There’s rom, com and more in Minnesota writer’s ‘Four Weekends and a Funeral’

The least interesting thing about Minnesota author Ellie Palmer’s romance novel “Four Weekends and a Funeral” may be the romance.

That’s not to say it’s uninteresting, but it does tick a lot of tropes: the heroine’s love of Hallmark Christmas movies; the standoffish love interest who doesn’t just smile but “smirks” or allows the corners of his mouth to “quirk” when he’s not speaking or laughing in a “growling,” “rumbling,” “gruff” way; and the unnecessarily convoluted/outlandish plot device that keeps the heroine and her love interest apart — here, a riff on and hat tip to 1995 Sandra Bullock rom-com “While You Were Sleeping,” complete with mention of a reversible jacket just like the one Bill Pullman wears in the movie.

“Four Weekends and a Funeral”'s Alison Mullally also is in the ballpark of Bullock’s lonely Chicago transit worker who, after saving her crush’s life, is mistaken for his fiancée. Alison, however, gets an upgrade of sorts as an employee of a “niche transportation consulting firm” in St. Paul. Her brush with mistaken identity arrives after her newly ex-boyfriend Sam Lewis unexpectedly dies and mourners at his funeral think she was still in a relationship with him at the time of his passing.

Alison lets the impression stand, figuring there is no harm in the little white lie, but then Sam’s sister asks her to continue pretending for reasons to do with Sam’s mother. The deception is complicated further when Sam’s parents ask Alison and his best friend, Adam Berg (whom Alison refers to as the North Shore Grump) to clear out Sam’s apartment over four weekends. Will sparks fly? Spoiler alert: yes.

“Four Weekends and a Funeral” sometimes teeters toward the cliché — and isn’t the comfort of a story whose rhythms are familiar a reason we gravitate to romance novels in the first place? — but to say it is standard romantic fare isn’t exactly, well, fair.

The writing is lively, and the wintry Twin Cities/Duluth setting (the North Shore city’s train museum takes a bow, as do other Minnesota landmarks, and Adam runs afoul of a snow emergency when he parks Sam’s SUV in the street) is good fun. But the book really shines in its serious moments, and what could be more serious than being a carrier of the BRCA1 mutation (the author also is a carrier)?

Alison’s story begins after she’s had a double mastectomy to mitigate her cancer risk. How she navigates life and love in the aftermath shakes up generic expectations.

It’s especially touching when Alison finally faces this colossal thing that has happened to her, what it means for her future and how it might change the way she sees herself. Will she eat, pray and love her way through it to the other side? Or maybe there’s a better way, one that is more akin to who she really is. It’s very much worth a read to find out.

Four Weekends and a Funeral

By: Ellie Palmer

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 368 pages, $19.

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