A groaning buffet table awaits this month, with dishes to please almost any palate.I clearly remember the first book I read
by the tender and
thoughtful Jennifer Greene—the now-classic Night of the Hunter,a romance that brilliantly showcased the author's myriad talents: hereye for detail, a deft touch with appealingly human, vulnerableheroines and sometimes stoic, always manly and touchingly yearningheroes. In Blame It on Cupid, Greene delivers the tale of MerryOlson, a footloose breeze of a woman who becomes the guardian of thedaughter of a dead friend. Charlie and Merry do not seem a good fit atfirst—11-year-old Charlie is acting out her grief in heart-wrenchingways, and Merry comes off as a flibberti-gibbet. The next-doorneighbor, Jack, a handsome and wary divorced dad, doesn't give theunion much time to last. But that's before Merry captures him with herspecial brand of enchantment. Like a slice of pound cake, Blame It on Cupid is both sweet and dense, a sexy and thoughtful tale of the ways we manage loss.