Fiction Notes

Model Sophie Dahl (a granddaughter of Roald Dahl) has concocted a frothy romantic fantasy about a young woman—bookish, beautiful and rich—who meets and temporarily loses the man of her dreams. Pierre, the heroine of the picture book The Man with the Dancing Eyes: A Fairytale for Grownups, lives on a houseboat in London and works in a used bookstore. At a fancy dress party, she wants to dance to her favorite Ella Fitzgerald song, but finds herself stuck, "anchored by her Christian Louboutin shoes." A London painter with "the most wicked and dancing eyes she'd ever seen" comes to her rescue, initiating this breathless story of international heartbreak and reconciliation that ends with the words every woman longs to hear: "I want to live in Italy, have an Aga, four babies and a goat. I can't stand to be without you." Watercolor illus. (Bloomsbury, $16.95 64p ISBN 1-582-34342-X)