cover image Courtship: A Novel of Life, Love, and the Law

Courtship: A Novel of Life, Love, and the Law

RL Sommer. Ankerwycke, $26.95 (224p) ISBN 978-1-62722-842-8

This clich%C3%A9-riddled %E2%80%9Cold-fashioned love story%E2%80%9D is unlikely to appeal either to lawyers or fans of romance novels. Anne Strong, the daughter of a prominent Southern family, is awarded a Thayer scholarship to study at Cambridge University for two years after college. On the ship journey across the Atlantic, Anne encounters fellow scholar Micah Lehman, a hardworking Jew from Chicago, who appears to be her complete opposite. To their surprise, they fall for each other, hard and fast, and arrive in England a deeply devoted couple. Predictable hurdles on their way to the altar include Anne%E2%80%99s bigoted parents objecting to her marrying outside of her faith. In other melodramatic developments, Micah%E2%80%99s father dies suddenly of a heart attack, and when he finally returns to England to reunite with Anne, he%E2%80%99s met with the news that she%E2%80%99s near death after a fall from a horse and that she%E2%80%99s carrying his child. Sommer is the penname of attorney Ronald Goldfarb. (Mar.)