Sara’s Pick: A Happy Catastrophe by Maggie Dawson

Severely burned in a fire while trying to save her, Patrick continues to deal with the death of his former fiancée. Still self-conscious about his severely burned face and hands, he is resistant to Marnie’s desire to have a child, believing he’s too awful to look at. Then a one night stand shows up with an eight-year-old firecracker of a girl who is a bundle of chatter and cartwheels, and the owner of an art gallery requests that Patrick put on an art show. This throws Patrick into depression as he moves from painting to sculpting to deal with his feelings about his fiancée’s death. In addition to Patrick’s depression and her own feelings of sorrow when she discovers why she’s not pregnant again, Marnie is forced to deal with her mom showing up unexpectedly, miffed at the way her husband has been treating her. And the teenage girls who gather in the back room of the floral shop every day are dealing with their own problems. The stage is set for angst and love and laughter as Marnie struggles to help all of them to deal with the unexpected curves life has thrown their way.