cover image Raising My Titanic: The Diary of a Single Mother

Raising My Titanic: The Diary of a Single Mother

Mary Sheldon. Audio Literature, $17.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-7871-1039-0

Taking the form of a diary, this breezy story of a year in the life of a young L.A. divorcee goes down as easily as a creme-filled chocolate--and is just as nourishing. The first entry of the journal shows Betty, a 30-year-old editor at a books-on-tape company and mother of a five-year-old daughter, nervously signing her divorce papers. She subsequently pours out her qualms, memories and the day-by-day progress of her first year alone. There's the tricky business of sharing her daughter with an ex-husband who finds a new love a little too soon; the minefield of dating, made more hazardous by the misguided advice of friends; and the specter of an old high-school best friend and love interest whom she once rejected. The daughter of megaseller Sidney, Sheldon (Under the Influence) is smart enough to mix some bittersweet in with the sardonic, but she veers too often toward the coy punch line, as if the diary format entitled her to forsake all character development for the sake of perky one-liners and small parables of empowerment. Simultaneous Dove audio; author tour. (Oct.)