Looking for a Love Story: A Novel [Paperback]

Louise Shaffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2010

In Louise Shaffer’s delightfully charming new novel, a hopeless romantic (and author adrift) searches for a happy ending—and decides to write her own love story.
 
After the success of her first novel, Love, Max—an irresistibly funny look at divorce as seen through a dog’s eyes—Francesca’s fictional saga becomes real when her sexy photographer husband bails on her. The good news is that Francesca gets custody of their apartment and their dog—an adoring scamp who has mastered the art of unconditional love. Still, a girl and her dog have to eat, so a desperate search for income leads Francesca to Chicky, a spunky, red-haired octogenarian who wants Francesca to write the memoirs of her parents, Joe and Ellie, who toured the vaudeville circuit in the early 1920s.

Francesca is reluctant to take the job, but Chicky’s tales soon lure her into a showbiz era as irresistible and unlikely as the love story that unfolds. As she re-creates Joe and Ellie’s story, Francesca reflects, with hilarious honesty, on her own childhood and marriage—and discovers how to put the pieces of her life back together in a way that redefines herself and the true meaning of family and love.
 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For a while, author Francesca Sewell was living her dream: her first novel was a hit, she married a handsome up-and-coming photographer, and she became the toast of her new Upper East Side neighborhood (where the happy couple bought and furnished their dream co-op). Three years on, however, she's struggling with her second book, her husband is distant, and her glamorous social life has grown uncomfortable (as has her wardrobe). When she's dumped by both her husband and her agent, Francesca is left with Annie, their rescue dog, to confront the downside of success. Desperate for work, she agrees to ghostwrite the family history of Chicky, the globe-trotting 90-year-old daughter of two 1920s vaudeville stars. Predictably but satisfactorily, Francesca comes to terms with her (and her parents') divorce by investigating the story of Chicky and her folks, in the process discovering the love story she'd been seeking all along. Shaffer (Serendipity) is at her best telling Chicky's story, a throwback to potboilers of the 1920s, giving this single-gal redemption story unexpected depth. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Written in the style of a memoir, this blend of chick lit and cute dog novel tells the story of thirtysomething Francesca, an author who followed a successful debut with three years of writer’s block. Now her husband has left her for someone who is more successful, and, desperate to pay the bills, she takes on a ghostwriting gig for Chicky, an elderly lady in a nursing home who wants Francesca to write the story of her parents, members of the vaudeville circuit in the early-twentieth century. Starting to write out of duty, Francesca soon becomes entranced with the couple: for the first time in years, she’s writing something that she really loves. Accompanied always by her loyal dog, Annie, Francesca manages to pull herself together and move forward to a new life. Sweet and hopeful, Francesca’s story is just right for chick-lit readers looking for something with a little emotional heft but a happy ending (and a dog). --Jessica Moyer

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (April 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345502108
• ISBN-13: 978-0345502100
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #672,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Louise is a believer in there's always a second chance. An actress since she was fifteen, she found herself unemployed when she was in her mid-forties. The reason was; well, she was in her mid-forties. Not a good thing if you' an actress - aging and eating are taboo. Louise has done both. Also, she was pretty clear about the fact that she was never going to have "knee surgery." That's what happens when an actress of a certain age drops out of sight for six weeks and her publicist announces that she's having an old knee injury repaired. Then the actress emerges with her eyebrows hiked up kind of high on her forehead and all those nasty little lines around her mouth seem to have vanished, and oh yeah, and her knee is working fine too.

The un-surgically enhanced Louise spent two years auditioning for commercials touting high fiber cereals and denture glue, she figured there had to be something better, and she decided to try writing scripts for soap operas. Writing had actually been her first love when she was a kid. She worked as a soap writer off and off; mostly off for the next few years. The trouble was, she got fired a lot. Because what she wanted to do was tell her own stories. Finally she fought off the devil voices; those voices inside your head that tell you you're an idiot for dumping a paying job to follow a dream, and wrote The Three Miss Margarets. It found a home at Random House and was published. It was followed by The Ladies of Garrison Gardens, Family Acts, and Serendipity.

Louise's latest novel, Looking For A Love Story, is about a recently divorced novelist facing a tough bout of writer's block who takes a job ghostwriting someone elses story.

Today a very happy Louise lives in the lower Hudson Valley with her husband of twenty eight years, her eight cats and two rescue dogs ; the regal Joshua, and Charlie. Who is not regal. Just ask the neighbors.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply enchanting, July 10, 2010

By 

Jamie L. Curran "So Crafty" (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Looking for a Love Story: A Novel (Paperback)

Louise Shaffer has created a plot so undeniably well written, I didn't see where it was going, until it was there. Francesca, a young novelist whose only claim to fame is her book "Love, Max" is catpulted into a relationship where she finds herself dumping water over her soon-to-be ex-husbands mistress' head. She finds herself down and out, literally. Her writing career has slid to an impressive stop, leaving skidmarks trailing all the way back to Love, Max. She does the thing she hates the most, writing a "looking for work" post on her blog(s). Whereupon she gets suckered into ghostwriting for an 80-something woman, Chicky.

Chicky, a surprisingly complex character who is anything but "stock." Show Biz, who makes limited appearances, is the gay friend everyone wishes they could meet. Francesca finds herself writing a love story, when at her lowest point where she's just about given up on love. How ironic. The middle few chapters of this book are Francesca's novel about Chicky's family and this is where the character of Francesca flourishes.

This is a definite page turner. I didn't want to put it down. A completely well-written, complex novel with a lot of insights to human emotions and witty humor strewn throughout. Great read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Deceiving Cover, July 30, 2010

By 

Tara (Utah) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Looking for a Love Story: A Novel (Paperback)

First of all, the dog has a very small role in this novel if you could even call it a role. The dog, Annie just needs to go for walks every now and then and lays by her mistress's side when her mistress is typing out her novel. Thus, the front cover is deceiving.

Francesca is an author suffering from "Second Book Syndrome" meaning she wrote a smashing first book but now has a severe case of writer's block as she sits down to start her second. Her and her two timing husband have called it quits and she has thrown her size fours out to the curb while she is eating chocolate bars in her new size 14s. Francesca is not a very happy woman. I found her likeable, BUT she goes on and on way too much about her parent's divorce which was ages ago. I found myself thinking, "OK, you are a grown woman. Get over it. Pretty much all of our parents are divorced nowdays." She also whines about her childhood a lot and quite frankly, it wasn't that bad. Coulda been worse. To sum it up, the heroine wallows in self pity too much.

A lady in an old folks home gives Francesca her next book idea, a tale about two Vaudeville actors and the actress in the middle of their love triangle. I didn't find this very interesting either because I found their story too predictable and half of it was TOLD by the old lady's narration. SHOW me, don't TELL me.

Nevertheless, will this book be a success for Francesca and give her what she needs to get her life back on track?

Just too dull for me and not enough of the dog.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars entertaining whimsical chick lit tale, April 10, 2010

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Looking for a Love Story: A Novel (Paperback)

In Manhattan Francesca's first novel Love requires that she take a photograph by highly regarded photographer Jake Morris. They are in immediate lust followed almost immediately with a tryst in his nearby apartment. Before he returns to work he suggests they meet to marry.

Several years later, Jake divorced Francesca and has since remarried and moved to California. Adrift Francesca got their dog Annie and loneliness. Francesca meets octogenarian Chicky, who asks her to write the real love story, a biography of her Vaudeville parents Joe and Ellie. Needing to feed her and Annie, she accepts the writing memoir although she wishes her client would stop calling her Baby Doll. However, as she learns of the unlikely love story of Joe and Ellie friends for life, Francesca introspectively reflects on her own life, that of her parents and of her relationship with Jake. Her musing has her begin to move on as she struggles to find a publisher for the love story memoir she wrote.

Looking for a Love Story is an entertaining whimsical chick lit tale starring a delightfully flawed lead protagonist. Francesca is terrific as she learns so much about what makes a relationship work with the realization her best friend is Annie. The support cast enhances the complexities of the modern world as relationships are not linear but a series of interconnecting waves. Readers who enjoy a thought-provoking character study will appreciate Francesca seeking her groove, as she begins to understand thanks to Joe and Ellie the key ingredient that any relational groove requires.

Harriet Klausner