12 Bliss Street: A Novel - Hardcover

Conway, Martha

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312315430 ISBN 13: 9780312315436

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2003

Synopsis

Nicola is having a really bad day. She’s tired of her job, her boss, and even her San Francisco apartment, which she’s just heard she’s being evicted from anyway. Her life’s only excitement is fueled by fantasy – about the expensive lingerie she wears under her business suits, about a man she sees at lunch every day, a darkly handsome man she calls Chorizo, after the kind of pizza he orders. She’s flat-out tired of her life, and nothing brings it home more than running into her annoying but harmless ex-husband, Scooter, on the way to work.

But if ever anyone learns a lesson in “be careful what you wish for,” it’s Nicola, because suddenly her life seems to be full of excitement. First she gets kidnapped after kickboxing class by two inept teenagers who, it turns out, aren’t your garden-variety ransom kidnappers at all. But before she can resolve this situation, her innocent flirtation with Chorizo turns sinister. Suddenly Nicola’s problem is no longer how to survive her boredom but how to survive, period. All in all, Martha Conway’s debut is a deliciously hip, sexy, and suspenseful crime novel.

About this title

About the Author:

Martha Conway’s short stories have been published in The Iowa Review, The Quarterly, and Folio, among others. In 1993 she published a groundbreaking piece of hyper-fiction called Girl Birth Water Death. This is her first novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

After her divorce Nicola began buying lingerie: dark blue contour bras, demi bras in little-girl white, embroidered bustiers, stretch mesh chemises, and a red girdle with removable garters that the catalog listed as a Jolly Susan. She wore silk panties to work, and at night bathed in almond oil baths, the scent of which reminded her of the young boy in Istanbul who’d sold her husband a wallet. That had been their last trip together as a couple, a belated sort of honeymoon. But it was just another mistake, along with the home hair-care pyramid scheme, the water bed, and Scooter’s office fling (if you could call a video-delivery van an office), all of which led to Nicola’s increasing awareness that her husband was unstable – and not in the fun way.

---from 12 Bliss Street

About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0312315430
• ISBN 13: 9780312315436
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224