Sarah Dunn’s first novel, THE BIG LOVE, was a big hit
among the kind of readers who also adore Sex and the City.
Its unconventional story of a woman forced to start over in the
wake of a near-disastrous relationship struck a chord with any
woman who has found herself still searching for lasting love on the
wrong side of 30. In SECRETS TO HAPPINESS, her second work of
fiction, Dunn continues the sometimes hilarious, sometimes
heartbreaking journeys a variety of New York types take on their
personal quests to find love --- and happiness.

At the center of the book is failed novelist and frustrated
scriptwriter Holly, who has just emerged, somewhat shell-shocked,
from a year-long period of mourning her recent divorce. She opens
her heart to two new males: one, a 21-year-old who can’t
decide between starting law school and moving to Austin to help
manage a club; and a loveable dog that also happens to have a brain
tumor and require thousands of dollars’ worth of surgery.
Holly is optimistic that her ability to nurture Chester
(that’s the dog) also bodes well for her future with her own
species, even if all around her she sees nothing but relationships
on the verge of failing.

Holly’s best friend Amanda has never seemed happier; her
husband is convinced it’s because she’s taking Paxil,
but, Amanda confesses to Holly, it’s because she’s on
the verge of having an affair. Holly’s “ex before the
ex,” Spence, is outraged because his current long-distance
girlfriend has been calling Holly for relationship advice after
reading about a thinly disguised Spence in Holly’s novel. And
one of Holly’s acquaintances, Betsy, is embarking down an
endless series of bad dates in search of the elusive happiness,
when the real thing might be right in front of her.

At times, Dunn’s novel might hit a little too close to
home for some readers, who may recognize their own futile demands
and desires in its pages: “Things are different now. People
are less willing to put up with unhappiness,” remarks one
character, leading another to respond, “And yet, so many
people are so unhappy.” Holly has an evangelical Christian
background, which leads her to cast many things --- such as the
quest for happiness and the willingness to destroy relationships in
the name of that happiness --- in religious terms. Holly’s
thoughtful, perceptive approach may cause readers to think about
themselves and their relationships in new ways as well --- even if
it makes them feel at times as if they’re standing in front
of a not-too-flattering mirror.

All this makes SECRETS TO HAPPINESS sound like a big downer, but
it’s really not. Dunn manages to wrest many laugh-out-loud
moments out of her characters’ dilemmas, but where her
writing is sharpest is when it comments on the peculiarities of
modern life in Manhattan, as in this passage in which Holly
contemplates her love-hate relationship with the city: “If
Holly sometimes felt like she was trapped in an abusive
relationship with New York City, then the month of August was when
the city went on a bender and dragged her around by the
hair.”

In the end, what Dunn creates in her novel is, as she writes,
“a tapestry,” in which you can eventually “see
all of the threads linking one part to another, all of the strange
and random connections.” Discovering these connections, and
the often hilarious ways they’re formed, broken and
re-formed, will delight and inspire readers looking for more
substance and less silliness in their chick-lit.