ANNOTATION

The author of Rameau's Niece presents a romantic masterpiece in the tradition of The Bridges of Madison County. Ripe with uncompromising wit and fierce tenderness, this is the story of Helen MacFarquhar, a smart, independent, divorced owner of a bookstore who is happily raising her 11-year-old daughter — and having an affair with a 20-year-old college student.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Smart, independent, and sexy, Helen MacFarquhar owns a tiny bookstore in an idyllic seaside town, where her life is exactly as she planned it, comfortable and full. But then an anonymous love letter arrives in her mail one steamy summer morning. Written by an unknown lover to a mysterious beloved, the letter becomes Helen's obsession. "How do you fall in love?" the letter asks. To her dismay, Helen finds out. Johnny is the college student who works in Helen's store, a boy with all the irresistible modesty and arrogance of youth. Helen knows she is too old for him, and too wise, but the letter's ardor is overpowering, and Helen is swept up in a fiercely tender love affair.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Overtones of a postmodern fairy tale give added resonance to what is otherwise a very contemporary-and totally enchanting- love story. One summer morning in her 41st year, Helen MacFarquhar, the divorced owner of an audaciously pink bookstore in an exclusive Connecticut shore town, finds a mysterious letter in her mail. Addressed "Dear Goat,'' and signed "As Ever, Ram,'' it is a love letter of such intensity and passion that she becomes obsessed by its urgently suggestive message. The effect of that letter on Helen's orderly life is the burden of this comedy of manners, which in Schine's capable hands also becomes a witty send-up of cultural hypocrisies and modern relationships. The letter is next read by Johnny Howell, 20-year-old college student and part-time help at Helen's store. Magic strikes; like some characters in Shakespeare's comedies, Johnny immediately falls in love with Helen, and, after a series of misunderstandings, they consummate what has become a mutual passion. Subterfuge is necessary, of course, especially when Helen's 11-year-old daughter returns from camp and Helen's ditsy globe-trotting mother and grande-dame grandmother also decide to spend some weeks in Helen's large old house. Schine's prose is as light and delicate as gossamer and as earthy as colloquial slang and sex. A natural with epigrams and humorous aperus, Schine has an antic imagination that conjurs arresting images. Her fine satiric eye and sophisticated intelligence, displayed previously in Rameau's Niece, To the Birdhouse and Alice in Bed are here equally evident. Helen is a captivating, complex character: demanding, flirtatious, whimsical, capricious, bossy, independent-and suddenly vulnerable. The twist ending is nicely foreshadowed and quite delicious in its implications. Like the love letter of the title, this book enchants and seduces.

Library Journal - Patricia C. Heaney, Nassau Community College Library, Garden City, N.Y.

Why is Helen so unnerved and preoccupied by finding an unsigned love letter with her mail? That is the readers' question as we follow Helen's adventures with her bookshop employees and her family in this new novel by the author of Rameau's Niece (LJ 3/15/93). Schine's latest novel keeps us guessing until it all comes together at the end. A resort community setting, wry characters, and an off beat plot combine elegantly into a charming novel that will appeal to a wide audience. Recommended for most libraries.

BookList - Donna Seaman

Few forms of praise are higher than declaring a writer brilliantly funny, and Schine is: she's a stitch. Her last novel, Rameau's Niece (1993), wreathed readers in smiles; her newest is better than a day at the beach. Helen, her marvelous heroine, is a bookstore owner, a divorced mom just into her forties, and a consummate flirt. Helen, sexy and commanding, can sell any book to anyone and elicits admiration, loyalty, and desire from customers and staff alike. It's summer in her hot little coastal New York town; her daughter's at camp; and her imperially self-absorbed and ever stylish mother and grandmother are planning an extended visit. A seductive control freak adept at keeping people both firmly attached and at the optimum distance, Helen is more dismayed than flattered when she receives an anonymous love letter. That's the first chink in her armor. Johnny, her very good-looking 20-year-old summer employee, is the second. As Schine dissects their passionate and utterly illogical affair, she animates a cast of deliciously piquant characters who think and say the sort of things we are taught not to, and we bask in their audacity.

AudioFile - Robert &. Kent