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Book of Trouble, The: A Love Story
by Marlowe, Ann
Star Crossed in Love, or Do We Cross Ourselves? Don't let the subtitle fool you: this is much more than a love story, although that may be its initial raison d'etre. It may be about a specific couple in a specific time and cultural context, but the basic emotions it touches upon are universal. |
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Star Struck
by Anderson, Pamela with Quinn, Eric Shaw
Sex, drugs, and…More Sex and Drugs! No one reads a book that begins with the heroine awaking from a drug-induced stupor wondering why her nipples hurt expecting great literature. Yet even as a mindless guilty pleasure, Star Struck pushes the limits of plausibility and cheese from the beginning |
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Redemption of the Cannibal Woman, The
by Denevi, Marco
Extravagant hopes dashed in Buenos Aires Although neither the plots nor the language bear any obvious relationship to the works of Edgar Allen Poe, there is something about the hopes for love reminiscent of Poe. |
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Foreign Affairs
by Lurie, Alison
Comic, ultimately poignant tale of Americans abroad Foreign Affairs provides the pleasures of incisive observation of conflicting assumptions (intracultural as well as cross-cultural ones), elegant, pointed prose, and creative plotting. |
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Zuleika Dobson: An Oxford Romance
by Beerbohm, Max
The Staggering Stupidity of Which Adolescent Males are Capable The novel elaborately details the disruption of the cloistered calm of a then all-male Oxford that a flirtatious and attractive young woman causes when she visits her grandfather. One of the most admirable features of Beerbohm's book is its calling attention to the herd mentality of young men as relentless followers of fashion and as easy prey to romantic notions. |
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The Last Rogue
by Simmons, Deborah
A Harlequin Romance Worth Reading Take all the negatives you know about Harlequin Romances and chuck them out. This one is worth reading. |
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Losers' Club, The
by Perez, Richard
Lookin' for love in a place he seemed to have almost found it The arcs of three romances and a job are a lot to manage in a 176-page novel, some pages of which are filled with examples of Martin's poetry, , but The Losers' Club is an entertaining and occasionally touching first novel of accomplishment, not just of promise. |
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A Man to Call My Own
by Lindsay, Johanna
Moving from Romance to Mainstream A Man to Call My Own overcomes its typecasting and moves into mainstream novel territory with class. |
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The Flower and the Sword
by Navin, Jacqueline
No Romance, No Story—Not Even Decent Sex! There's absolutely no pleasure in The Flower and the Sword. It's not historical anything, and it's full of cutout characters and situations. |
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The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards
by Stillman, Whit
Early '80s chic served wry in retrospect "Opposites attract," they say—and it's true. Scoundrels are forever being smitten with angels, and vice versa, and if such terms are objectionable, replace them with the secular equivalent, but it's still true. |
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