Happiness for Beginners

Ornery llamas, attack sheep, and a wealth of colorful country characters (including a spectacular hairdresser-to-the-stars who coifs alpacas in his downtime) electrify Matthews’s charming tale of a small-town British saver of lost animals and children who falls for the famous parent of one of her charges. As a result of being the daughter of an indifferent alcoholic mother, 38-year-old Molly Baker has never met a damaged creature she hasn’t tried to save—whether it’s angry alpaca Johnny Rotten or her newest student, Lucas. The son of widower Shelby Dacre, a noted soap star, Lucas comes to Hope Farm in the bucolic English countryside with a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder. Lucas quickly comes to trust Molly, and, after featuring a few of Molly’s animals during a fairly disastrous soap episode, Shelby begins to fall for Molly. But when she gets horrible news from her landlord, will he be there to pick up the pieces? Matthews (The Cake Shop in the Garden) keeps explicit romance to a minimum and weaves in a number of amusing livestock details, among them the value of llama droppings to local farmers and a fairly gross section on alpaca snot. Perfect for lovers of small-town romance, this upbeat tale is sweet but not cloying and altogether satisfying. Agent: Lizzy Kremer, David Higham Assoc. (Apr.)