Despite loving her English mum and dad dearly, Pippa Dunn adopted as an infant from America never feels she fits into her family. Her fear of abandonment has her looking for the wrong men, in order to leave them before they leave her. At the age of 28, Pippa goes to America seeking her birth parents: beautiful, artistic Billie and her married lover, Walt, who gave up their daughter for the sake of their relationship. The first blush of parental love is intoxicating, with Pippa seeing her traits in others and feeling truly free to express herself. Then reality (Billie's possessiveness, Walt's evasiveness) sets in, and Pippa faces the issue of nature versus nurture. Pippa's long-distance correspondent through all this is fellow adoptee Nick Devang, but her true source of support is right in front of her. A predictable romantic outcome is easily forgiven, given comedienne-actress-playwright Larkin's vivid description of the obstacles facing adoptees who find their birth parents. Drawn from Larkin's own life, this debut novel like Pippa herself is smart, funny, and utterly charming.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2008 Booklist

Chick lit with issues from debut novelist Larkin, whose rejection-phobic heroine goes in search of her birth parents. Just a few pages of exposition firmly establish that 28-year-old narrator Pippa Dunn is a misfit in her adopted family: messy where they are neat, bohemian where they are conventional. London-based Pippa has known for years that her birth parents are American, but one day on impulse--she does most things on impulse--she phones an adoption agency in New York, starting the process that eventually leads to contact. Her birth mother, Billie, is an irrepressible, formerly alcoholic art dealer living in New York State. "You look like your father in a Laura Ashley skirt!" Billie whoops; when Pippa later meets Walt, a married businessman, she learns that she also inherited his taste for hit songs from popular musicals. Billie invites Pippa to move to the United States and help with her business. For a while, Pippa relishes her connectedness, but then disenchantment sets in: Billie seems increasingly needy, unreliable and manipulative; powerful, charismatic Walt turns out to be shady and fails to deliver on his promise to tell his other children about her. Meanwhile, e-mails fly between Pippa and Nick, a banker based in India with whom she had an intense flirtation seven years ago. He's also adopted; they reconnected after Pippa asked his advice about contacting a birth parent, and now they're discussing his painting (an avocation she encourages him to pursue) and working up to a romantic rendezvous in New York. But her destiny is kindly Jack, who helps her launch a career as a comic and singer. A burst of predictable developments help Pippa face up to Billie; realize that her adopted parents are much more loving than she gave them credit for; and accept Jack as the man of her dreams. A loquacious, uneven drama partly based on the author's personal experiences, but lacking fictional credibility. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Based on her semi-autobiographical one-woman show of the same title, Larkin's debut novel takes a comedic but heartfelt look at issues of identity, heredity and self-acceptance. Pippa Dunn-British, 28 and living with her sister in West London-loves her adoptive parents dearly, but has rarely felt at home with the primness and very British emotional restraint with which she was raised, as her funny, anxious narration demonstrates. When Pippa discovers that her birth mother, Billie, is an American (from Georgia, no less) she feels compelled to travel to the U.S. to meet the "the sweet, understanding, empathetic ethereal mother" she's always imagined. Not surprisingly, both Billie and Pippa's birth father, Walt, fail to live up to her imagined ideals. Although Larkin's premise leads to worthy reflections in Pippa's winning voice, awkward attempts to marry the birth-mother search to a conventional romantic comedy plot are less successful. Through a midbook e-mail exchange, we learn that Pippa met her soul mate, Nick (now a banker in Singapore), in a London park seven years before, but wasn't ready to feel love. Nick the banker-cum-painter is far too tortured and emotive to be believable, and the ensuing romantic revelations are predictable. Pippa, however, is a complex, compelling character-truly an amalgam of her heredity and her environment-and readers will root for her as she uncovers her roots and finds herself. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The American-born Larkin, adopted by British parents, expands on her one-woman show (a hit in London) about the American-born Pippa, who was adopted by British parents. With a six-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.