Happiness for Beginners

Publisher Marketing: In this exuberant novel, a thirtysomething-year-old woman embarks on a wilderness survival course and discovers that sometimes you have to leave things behind in order to find yourself. A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It s supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother s even more annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can t imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen s well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming, where she will survive mosquito infestations, a surprise summer blizzard, and a group of sorority girls. Yet despite everything, the vast wilderness has a way of making Helen s own little life seem bigger, too. And somehow, the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for herself. And how being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just have to get really, really lost before you can even have a hope of being found." Review Citations: Booklist 03/01/2015 pg. 18 (EAN 9781466847699, Open Ebook) Booklist 03/01/2015 pg. 18 (EAN 9781250047304, Paperback) Romantic Times 04/01/2015 pg. 30 (EAN 9781250047304, Paperback) Contributor Bio:  Center, Katherine Katherine Center is the author of several novels about love and family, including "The Bright Side of Disaster, Everyone Is Beautiful, ""Get Lucky", and "The Lost Husband". Her books and essays have appeared in "Redbook", "People", "USA Today", "Vanity Fair", and "Real Simple", as well as the anthologies "Because I Love Her", "CRUSH", and "My Parents Were Awesome". Katherine is a graduate of Vassar College and the University of Houston s Creative Writing Program. She lives in Houston with her husband and two children. Contributor Bio:  Gavin, Marguerite Marguerite Gavin is a seasoned theater and screen actor as well as a popular audiobook narrator. Holding a BFA in theater and an MFA in acting, she is the artistic director of a youth theater program in Washington, DC, where she lives with her husband and daughter.