Title: The One That I Want
Author: Allison Winn Scotch
Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books
Publication Date: June 1, 2010
Hardcover: 288 pages
ISBN: 978-0307464507
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

Tilly Farmer is thirty-two years old and has the perfect life she always dreamed of: married to her high school sweetheart, working as a guidance counselor in her hometown, trying for a baby. Perfect.

In fact, on the surface you might never know how tough things used to be. At seventeen, Tilly lost her mother to cancer, her father drowned his grief in alcohol, and she played parent to her two younger sisters more often than being a kid herself. Still Tilly never let tragedy overtake her belief that hard work and good cheer could solve any problem. Of course she’s also spent a lifetime plastering a smile on her face and putting everyone else’s problems ahead of her own.
But that relentless happiness has served her well—her sisters are grown and content, her dad is ten years sober, and she’s helping her students achieve all their dreams while she and her husband, Tyler, start a family. A perfect life indeed.

Then one sweltering afternoon at the local fair, everything changes. Tilly wanders into the fortune teller’s tent and is greeted by an old childhood friend, now a psychic, who offers her more than just a reading. “I’m giving you the gift of clarity,” her friend says. “It’s what I always thought you needed.” And soon enough, Tilly starts seeing things: her father relapsing, staggering out of a bar with his car keys in hand; Tyler uprooting their happy, stable life, a packed U-Haul in their driveway; and even more disturbing, these visions start coming true. Suddenly Tilly’s perfect life, so meticulously mapped out, seems to be crumbling around her. And she’s not sure what’s more frightening: that she’s begun to see the future or what the future holds . . .

As Tilly furiously races to keep up with—and hopefully change—her destiny, she faces the question: Which is the life she wants? The one she’s carefully nursed for decades, or the one she never considered possible?

My Review:

Well-written and beautifully descriptive, The One That I Want by Allison Winn Scott is a novel about happiness, a simple word, yet difficult to obtain. I struggled in the beginning thinking I was about to read another clichéd (a baby will make Tilly’s good life perfect), and at times unrealistic (the friend turned psychic), novel. Thankfully my earliest judgments were proven entirely incorrect. Yes Tilly does gain insight, rather the gift of clarity, from her classmate Ashley Simmons, and yes she would like to have a baby, but there the comparison ends. The One That I Want is an astonishingly deep look at the many facets and complications life offers on a daily basis. Scott introduces the readers to a diverse cast of characters, each one with their own strengths and weaknesses, family problems, marital issues, or the regular personal issues. The reader will quickly become absorbed into the lives of Tilly, Darcy, Susanna, Luanne, and Ashley and the small town of Westlake and the secrets kept and lessons learned. The One That I Want is a delightfully fresh and witty novel which looks at some fairly complex life issues all the while Scott reminds the reader, “sometimes we are all a little stuck”. I highly recommend The One That I Want to anyone looking for a wonderful book to read with powerful messages of love, family, hope and happiness despite the odds.

About the Author:

ALLISON WINN SCOTCH is the author of the novel The Department of Lost and Found. She is also a magazine writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Parents, Glamour, Redbook, and Shape. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.

For further more information visit:
Allison’s website.
Allison’s blog, Ask Allison.
Follow Allison on Twitter.
Follow Allison on Facebook.

For more reviews of the book, please follow the book tour.

I received a complimentary copy of The One That I Want by Allison Winn Scotch from TLC Book Tours to be a part of this tour and offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.