The Way Men Act

Unmarried at age thirty, Melinda LeBlanc grows tired of helping her dull former classmates plan their weddings and wonders why her romantic interludes are limited to an occasional meaningless horizontal encounter.

In a second novel as enchanting as her first, Lipman ( Then She Found Me ) traces the untriumphant return of 30-year-old Melinda LeBlanc to her recently gentrified hometown of Harrow, Mass., after a decade of unfocused living in California. Moved in to the third floor of her mother's house, working as a designer at the Forget-Me-Not florist shop owned by her cousin, Melinda wonders why her former high school classmates are married while she--"ever-popular . . . a good dancer and a fun date"--is not. With bracing, always affectionate humor, Lipman records the complications developing between Melinda and Libby Getchel, another newly returned, unmarried Harrow native who opens a dressmaking shop on Main Street, and wary, divorced Dennis Vaughan, trout fishing expert and black Harrow High graduate whose Brookhoppers store is a haven for New England anglers. Gamely pursuing all chances for romance, outspoken Melinda offers counsel on sex and love to others (including her mother, who is muffled in an unsatisfactory second marriage to a traveling salesman) until a series of unexpected betrayals among friends and family leads her to take charge of her life and heart. Deft, warm characterization distinguishes this romance with a modern sensibility and nice old-fashioned resolution. BOMC selection.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lipman's second novel may not have all the bite of her first (Then She Found Me, 1990), but, still, it serves up a ripe slice of love and life, late-80's style, complete with relevant issues: town vs. gown, truth vs. deception, and (the biggie) man vs. woman. At age 30, still single, Melinda LeBlanc has heard all the standard letdown lines. She even sees them coming. ``Ian sighed a long, sensitive-male's sigh, the universal preamble to the speech about how he wasn't ready/interested/looking/worthy or any other lame excuse for not calling this a date.'' But forewarned is not necessarily forearmed, and Melinda takes more than a few hits in the war zone of relationships. Recently returned to her hometown of Harrow, Massachusetts, a newly gentrified college town, she works as a floral designer and spends a fair amount of time arranging elaborate wedding bouquets for her former high-school classmates. She also attempts to arrange a little matchmaking for two old friends--Libby Getchel, an artsy seamstress, and Dennis Vaughan, a handsome black man who has earned renown as the owner of Brookhoppers, a fancy fly-fishing boutique. Things go amiss, however, in both the matchmaking and floral-arranging departments. But after a certain amount of casual coupling (it's surprising that a book so brimming with up-to-date issues never tackles the problem of safe sex), Melinda finally sorts out which ones to throw back and which one to keep. When she reels him in, it's no big surprise to anybody--except to wry, wise Melinda herself. Compelling, darkly funny, defiantly romantic: a modern-day tale of manners. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Continuing her deft exploration of contemporary social mores, Lipman ( Then She Found Me , LJ 3/15/90) focuses on the unmarried thirtysomething crowd. Melinda LeBlanc has returned to her New England hometown after failing to get an education or a husband in California. Observing and participating in the coupling and uncoupling of friends, relatives, and others, Melinda tries to understand the nature of attraction between men and women in order to achieve her own happy ending. Putting a wicked 1990s spin on the game of courtship, Lipman comes up with a winner--a wry, witty, fond look at decent people attempting to make connections with each other. This will gain new fans for the author as well as pleasing the old. Recommended for most fiction collections. BOMC selection.
-Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Com munity Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.