Mandy is a successful divorce lawyer, a Philadelphia lawyer no less. She is also a single mother. Seven years ago she found herself accidentally pregnant. She knew that her then significant other, Millson Kramer III, was not good husband material, despite his social prominence and money. So she and Mill signed an agreement. She wouldn’t ask for child support; he wouldn’t have anything to do with Chloe.

Mandy has since devoted almost all of her energy to her career and to raising her daughter. She doesn’t date much but she is not without male company. Her neighbor and fellow lawyer, Texan Sam Case, has become her best friend and Chloe’s pal. They spend lots of time together and enjoy each other’s company. Then Sam comes up with a wild idea. He is tired of the casual dating scene while Mandy is tired of the non-dating scene. Why don’t they add sex to their relationship? It won’t be a romance; it will be an arrangement with agreed upon rules: no sleepovers; no sharing of toothbrushes; no need to check in; no jealousy; no falling in love. Just friendship plus sex.

Of course, as we all know, rules are made to be broken.

The plot thickens when Mill arrives back on the scene. He is planning to run for political office; Kramers do that sort of thing. He realizes that having abandoned his child at birth will not look good to the voters, so he sues for custody of Chloe. Sam agrees to represent Mandy in the law case. So Mandy not only has to worry about her changing relationship with Sam; she has to worry about keeping her beloved daughter.

Having Mandy narrate the story permits the reader to delve much more deeply into the psyche of a contemporary, thirty-year old, single mother and career woman. Since I fit none of those qualities, I cannot say for sure how accurately Bird captures the challenges someone like Mandy faces, but her fears and hopes and insecurities certainly rang true. Bird effectively uses the device of having Mandy discuss her problems with her two women friends, Grace and Jenny, each of whom has her own take on Mandy’s situation.

Often, with a first person narrative, the other protagonist is less clearly drawn than the narrator. This is the case here to some extent; we cannot possibly know Sam as well as we know Mandy. Yet Bird succeeds admirably in showing us why Mandy finds him so attractive and portrays him sympathetically enough that we understand his motives and confusion.

As I noted above, Bird’s use of the first person succeeds admirably in delineating the challenges that single women face in today’s brave new world of relationships. She does such a good job that all I could do as I closed the book was to agree with Maurice Chevalier: “I’m glad I’m not young any more!”

--Jean Mason