β Scribed by Merullo, Roland
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Merullo, author of the Revere Beach series, starts out with a hoary clich?: Jake Entwhistle, on the one-year anniversary of his girlfriend's death, goes out for a doughnut, and his '49 Dodge truck gets smashed in the parking lot by cowboy-booted, 27-year-old Janet Rossi. Chemistry wins out over a series of first-date pratfalls, and Entwhistle, a handsome, successful painter, finds himself smitten. Rossi, however, has cystic fibrosis, and Merullo does his best work in the deceptively lighthearted chapters that follow the lovers trying to shed their romantic baggage on top of dealing with Rossi's illness. Entwhistle must overcome his jealousy over Rossi's affair with the governor of Massachusetts (she's still his aide), and he must also finally mourn the late Giselle (an attendant on the flight that went down in Pennsylvania on 9/11). Rossi's debilitating disease quickly sends her into a tailspin; Jake tries to pull together lung donors and a ''psycho-genius'' doctor for an operation that could save Rossi's life. Merullo counters the cardboard morbidity and overdetermined incidentals with considerable emotional depth, making this a solid romance. (On sale Aug. 9)
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The reviews of A Little Love Story are remarkably uniform: nearly everyone whoβs read the book remarks that this novel shouldnβt work. It should crash and burn on the shoals of clich?. Janet and Jakeβs romance should seem cloying, and readers should suffocate in all the emotion. But Merullo, best known for In Revere, in Those Days (2002), masterfully steers clear of those potential pitfalls. He produces a grand, moving story, believable characters, and a graceful dialogue that, taken together, reminded a few critics of Erich Segalβs 1970 classic, Love Story. A Little Love Story will rekindle the readerβs trust not only in love but also in love stories.
Copyright Β© 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
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### From Publishers Weekly Merullo, author of the Revere Beach series, starts out with a hoary clich?: Jake Entwhistle, on the one-year anniversary of his girlfriend's death, goes out for a doughnut, and his '49 Dodge truck gets smashed in the parking lot by cowboy-booted, 27-year-old Janet Rossi.
SUMMARY: Jake Entwhistle is smart and handsome, but living with a shadow over his romantic history. Janet Rossi is a bright, witty aide to the governor of Massachusetts, but Janet suffers from an illness that makes her, as she puts it, βnot exactly a good long-term investment.β After meeting by acci