Reviewer: Amy Lignor
Title: Sweet Misfortune
Author: Kevin Alan Milne
Publisher: Center Street (Hachette Book Group)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59995-297-0 (Hardcover)
Release Date: June 2010
Genre/Sub-genre: General Fiction
Year/Setting: 2009/Tacoma-Seattle, Washington Area
Overall Rating: 5.0
Sexual Content Rating: None/Subtle
Language (Profanity/Slang) Content Rating: None/Mild
Violent Content Rating: Minimal/Moderate
Kevin's Website/Blog: kevinamilne.com
Dear Readers:
I haven’t read a book in a long, long time that I could honestly say I want to give a rating of 10 to…until now. This is one of the nicest, most interesting, well-written stories that’s been on the market in a long while. Mr. Milne has outdone himself with this book. From the fantastic cover art, to the last word on the last page, there isn’t one fault to be found within this incredible story.
Our main character is Sophie Jones, and we begin on the morning of her twenty-ninth birthday. The poor girl – like most women – does NOT want to celebrate this day. Unlike most women, however, it’s not because she’s aged another year, it’s because her birthday is the anniversary of her parents’ death. On a rainy evening, when Sophie was nine years old, she, her parents, and her grandmother were coming home from dinner at a local Japanese restaurant. Sophie had opened her fortune cookie and read that on this evening she was going to get her heart’s desire. Turns out that her heart’s desire was to stop at the local chocolate shop and get one of her favorite candies. Unfortunately, through a bizarre twist of events, Sophie ends up alone on the side of the road, staring at a man who’s missing four fingers from the horrible accident, telling him that it was her fault that everyone around them had perished.
At twenty-nine, Sophie is still blaming herself for that frightful evening. She has been raised by a foster mother, who was also on the scene that night so long ago, and she has a foster sister named Evalynn who is her best friend, recently married, and expecting a child of her own. Sophie also owns her own chocolate shop called Chocolat’ de Soph, where her biggest seller is the "Misfortune Cookie." This treat is as far away from being tasty and delectable as a treat can get. The cookie is dipped in some extremely bitter-tasting chocolate, yet everyone buys them by the gross. Why? Because Sophie writes her own MISfortunes and shoves them into the cookies (example: An apple a day keeps the doctor away. You should invest in an apple orchard.) Sophie truly believes that a healthy dose of reality is needed for people who’ve been around the block enough times to know that happiness IS just an illusion, which is why she created the Misfortune cookie in the first place.
You see, Sophie not only lives every day blaming herself for the accident that took the lives of the people she loved most in the world, but she was also dumped by her fiancé Garrett a year ago. They were so happy and so in love when, suddenly, he just up and broke it off with her without a word as to why.
On her twenty-ninth birthday Garrett reappears, begging for Sophie to give him a chance to explain what happened between them. She makes him a deal. If he runs an ad in the Seattle Times saying Wanted: Happiness, and asks people to send in letters on what real happiness is all about, than Sophie will give him the chance to explain himself – but only if he receives back 100 honest, well-written responses. Garrett takes the bet, and what happens in the next 280 pages is one of the most brilliant, romantic, heart-wrenching stories I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.
Chapter by chapter, the author untangles the web that ties all the characters together to that one fateful car accident years before. The secrets that are uncovered, the mystery that unfolds, and the looks into the past when Garrett and Sophie were first dating (which were spectacular scenes, by the way) were so interesting, and each scene so well-written, that you won’t be able to put this down until you’ve soaked up the very last word. Yes…I have gone on and on, but I can’t really stop myself. Every shelf in every home should have a copy of Sweet Misfortune prominently displayed.
Until next time, Amy
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