I have always found Dorothy Garlock's novels to be enjoyable and interesting insights into life in America
during the Depression era and other times. They are always easy to read with good pacing and varied characters. A Week from Sunday is no different with
its details of life in the 1930s for a rich woman, Adrianna Moore, whose life takes an unexpected turn after the death of her father.
Her father's lawyer, Richard Pope, manages to persuade her father to change his
will in Richard's favor, and Richard tells Adrianna that he will marry her a week from Sunday
- then she will have access to her money again. Adrianna has until now been meek and gentle, but
she decides that she can't bear to marry Richard and plans to run away. Leaving it surprisingly late (not leaving home until the day of the wedding, thus being more likely to be caught if he chases her), she drives
off during a fierce storm and crashes her car into a truck in the village of Lee's Point. She's slightly injured, her car is seriously damaged, and she ends up having to work to pay for the damage to the truck, owned by Quinn Baxter. He has a disabled brother and also needs a pianist for his bar, so Adrianna agrees to work for him looking after his brother, Jesse, as well as playing the piano.
Adrianna also moves into Quinn's house, where she makes an instant enemy in his housekeeper, Lola, and Lola's swain, Reuben. She also finds herself at the receiving end of strange behavior from Quinn's enemy as well as fearing that she will be found by Richard Pope. But Adrianna's privileged upbringing hasn't made her unable to empathize with others, and her relationships with Quinn and his brother show her the beginnings of a new hope.
A Week from Sunday is good to read, but unfortunately there
are too many plot improbabilities. The villainess is a pantomime-type character evil in every way, Richard Pope seems ridiculously over-the-top
(and also rather dense for a successful lawyer), and our heroine seems uniformly good
albeit a bit mousy. Quinn's inability to see Lola's behavior for what it is is ridiculous, and Adrianna staying quiet over Lola's murder attempts
is beyond belief. The underlying romance in this story is good if understated, but the plot and other characters
are too hard to swallow.