The Romance Reader's Guide to Life

Neave and her sister older Lilly grow up in Massachusetts in the years preceding World War II. While Lilly is charming, popular, and beautiful, Neave is temperamental and bookish, getting into fights with her mother and brother. Neave's only solace is the time spent reading to elderly Mrs. Daniels, and it is there that she discovers a love of romance novels, including one steamy tale entitled The Pirate Lover. During the war, Neave takes a job baking pies and Lilly works at a makeup counter. The postwar world finds the siblings launching a door-to-door cosmetics business. But just as their company is at its most successful, Lilly disappears and Neave starts receiving threatening messages. Both a coming-of-age tale and a romance, this genre-bending novel should appeal widely to readers of historical fiction who like strong female heroines as well as readers who enjoy a good love story. A thread of suspense weaves well with elements of the paranormal.