Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting

An uplifting, immensely entertaining novel about how strangers on a commuter train becomes unlikely friends via a shared near-death experience. 

In the world today, many people tend to live anonymously, in their own personal microcosms. However, in Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting, British author Clare Pooley brings people together--strangers--in such a fun, spirited way that it’s bound to spark readers to expand their worldview.

 

This endearing novel, told from the points of view of an ensemble cast of vividly drawn characters, starts on a London commuter train. At the center of it all is Iona Iverson, a vibrantly quirky, 57-year-old magazine advice therapist--an observant creature of habit with job security issues--who leaves Bea, her significant other, and sets off to work with her beloved French bulldog, Lulu. Every day, Iona and Lulu sit in the same carriage--usually in the “seventh aisle,” seat “number three”--as the train traverses ten stops over 36 minutes from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station. In her mind, Iona assigns clever pet names to the seasoned commuters with whom she daily co-exists, but never speaks to. This includes “Impossibly-Pretty-Bookworm” and “Mr.-Too-Good-to-beTrue.” The other passengers, likewise, do the same—Iona is referred to by one as “Rainbow Lady” and another as “Crazy Dog Woman.”

 

One fateful day, a man who doesn’t normally ride the 8:06 a.m. train--whom Iona bills as a “Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader,” who talks too loudly on his mobile phone and refers to his wife as “the ball and chain”--boards Iona’s carriage. He dresses exquisitely but has his look “ruined” because he displays an “extraordinary sense of entitlement which only really comes with being white, male, heterosexual and excessively solvent.” When he starts choking on a grape from his fruit salad, the normal, everyday order of the commute is upended. A medically capable oncology nurse, Sanjay--who has the hots for the “Impossibly-Pretty-Bookworm” but lacks romantic confidence--performs the Heimlich maneuver on the “Manspreader.” Sanjay’s heroic, life-saving act serves as a catalyst that suddenly transforms the travelers from strangers into friends. Over the course of the story, the soul-filled truth of each person connected to the near-death experience is revealed. The stereotyping of appearances can be very deceiving.

 

As in her previous novel, The Authenticity Project, Pooley’s grasp on the constraints and longings of the human condition proves immensely entertaining. Readers will be charmed by this uplifting, hopeful story rife with tender insights. Traveling with Iona Iverson is a literary journey well worth taking.

 

Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting: A Novel by Clare Pooley

Pamela Dorman Books (Penguin Books), $27.00 hardcover, 352 pages, 9781984878649

Publishing Date: June 7, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND link HERE

 

NOTE: To read this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (April 14, 2022 ), link HERE

 

NOTE: To read a condensed version of this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (June 6, 2022), link HERE

 

Truth and Other Lies

A provocative, fast-paced novel about a down on her luck reporter who returns home only to face startling, dangerous truths that upend her life.

In Truth and Other Lies, debut author Maggie Smith has written a provocative, fast-paced novel of Women’s Fiction about Megan Barnes, a lovelorn, financially broke 25-year-old investigative journalist who is forced to return home to Chicago, where she moves in with her mother, Helen. Intent on regrouping and strategizing the next chapter of her life, Megan’s plans are short-lived when she learns that her pro-life mother--once a housewife--has surprisingly decided to run for U.S. Congress. As conservative mother and liberal-leaning daughter lock horns, not seeing the world and issues in it in the same light, Megan is offered a PR job to help launch a new memoir by Jocelyn Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer whom Megan has always looked up to. Jones dangles a carrot in front of Megan: if Megan can make her book launch a success, Jones will use her connections and get Megan a job at the prestigious Chicago Tribune. However, in the midst of the book launch, dark secrets--with tentacles--about Jones emerge on social media, which ultimately ensnare Megan and test her mettle. She is forced to question herself, the meaning of truth and her loyalties.

 

Smith’s propulsive, enthralling first novel is tightly plotted with political intrigue and features three, disparate female characters who each face thought-provoking, hot-button contemporary issues that will entice readers with ratcheting romance and suspense--and a heart-racing conclusion.

 

Truth and Lies: A Novel by Maggie Smith

Ten16Press, $18.99 paperback, 9781645382624, 360 pages

Publication Date: March 8, 2021

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