Where can a 40-ish woman turn when her marriage has gone stale and her kids treat her like an unpaid chauffeur? In Beth Riordan's case, it's to cyberspace. She takes a zany romp with love through wry, revelatory e-mails to Thomas, her handsome neighbor in a New England suburb, a travel writer in the middle of a divorce.

Although the families have not previously been close, Thomas asks Beth to attend to his pet rabbits while he is away researching a new travel guide. Beth begins to confide her own unhappiness in a series of poignant yet funny e-mails to Thomas while he is on the road. Nothing in Beth Riordan's life is about her. She drives her daughters to endless swim practices. Her husband no longer notices her. Her best friend is self-absorbed. The baby of the family is 10 and needs her less every day.

Thomas replies cautiously at first to Beth's stories of truck drivers who ignore her for her nubile daughters, family conversations that repeatedly fail to focus on her needs, a week-long excursion to a self-discovery camp with a feminist girl friend. When Thomas returns from his trip, longing and love, family and friendship combine to produce a climax that surprise Beth and the reader alike.

Readers will chuckle in recognition at this contemporary look at marriage and mid-life longing, written in e-mail format