Beginning ~ with advice from a columnist

The Breakdown Lane ~ by Jacquelyn Mitchard, 2005, fiction (Wisconsin)

Dear J, I'm getting married next summer, to a man of another nationality.  Both families are very happy, but there is a problem.

Those opening lines are intriguing, making me want to know about the problem and what the advice columnist will say.  Here's the book description:

Giving advice is what Julieanne does for a living — every Sunday she doles it out to clueless people she doesn't know, in a column in her local Wisconsin paper.  But when it comes to her personal life, Julie herself seems to have missed some clues.  Having worked creatively to keep her twenty-year marriage to Leo fresh and exciting, she is completely caught off guard when he tells her he needs to go on a "sabbatical" from their life together, leaving Julie and their three children — Gabe, Caroline, and Aury — behind.  But it soon becomes clear that his leave of absence is meant to be permanent.  The succeeding months are filled with a confusion and sadness that shake the core of the entire family.  Things take a turn for the worse when Julie is diagnosed with a serious illness and the children undertake a dangerous journey to find Leo — before it's too late.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.