Ganahl, a 49-year-old San Francisco Chronicle
columnist, had almost everything a woman could want: financial stability, a flourishing career, an adoring daughter and the kind of sparkling social life even Dorothy Parker would envy. What she didn't have, though, was a boyfriend—and as she looked down the barrel of middle age, when every man she knew was either married, interested only in (much) younger women or otherwise unacceptable, this one-time male-magnet wondered if anyone would ever look at her lustfully again. Ganahl's writing is sassy, fiery (the prose equivalent of her red hair and love of rock and roll), and many readers will nod in amused sympathy as she recounts her disastrous forays into the world of online dating or laments the difficulty of looking sexy in a sensible heel. But the book isn't all self-deprecating humor. Reeling from the one-two punch of her mother's and sister's deaths and struggling to accept her daughter's increasing independence, Ganahl tackles the bigger issues as well. Ganahl may be occasionally, infuriatingly self-defeating, but more often she's pluck and charm personified. Readers, meanwhile, will enjoy Ganahl's romantic portrayal of her beloved San Francisco—a character as alive and fully developed as any in the book. (Feb.)
