The Love Book

"Meet your new best friends: Emily, Max, Cathy, and Beatrice. From the hilariously disastrous rubble of a singles bike trip in France emerges the swift-moving story of a mysterious book that seems to have better plans for Nina Solomon's marvelously human characters than they may have for themselves. Sharp and thoughtful, funny and painfully real--my favorite kind of read."
--Elizabeth Crane, author of We Only Know So Much

Praise for Nina Solomon's Single Wife:

"Gripping and dreamy, this tale will please fans of Margaret Atwood and Alice Hoffman."
--Publishers Weekly

"Employing a seemingly effortless, breezy style, first-novelist Solomon speaks with panache to the issue of commitment...A witty, accomplished debut."
--Booklist

It all starts when four unsuspecting women on a singles’ bike trip through Normandy discover a mysterious red book about love. But did they discover it--or did the book bring them together? Magical words, spells, conjurations, and a little dose of synchronicity abound in The Love Book, an anti–rom com about the misadventures of four women who embark on a soul mate–seeking journey. Somehow The Love Book insinuates itself into their lives and has its way with them. But there is more than matchmaking afoot. The four women--Emily, Beatrice, Max, and Cathy--are each nudged, cajoled, inspired--perhaps “guided”--despite themselves, to discover love, fulfillment, and the true nature of what being a soul mate really means. While on the surface a lighthearted romp, the novel is a serious exploration of the difficulties women routinely encounter when their lives do not turn out the way society, their families, and they themselves may have planned.

Nina Solomon’s first novel, Single Wife, was a Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Guild, and Quality Paperback selection and was optioned by Warner Brothers. The Love Book was inspired by her own search for a soul mate, who, she is happy to report, only took twenty-seven days and thirty years to find his way to her. She was born and raised in New York City and has lived in the same zip code since she was five.

Kaylie Jones moved to Sagaponack in 1975, where her family continued to live for more than thirty years. She is the author of five novels, including A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, and the memoir Lies My Mother Never Told Me. She edited Long Island Noir for Akashic Books. She teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, and in the Wilkes University low-residency MFA program in professional writing. She is the curator of the Kaylie Jones Books imprint.