cover image The Purveyor of Enchantment

The Purveyor of Enchantment

Marika Cobbold. Thomas Dunne Books, $22.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-312-18160-4

Juxtaposing prim lyricism with comically blunt faux pas, British author Cobbold's third novel (after Guppies for Tea and A Rival Creation) is a charmingly dark contemporary romance set in Aldingham, England, where every ""happily ever after"" is prefaced by a ""perhaps."" A recent divorcee in her mid-30s, Clementine Hope is a chronic worrier and Goody Two-shoes. When she and her bratty younger sister, Ophelia, inherit a house from their spinster aunt, they also inherit a collection of unfinished fairy tales on which the aunt had been working. Clementine falls in love with Nathaniel, the attractive but alcoholic, romantically fickle son of a neighbor. But her compulsive fretfulness (which includes suspecting the town's new plumber of a series of robberies) adds up to disaster, and Clementine must become her own knight in shining armor if she is to win back the heart of her Prince Charming. Cobbold's modern fairy tale is basically sweet, though spiced with some welcome and salty carnality. (Jan.)