Tom Avery and Fay McLeod are not stock romance characters; they are a bit too ordinary and self-aware for that. Nor are they strikingly handsome, although not unattractive; they are middle-aged and have achieved a degree of independence. Most notably, they both have a history of failed relationships which takes the story out of the realm of fantasy and into the contemporary world. Both are cognizant that they are actively seeking romance, someone to love, but they're on the outside looking in. As Fay notices, "The lives of others baffle her, especially the lives of couples, the chancy elusive cement of their private moments. What exactly do Iris and Mac Jaffe think when they lie down together at night in their glittering midnight-blue bedroom?" She wonders the same about her parents, married for forty years, and her godmother, Onion, who marries her longtime lover, Strom, only after he...