cover image Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man

Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man

Claudia Carroll, . . HarperCollins, $24.95 (374pp) ISBN 978-0-06-114053-2

Irish actress-turned-novelist Carroll (He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not) draws on her experience as a soap opera star to trace the checkered romantic history of a successful Dublin television producer. Amelia Lockwood, 37 and unmarried, is haunted by a recurring vision of herself in a Vera Wang dress accompanied by a headless groom. To find love, she resorts to a seminar that requires her to revisit old boyfriends and do a kind of “exit interview” to find out what she’s been doing wrong. Her stable of college friends (“the Lovely Girls”) mock her, but Amelia settles in for a jaunty ride through a rogue’s galley of exes. Carroll works the work vs. love trade-off with outrageous comic detours and gives Amelia a sincere but sharp-witted voice. (June)