Arranged by Catherine McKenzie

I absolutely loved Arranged by Catherine McKenzie!  After back to back sci-fi books this was an excellent choice for a break.  I first discovered this book over on the Chicklit is Not Dead Blog last May and now I am so sad I waited so long to read it!  Once I started Arranged by Catherine McKenzie I couldn’t put it down.  I read it in just 4 days…it would have been less time but I had to, you know, work.

Arranged is the story of Anne Blythe’s journey to find love; yes you read that name correctly and no it isn’t a retelling of Anne of Green Gables.  As an avid Anne of Green Gables fan (I own all three movies on DVD and try to watch them once a year), the fact that the main character in Arranged was named after Anne of Green Gables because her mom is an avid fan, meant I quickly fell in love with this book.

Catherine McKenzie’s style of writing is fun and enjoyable.  She weaves humor into the dialogue in a believable manner and makes you feel like her characters are truly your friends.

In Arranged by Catherine McKinzie, Anne Blythe seems to be successful at everything but love.  She has great friends, a great job and her first novel is about to be published; but she has just learned the man she has been living with cheated on her.  Anne moves out and decides to approach her life on her own and give the single life a try.  Then she runs into two exes and learns that one who swore off commitment is now married.  Anne learns her best friend is engaged and her brother and his wife are pregnant for the fourth time.  When is she going to be lucky in love and find a husband and start a family?

At 33, after learning everyone else is getting their happily ever after, or at least it seems, Anne decides to hire a company to arrange a husband for her.  This is were the book gets really interesting.

The whole notion of an arranged marriage seems so foreign to me but in this instance it seems clever and amusing.  Catherine McKenzie does a good job of taking an older concept and giving it a fresh spin.  I highly recommend giving Arranged by Catherine McKenzie a read, I don’t think you’ll regret it.  I ordered it from Amazon for my Kindle when it was on sale, and now I can’t wait to read one of her other novels.  Have you read it? What did you think?