Something Light by Margery Sharp

I'm trying to get back into my reading groove, alternating between mysteries and novels.  I make a distinction between the two.  My bookshelves are finished, but I'm letting the paint cure until this weekend or next week.  Then I can put away my books.

I moved all the boxes out of the closet in the library and, today, I arranged my collection of classical LPs, blues, jazz, and musicals in the armoire where my little all-in-one (record player, tape player, CD player, and radio) lives now.  And my boxed set of Walt Disney's Treasury of Dog Stories:  The Incredible Journey, Savage Sam, Big Red, Old Yeller, Greyfriars Bobby, and Nikki, which I don't remember ever seeing (Half-dog, half-wolf...his courage and cunning made him a legend in a vast untamed land).  Six liquor boxes emptied and on their way to being recycled.

When Something Light came up on a bargain e-book site, I bought it.  The author's name rang a bell and then I realized she had written The Rescuers, a childhood favorite.  I read Something Light in two days.  It was just the break I needed.

Louisa Datchett is Datchett Photographer of Dogs, a professional, independent woman in the 1950s  -  who photographs dogs.  She suddenly decides that she should marry.  Unfortunately, Louisa doesn't know how to go about it.  She likes men and they like her.  But that usually means that she takes care of them and that they expect her to take care of them.  They don't want to marry her.

She decides to marry a wealthy man.  A very wealthy older man she met abroad sends her a letter asking her to meet him.  She thinks he's planning to ask her to marry him and she's ready to accept.  But he wants her to be a buffer between him and the woman he's pined for for years and who's now available, a widow.  Disappointed but up for a week of good food, she accepts.  She and the man  become great friends but she has to leave.

Then she decides to marry a steady man, someone responsible.  She looks up a former boyfriend but realizes that he doesn't want to get married, even though he likes her and they share fond memories.  What she finds is that many men like the idea of marriage, the idea of romance, but they don't want the reality of it.

Finally, she thinks she wants a family.  Through a babysitting job, she meets a widower with three teenage children.  She ends up liking the children and not liking the man at all.

She gives up on marriage and decides to devote herself to her photography.  Until a man she dislikes, and who dislikes her, complicates things.

This book was just what the title promised:  Something Light.