From the best-selling author of 'In Her Shoes' comes an exceptional collection of eleven magical, heartbreaking and hilarious tales about a lifetime's worth of winning and losing at love.
This poignant collection begins with a story about the relationship between teenage siblings, and spans every generation through to an old woman's unlikely connection with two young girls.
1. Just Desserts
The first three stories of this collection introduces us to the Krystal family -- recounting the lives of three teenage siblings in the wake of their father's departure and their mother's constant retreat to their backyard swimming pool, primarily through the experiences of the younger sister who takes a summer job as a soda jerk at Friendly's.
2. Travels with Nicki
The Krystal sisters, now both in college, travel to Florida for a family visit with their grandmother. A truly hilarious portrait of the difficult Nicki Krystal.
3. The Wedding Bed
Josie Krystal is joined by her sister and brother on the eve of her wedding day, in this remarkable tale of letting go of love and accepting the life we are given.
4. Swim
The story of a young woman who cares for her grandmother in Los Angeles and writes college application essays for spoiled high school students, in turn avoiding her true calling as a screenwriter, until she finds herself forever changed by one of her young charges. A delightful story about having faith in our dreams.
5. Buyer's Market
A Manhattan career gal falls for the handsome realtor who sells her neighbour's apartment, after which she foolishly places her own apartment on the market, and surprisingly finds it sells quickly to an outrageously rude woman who is buying it for her son. Hopelessness, hilarity and romance ensue in this delightful tale of a crush gone very wrong.
6. Good Men
A prequel to 'Good in Bed' and the story of Bruce Guberman's trepidations about his commitment to Cannie and his plans to kidnap Nifkin during a very funny all-night bachelor's party. A moving portrait of men's fears about commitment and love.
7. The Guy Not Taken
A newly married woman happens upon her ex-boyfriend's wedding registry and wonders what life would have been like if she'd ended up with him after all -- only to wake up and find her dream, for better and worse, has come true.
8. The Mother's Hour
A haunting, stunningly written story of a mother in her mid-thirties who befriends a teenage mum during their weekly 'Mother's Hour' meetings.
9. Oranges From Florida
A lonely man inadvertently finds love by pretending to be a radio station employee after a young boy calls asking what he won. Rather than explaining to the boy he has the wrong number, the man tells him 'Oranges from Florida' and then throws in one hundred dollars as well. The man drops the prize off at the boy's house, and meets the boy's very concerned, and divorced, mother, with whom he finds an inadvertent connection.
10. Tour of Duty
A heartbreaking story about a mother and her teenage son who are going the rounds, visiting eastern Ivy League colleges, and as we learn, she does not know how to tell him that his father has left and is moving out during their weekend away.
11. Dora on the Beach
An old woman who has retired to a seniors' community at the Jersey Shore is kidnapped at gunpoint by two young girls, in this redemptive story of the similarities between the young and old, and how these characters allowed their losses in life define them, and then gained from their unlikely meeting.
