranging to meet Gina. She follows them to Gina's home and sees them together.

Elinor kicks Ted out of their home and he is disconsolate. He is torn; he loves Elinor and is deeply saddened that he cannot seem to make her happy. He thinks he loves Gina too; how is it possible to love two women at the same time?

Another complication arises when Gina's 10-year-old son Toby leaves his father's home in Maine to reluctantly move back in with Gina.

Toby forms a bond with Ted when Ted agrees to tutor the boy in math. Toby has a difficult adjustment moving back in with his mother, and she doesn't want him to get attached to Ted, only to have Ted go back to his wife and disappear from their lives.

Winston does a terrific job with her characters. They seem very real and she takes great pains to make each of the characters sympathetic. No one is the bad guy in the story; everyone makes bad decisions, but no one has set out to hurt anyone else.

Even the minor characters are well drawn and interesting. Roger is a twenty-something housecleaner who has a crush on Elinor.

He is a photographer who lacks the courage to finish his portfolio and take the next step in his career. A diligent housecleaner, he likes to do “the extra stuff for clients -make that little triangle with the toilet paper; cut flowers from their yards and leave them in a vase on the kitchen table; clean out the fridge.” (Where can I find a housecleaner like that?)

When he feels that his clients don't notice these little touches, he begins to put small objects in their beds - rose petals under the pillows of a couple he thinks needs more romance in their life, a magazine photo of a skylight in the bed of a couple whose home is dark as a funeral parlor. Roger plays a key part in the climax of the novel.

Kat is Elinor's neighbor, best friend and mother of three boys. She is very supportive of Elinor and always seems to know the right thing to say and do. Anyone would want her as a best friend. Elinor meets a tree surgeon, Noah, and begins a relationship with him. He's a good guy too and maybe the right man for her.

Winston throws in a few twists that test Ted and Elinor's relationship and Ted and Gina's relationship. The reader is unsure who to root for. The author asks the question, can Ted and Elinor's marriage be saved? Should it be saved?

“Happiness Sold Separately” is one of those books that you read, put down for an hour and then you must get back to it to see what happens to these characters you have grown to care about. The writing is good, and her characters keep the reader intrigued. The characters are complex, as is life. You feel that you know them. Winston has been compared to Ann Tyler, and I agree; if you like Tyler, give this book a try. I give it four stars.

Auburn native Diane La Rue's lifelong goal is to read a book a week. If you have suggestions, e-mail her at laruediane2000@yahoo.com