Book Description
Ladies Man - From the bestselling author of The
Inn at Lake Devine ("Rivals her own best work for
its understanding of the way smart, opinionated people
stumble toward happiness"--Glamour) and Isabel's Bed
("It's Fannie Farmer for the soul . . . delivered in a
delicious style that is both funny and elegant"--USA
Today) comes a darkly romantic comedy of manners that
confirms Elinor Lipman's appointment to the Jane Austen chair
in modern American sensibility.
Thirty unmarried years have passed since the barely
suitable Harvey Nash failed to show up at a grand Boston
hotel for his own engagement party. Today, the near-bride,
Adele Dobbin, and her two sisters, Lois and Kathleen, blame
Harvey for what unkind relatives call their spinsterhood, and
what potential beaus might characterize as a leery, united
front. The doorbell rings one cold April night. Harvey Nash,
older, filled with regrets (sort of), more charming and
arousable than ever, just in from the Coast, where he's
reinvented himself as Nash Harvey, jingle composer and
chronic bachelor, has returned to the scene of his first
romantic crime. Despite the sisters' scars and grudges,
despite his platinum tongue and roving eye, this old flame
becomes an improbable catalyst for the untried and the long
overdue.
The refined and level-headed Adele finds herself flirting
with her boss--on public television. Entrepreneurial Kathleen
is suddenly drinking cappuccino with Lorenz, the handsome
doorman at the luxury high-rise where she owns a lingerie
boutique. And Lois, the only sister to have embarked on the
road to matrimony and, subsequently, divorce, revives her
long-cherished notion that Harvey abandoned Adele rather than
indulge his preference for another Dobbin.
Both comic and compassionate, The Ladies' Man has all
of Lipman's trademark wit, wattage, and
social mischief--with an extra bite.
