BAGGAGE CLAIM

David E. Talbert

Simon & Schuster

ISBN 0-7432-4718-3

October 2003

Multi Cultural Romance

This book is about Montana Moore, a thirty-five year old flight attendant that feels the pressure of her family to find herself a man. It appears that the women in the Moore family always manage to find themselves married or engaged by the ripe age of twenty-five. As Montana's mother is getting married again and her younger sister is now engaged, her family makes her feel as though she doesn't stand a chance at finding Mr. Right. Feeling desperate she takes matters into her own hands, and with the help of her coworkers, Gail and Sam, she now has thirty days to find a man and get engaged.

The step in the plan involves Montana identifying possible men considered to be good husband material. So digging into her little black book she and her friends start discarding men that don't meet her standards until they have five men on the list. Next, her friends set her up for a complete makeover. The rest of the story leads Montana on a journey from state to state in search of finding her future husband. Each of the candidates appear to have something to offer, but what Montana would have to do to get them down the aisle proves to be more than any person should be willing to do.

The funny thing is that while she is searching for her Mr. Right, she runs into some difficult situations and the person she continues to fall back on is her grade school friend William. Good old dependable William Wright has a steady job working in the family business and is always there to lend support and help to everyone. So when he finds out about Montana's crazy plan he wishes her well and let's her do her thing. It's not until Montana realizes that finding the man of her dreams is difficult that she remembers the proposal she received in grade school from William. Although they were kids and he gave her a ring from a box of crackerjacks, she suspects that she probably should have accepted her once in a lifetime chance at marriage.

As the story develops, Montana makes the mistake of telling her mother that she will be bringing her future husband to her sister's engagement party on Christmas Eve. Now her entire family can't wait to see the man that finally has captured Montana's heart and saved her from disgrace. But as fate would have it, Montana is not the only one shocked at who the mystery man turns out to be.

This book was funny and the characters were very entertaining, especially her co-workers, Gail and Sam. They were so alive that I could actually see each of them getting their own book. As you read Montana's story, it makes you think about some of the crazy things women do just to get to the altar. While I don't know anyone that did quite the crazy things that Montana did, I know women that have done things that we laugh about when they thought they had found the perfect mate. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but at least Montana's adventures allowed her to realize that no one should marry for anything other than love. While this was Mr. Talbert's first book, I would love to see this one as a play, everyone enjoys a good laugh out loud sometimes.