8. How do you feel about Lu's picking career over family? What other sacrifices do the women in Serendipity make in their lives? What betrayals do they make?

9. What attracts Rose so deeply to Bobbie Manning? How would you characterize their relationship, and in which ways does it change over time? Why does she go to such great lengths for him? On a similar note, what attracts Carrie to Howie?

10. How does Shaffer use ice skating as a symbol, for both Mifalda and Rose?

11. Carrie asks herself “Why do I always feel like I'm settling for an empty basket when I want one that's full? Why can't I let myself be happy?” What do you think the answers to these questions are, and how do you envision her future at the end of the book?

12. “Mama, Lu, and Rose,” Carrie's uncle Paulie states, “standing in a line. Three young girls, handing down all the good and bad from one generation to the next. They couldn't get away from each other.” What did each woman pass down to her daughter? What role does family legacy play in this novel, and is it portrayed positively or negatively?

13. One of this novel's themes is that women can't do it all—career, family, love—successfully. Today, many women seem to be revisiting this idea. Do women have to choose their priorities? What about men?

14. If you were casting the movie Serendipity, whom would you pick for actors?

ALSO BY LOUISE SHAFFER

Looking For a Love Story

Family Acts

The Ladies of Garrison Gardens

The Three Miss Margarets

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LOUISE SHAFFER, the author of The Three Miss Margarets, The Ladies of Garrison Gardens, and Family Acts, is a graduate of Yale School of Drama, has written for television, and has appeared on Broadway, in television movies, and in daytime dramas, earning an Emmy for her work on Ryan's Hope. Shaffer and her husband live in the Lower Hudson Valley. Visit her website at www.louiseshaffer.com

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