Love Among the Ruins

When love has failed you and you don't think you ever want it again, you'll sometimes find it in unexpected places. Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list.

	Saul Bellow. The Actual   Sigmund Adletsky asks Harry Trellman, a man who has made his fortune, to join his brain trust and advises Trellman to pick up the life he has wanted with an old high-school love, in a novella by the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Victim.
	Katie Fforde. Wild Designs   Althea (yes, she has always found the name a bit of a burden) is thirty-eight. She has three children - who boss her around and no husband, but she's content until she loses her job. Undaunted (well, to be honest, slightly daunted) she decides to turn her passion for gardening into a business of her own. So she unearths not only the roots of a new career but the distinct possibility of a new man: architect Patrick Donahugh.
	Dorothy Gilman. Mrs. Pollifax on Safari   Mrs. Pollifax has been sent on safari by the C.I.A. and told only to take pictures of all of her companions, in order to find the international assassin whose next target is the president of Zambia. It sounded so simple, but shortly after Mrs. Pollifax started taking pictures, someone stole her film. And right after that she was kidnapped by Rhodesian terrorists. And right after that--well, read for yourself...
	Rosamunde Pilcher. Winter Solstice   Retired London stage actress Elfrida Phipps never anticipated going off with a man, but after a devastating tragedy, Oscar Blundell asks for her companionship. Joining them at a Victorian house in Scotland are a broken hearted young woman, a teenage runaway, and a stranger who arrives during a snowstorm.
	Jeanne Ray. Julie and Romeo This deliciously funny and wickedly sexy novel of love found (finally!) and love threatened (inevitably) tells the story of Romeo Cacciamani and Julie Roseman, who fall in love, despite the fact that their families have hated each other for as long as anyone can remember.
	Mary Sheepshanks. Picking up the Pieces   Kate is in her fifties, recently widowed, and coping with the difficulties--and occasional pleasures--of flying solo. Helped and hindered in equal measures by her delightful but wicked old mother-in-law, Cicely, she finds new strengths and must face undiscovered weaknesses. But when her daughter is estranged by her husband, Kate finds herself forced into a role she cannot assume, and realizes it is time to stop outside her family's preconceived notions. What follows is a delightful story of the relationships and unspoken power struggles between four generations of women.
	E. L. Swann. Night Gardening   Maggie is recovering from a stroke in her overgrown and neglected garden in wealthy Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tristan, a landscape architect, is rebuilding the garden next door for the new homeowners. He spies Maggie through a crack in the stone wall between the two properties, and is intrigued by her beauty and her strong will as she tries to learn how to speak and walk again.