The Wildwater Walking Club [Hardcover]

Claire Cook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2009

"The women of THE WILDWATER WALKING CLUB are a delightful trio, full of heart and determination. As they - literally - put one foot in front of the other, the three new friends find unlikely paths that point them toward more fulfilling lives. Their journey left me genuinely inspired (and with the curious urge to go out and buy a clothesline)."
-- Jean Reynolds Page, author of The Space Between Before and After

"The Wildwater Walking Club reminds of us what's important in life--the joy of friendship, the power of a brisk walk, and of course the importance of a good book. This exhilarating novel made me want to call my friends and lace up my shoes. I couldn't put it down."
-- Anisha Lakhani, author of Schooled

Just put one foot in front of the other. Sounds simple, doesn't it But when Noreen Kelly takes a buyout from her job of eighteen years and gets dumped by her boyfriend in one fell swoop, she finds it hard to know what that next step is--never mind take it. At first Noreen thinks maybe her redundancy package could be an opportunity, a chance to figure out what to do with the rest of her life while her company foots the bill. Sure, she may have gotten high to "Witchy Woman" and grooved to "Sweet Baby James" back when James Taylor had hair, but she isn't ready for her AARP card. Not yet.

But it's the first time in a great many years that Noreen has time to herself--and she has no idea what to do with it. When she realizes that she's mistaken her resume for her personality, Noreen knows that she has to get moving, so she puts on a new pair of sneakers and a seriously outdated pair of exercise pants, and walks. She doesn't get very far at first--just to the end of her street, Wildwater Way--but she perseveres, and when she's joined by her neighbors Tess and Rosie, Noreen realizes that walking is not an extreme sport. It can actually be fun.

As the Wildwater women walk and talk, and talk and walk, they tally their steps, share their secrets, and learn what women everywhere are finding out--that time flies and getting fit is actually fun when you're walking with friends. Throw in a road trip to Seattle for a lavender festival, a career-coaching group that looks like a bad sequel to The Breakfast Club, a clothesline controversy that could only happen in the 'burbs, plenty of romantic twists and turns, and a quirky multigenerational cast of supporting characters, and the result is an experience that's heartfelt, exuberant, and above all, real.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The lives of a suddenly jobless corporate executive, a teacher navigating a difficult relationship with her daughter and a young lavender farmer intertwine in Cook's straightforward novel. When a generous compensation package gives Noreen "Nora" Kelly-whose career defined her identity-18 months salary to forge a new path, she realizes she has little in common with her former work companions and strikes up a friendship with next-door neighbor Tess Tabares, who's struggling to connect with her college-bound daughter. The women begin taking daily walks and soon Rosemary "Rosie" Stockton, who owns her family's lavender farm, joins in. Despite their very different-yet all very prickly-personalities, the three women soon form a tight bond. With her easygoing style, Cook (Must Love Dogs) engages readers, drawing them into the daily lives of these new friends. Geographical inconsistencies-the novel is set in Massachusetts but has a distinctive Southern flair-may bother some readers but most will be satisfied with this breezy beach read.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The rest of your life starts with one step. Noreen Kelly learns this the hard way when she takes a buyout offer at her small shoe company and wakes up the day after—jobless, dumped by her slick co-worker, and wondering who she is and what she wants. She becomes tentative friends with Tess and Rosie, and together the women form a walking club, each step bringing them closer together and closer to the life solutions they all seek. Cook creates likable female characters with realistic flaws. The plots are marked with Gilmore Girls–type dialogue and settings, utterly charming from beginning to end. There’s plenty of laughs, anger, sorrow, and rage to keep the story moving along at a breezy pace; and all the subplots involving the multigenerational characters and their kooky suburban antics are tied up nicely. There’s a little more edge here than in a typical “gentle” novel, but more softness than in an edgy “hen-lit” novel. Miss Julia would be proud to be friends with these women. --Stover Kaite Mediatore

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Voice; 1 edition (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140134089X
• ISBN-13: 978-1401340896
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #309,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I can't believe I have 8 novels, with a 9th, Wallflower in Bloom, coming from Simon & Schuster Touchstone in June 2012! I also have one husband, two kids, one dog, and 7 brothers and sisters and I'm the bestselling author of Best Staged Plans, Seven Year Switch, The Wildwater Walking Club, Summer Blowout, Life's a Beach, Multiple Choice, Ready to Fall, and Must Love Dogs, which became a Warner Bros. movie starring Diane Lane and John Cusack.

I hope you'll visit http://ClaireCook.com, where you can read excerpts of all my novels and find book club questions. And make sure you check out my writing and reinvention pages, where I share everything I've learned so far.

Come hang out with me on my Facebook author page, too: http://www.facebook.com/ClaireCookauthorpage.

And follow me at http://Twitter.com/ClaireCookwrite. I'll follow you back!

Okay, here's the rest of my story:

After decades of procrastination, I wrote my first novel in my minivan outside my daughter's swim practice at five in the morning. It was published when I was 45, and at 50 I walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of the adaptation of my second novel. Midlife rocks! I love telling my story, because I think so many women (and a few good men!) have buried dreams like mine. My advice: dust them off and go for it!

I love speaking to groups, and teaching reinvention workshops for women coming into their own at midlife. I love writing novels and feel incredibly lucky to get to do it for a living -- this is the career I almost didn't have!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Friendship, Laughter & Determination, May 19, 2009

By 

Sharona Duran "florida yaya" (Naples Florida USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Wildwater Walking Club (Hardcover)

How do you turn a golden handshake into a series of wonderful, touching and life altering adventures? Read "Wildwater Walking Club" for the answer. I loved, loved, loved this book. I have friends with the same friendship as Tess, Rosie and Noreen and I had to call them and share this book with them. I enjoyed it on so many levels. The way these three women started walking, set a goal of 10,000 miles per day and accomplished it was motivational. When one didn't feel like walking the other two pushed her out the door. They had a great support system among the three which was based on commitment to each other and their cause. I loved the character development in the three women, but also in teenaged Hannah, and the senior lovebirds. Also greatly enjoyed their activism and the comic method of their first protest. "Wildwater Walking Club" was pure fun from beginning to end.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Big Claire Cook fan however..., June 11, 2009

By 

C. Wilson "tired momma" (Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Wildwater Walking Club (Hardcover)

This book was not my favorite of hers, by far! If this is your first book by Claire Cook, don't judge all of her work based on this. Ms. Cook has a wonderful writing style that you don't see very often. it's like a girlfriend talking to you in a way that you want to just keep listening. My favorite is Must Love Dogs and then Summer Blowout. I didn't really care about the characters, there was WAY too much talk about lavender, and adding the part about the teacher and the clotheslines was just odd and disjointed I thought. Maybe a beach or weekend read because it was so light and quick but I'm glad it's done.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WILDWATER WILL WALK ITS WAY INTO YOUR HEART, May 5, 2009

By 

Bingo-Karen Haney "Reader, Reviewer, and BOOK... (Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Wildwater Walking Club (Hardcover)

I am thrilled to be reviewing Claire Cook's newest book, THE WILDWATER WALKING CLUB just out on May 5. Watch out Ya-Ya Sisters, Wives' Clubbers, and Sweet Potato Queens because the WALKERS have arrived! Claire Cook's new book THE WILDWATER WALKING CLUB and the walkers are taking over!

In THE WILDWATER WALKING CLUB, Claire Cook gives us three wonderful women who are neighbors on Wildwater Way and at first don't even know each other. It all starts when Noreen Kelly's "boyfriend" convinces her to take a buyout from her corporate position in a shoe company, and she thinks she has made the best choice. However, she soon realizes that her love wasn't just working for the other company but was working her, and Noreen is dumped by the boyfriend and the company. In a fit of frustration and shock, she uses her actually void company ID and buys up every shoe in her size at the corporate shop for 50% off. With that, Noreen takes her shoes and heads home to Wildwater Way to try and figure out what is left of her life.

Sure that her life is over, Noreen sees nothing around her but what she is missing. Not until she makes friends with Tess, her next door neighbor, does Noreen start to realize that maybe her life isn't over after all. Tess, the school teacher who is off for the summer, dealing with a college-bound daughter who isn't speaking to her mom, and Noreen start walking together and they start to talk to each other about life. A third member living on Wildwater Way comes to the group as they meet Rosie. Rosie knows she was doing the right thing moving into her parents' home after her mom died, bringing her family with her, and taking over the lavender farm on her parents' property, but it isn't what she had hoped for. In her friendship with Noreen and Rosie, she literally is able to walk into a different life.

The three women begin to walk their way into a friendship that will turn out to be more than they ever expected. They walk and talk and even start to keep track of their steps using pedometers that Noreen also picked up at the "last shoe buy" she made. Sharing some of the shoes she bought with Tess and Rosie, is not the only thing that Noreen begins to share with these women. Their steps go from being more than just exercise as they take to new directions walking and in life. Noreen attends a career coaching group for unemployed people in her company and sees things through others eyes. She begins to build a better relationship with her own mother thanks to her friendship with Tess and watching Tess's relationship with her daughter. Hanging a clothesline becomes a political issue only found in real life in real writing like Claire Cook's. The walkers take a road trip to Seattle for a festival about lavender and along with all this there are the twists and turns, romances and families, characters and settings that make for a great read that only someone like Claire Cook can come up with. This might be called a `good beach read' but believe me, you will not want to be sitting in a chair after reading this!

The story is a fast and fun read, but also a learning experience. From this book have grown, and will continue to grow, groups of walkers who will see the value in what these women did and how it changed their lives. How Claire Cook could have known that this book would hit home with so many of us in these economically changing times is anyone's guess. I think that people who read this book will all take away something from it. For most it will definitely be a really good read but for others is will be even more. It may be another way of looking at our neighbors, or like me, it may be a realization that walking is more than just exercise. When everyone can get their hands on THE WILDWATER WALKING CLUB on May 5th, we may find our streets more crowded with walkers than ever before...at least there will be happier and more satisfied walkers, that's for sure! This is a book that celebrates friendship and teaches us what Claire Cook intended and that is if you are going to walk the walk, then go ahead and take that first step to talk the talk and make the changes in your life that you can and need to do. As it says on Claire's website "Just put one foot in front of the other"!
Submitted by Karen Haney, May, 2009