M. Grace Bernardin

Odd Numbers M. Grace Bernardin

ODD NUMBERS Is it possible to find love in the heart of the Midwest between a strip mall and a cornfield? This is the quest of three friends who meet in the 1980s at the Camelot Apartments, located amidst the suburban sprawl of the southern Indiana town of Lamasco. Frank, who moves from the East coast to Lamasco to start a market research firm, is a well-bred, charming, polished Ivy Leaguer with a penchant for classical music. Vicky, the noisy downstairs neighbor who is constantly trying to drown out Frank's classical music with rock and roll, is a tough-talking, whisky-guzzling, Harley-riding lady bartender from western Kentucky with a reckless spirit and a haunted past. Between Frank and Vicky is Allison, an image-conscious, self-improvement junkie who gives up a promising marketing career in Chicago to return to her hometown of Lamasco at the urging of her high school sweetheart and fiancé, with whom she has long since fallen out of love. An unlikely friendship forms between Allison and Vicky as they discover that underneath their very different veneers, they have many similarities, one of those being a secret passion for their neighbor, Frank. ODD NUMBERS spans twenty-plus years and ultimately culminates with the startling collision that reconnects this odd love triangle. "Touching, clever, and at times delightfully off the wall, Odd Numbers is a gulp of fresh air for those of us weary from forcing ourselves to start the next chapter of a book promised to be a page-turner. "The best storytellers know that characters are everything, and Bernardin's characters Vicky, Allison, and Frank, are like us-flawed but hopeful. "Bernardin's prose reminds me of Willa Cather, her descriptions elegant but not blustery or garish. Those among us who esteem a well-crafted sentence have a new wordsmith to add to our list of favorite writers. Odd Numbers is a finely crafted story of the human heart." - Mike Whicker, author of the bestseller, Invitation to Valhalla and Blood of the Reich (Walküre Press)