Whatever Lola Wants

Love can demolish seeming obstacles when its foundation is strong. It's a lesson everyone in Whatever Lola Wants will learn. In a small Georgia town, love comes in all skin colors, genders, and types: maternal, paternal, romantic, platonic. Gen Caradon, a spinster librarian facing her fortieth birthday in the not too distant future, is working hard to adopt Lola, a six year old mixed race child she's been raising. Gen's gay uncles, the men who raised her, love Lola as much as Gen does, and will do anything to make their girls happy. But they don't know about Gen's freshman year in college and the man she married. The man who abused her, the man who went to prison. Believing herself divorced, Gen has never found a reason to tell her uncles about him or to remarry. Until Lola needs a daddy for the Father-Daughter Dance, an annual affair for the socially acceptable young ladies of society, Gen hasn't even dated. Now that the dance is down to the wire, Gen ramps up her looks with thrift store heels and short skirts that veer into tramp territory, ready to go trolling for a daddy for one night. Success eludes her. Taking matters in her own hands, Lola discovers her future daddy- dance partner in the check-out line of the Piggly Wiggly, and he's wearing Harley leathers emblazoned with the words "Dance with the Devil." Reading the jacket, Lola decides this is a man who can dance and proceeds to introduce her mother to him. The Harley rider is really a successful Nascar driver, Mark McGaughan, taking a break from the race track outside Atlanta. Intrigued by Gen's false advertising, he buys Gen's act. After a rough start, he gets a glimpse of what family life could be with a librarian with issues concerning men, two gay uncles, and a precocious little girl in a small town. While he's trying to seduce Gen, Gen's ex-con, but not ex-husband, has seen pictures of Gen and Mark in a tabloid, and shows up demanding money and much more. He's not about to take "no" for an answer. When Lola's biological father, a newly minted Christian fundamentalist, arrives in town demanding custody, Gen is ready to take her foster daughter and run to parts unknown. Arguing he's a better custodial parent because he is married, Lola's father and his wife demand Lola live with them. The law is on their side. But Lola, determined to decide her own destiny, reveals something about herself that surprises everyone. Lola's biological father rejects Lola. But Mark doesn't care about Lola's revelation, and he realizes he can't be a daddy for just one night. Convincing Gen he's the right man for her and her child on a permanent basis may take untangling some emotional skeins, but he's in it for the duration. Love can grow in a town where the past and its prejudices prove to be less important than the present.


Genre: Romance