Customer Reviews

Thief of Words

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Annie Hollerman is a has-been star newspaper reporter banished into oblivion for unknown reasons to the reader as the story opens. Jack DePaul is the features editor at the Baltimore Star-News. Both Jack and Annie are divorced and both are in denial about much of their personal life.

An arranged blind date by a mutual friend of the two, Laura Goodbread, leads the pair into a wonderful and continuing encounter of exploration and mutual respect...leading toward love.

The mystery of Annie's fall from her reporters job hovers in the background, lending an interesting air of mystery during their courtship. As their infatuation deepens, author Jaffe creates a real and caring sense for the characters by the reader.

As readers wend their way through this tale, they will be moved to laugh, cry, hope and believe in the genuineness of Jack and Annie. They will be caught up and immersed in the reality of the settings and events of those two lives.

This is a really wonderful love story that transcends the usual in this genre and becomes compelling and mustn't-put-the-book-down reading. It's a love story that transcends the genre and is involving, moving and believable. Here's a true to life Romeo and Juliet story based on an actual series of events.

The authors state John Jaffe is "a pseudonym for us: John Muncie and Jody Jaffe. We wrote the book together. In fact, our novel, Thief of Words, is based on our meeting and our romance. It's the prequel to our current lives. Now we're married and work together writing books."

In 1982, Annie Hollerman had a great job at a North Carolina newspaper and, at 26, showed great promise as a journalist. With fiery red hair, she was not a great beauty but had enough looks and brains to make a difference. Until one horrible mistake changed everything.

Twenty years later, Annie runs a literary agency in Washington DC. Two years divorced, Annie's long-time friend wants to fix her up with Jack DePaul, editor at the Baltimore Star-News. Jack is also divorced and has a grown son. He has a passion for good writing and loves words. "A part of Annie wanted to say yes. But there was always another part, a bigger part, that warned her to steer clear of her past and anyone who might pry it open." Stay away from journalists.

Reluctantly, Annie and Jack have a blind date, which goes so well it surprises them both. Between dates, Jack woos Annie with eloquent and romantic e-mails, creating a new and imaginary history between them. But when the past and present collide, where will it leave Annie and Jack?

What captivated me most was timing. Coincidentally, I stumbled across this book as I was getting to know someone new in my life. I could easily relate to the first date butterflies, flirtatious e-mails and first kiss anticipation.

Witty romance written by a man? Well, almost. John Jaffe is actually a pseudonym for the husband and wife writing team of John Muncie and Jody Jaffe. This is their first book, which is also based on their meeting and romance. "It's the prequel to our current lives." A very good story that includes wit, romance, friendship and honesty. Just good writing from a new and welcome talent.

This elegantly written page-turner is a must-read for anyone over 40 or others who wish to understand them. It is pure pleasure to read. The book lingers in your mind long after you finish. Great fun but far deeper than it first appears.

John Jaffe's "Thief of Words" is a damned good book. It details the blossoming love of two, world-weary, divorced baby boomers. In a culture filled with stories of romances between young, well-chiseled model types, it was wonderful to read about a love between two people who had lived in the real world, two people with all of life's wrinkles and warts and wisdom.

And what a couple! Jack DePaul is a curmudgeonly journalist, bitingly honest and witty. Of course, beneath the crusty exterior Jack is a die-hard romantic, still searching for true love" in a world that seems to have little but heartbreak.

However, it was Annie Hollerman who stole my heart. Despite a titanic mistake in her past and a rocky romantic history, Annie still manages to woo the readers with her self-effacing humor and passion. Annie Hollerman's beauty flows from inside as well as out. She has dazzling red hair but it's her wisdom and wit that makes her appealing.

By the end of the book, I felt a real connection to the destiny of these wonderful people. They, like so many of us, must conquer a past filled with mistakes and pain, in order to create a present filled with love and joy. Although it would ruin the book if I spelled out just how they triumph over their histories, know that it made me see email in a completely fresh way.

Mr. Jaffe's writing is humorous, rich, and filled with life. He is an alchemist of words, yet never did I feel that the writing was showy. But even more important than the charm of his words was the power they had - the power to convince me that maybe love doesn't die at 40, that it is possible to right our pasts.

I could rave about the wonders of Thief of Words for days, but they are yours to discover.

Let it conquer your cynicism like it did mine.

In a time of anxiety, here is a poetic, sensual tale of desire, folly, love and forgiving that updates The Bridges of Madison County brilliantly. The hero makes pictures with words of exotic locations and doesn't need to be an aloof loner whom the heroine, in a haze of post-coital euphoric insanity (a purely male invention), sets free to wander the world because, after all, he must not be caged. The heroine, dissatisfied with her life of routine that includes a successful career as a literary agent, falls deeply under the spell of seductive e-mails that rewrite her troubled past. But Annie Hollerman knows that words can betray as well as charm, and romantic journalist/divorced father Jack DePaul is part of a world she has succeeded in erasing from her past.

The boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-wins-girl-back plot seduces us, much in the way that Jack and Annie's words enchant, for a simple reason: it works. Like Annie, we want to believe in the stories that end, "and they lived happily ever after," the resolution of misunderstandings and the power of love and forgiveness. The romantic conventions are pleasantly familiar, but the plot really isn't the star of the story.

The main appeal of this sensitive novel, penned by an astute male writer, is, of course, the seductive words, filled with the hearts and souls of perfectly matched lovers Annie and Jack.

I borrowed this book from my local library and am about to buy one of my own. Reason? There is so much poety of language in this book - sentences and phrases that leap out and echo in your mind. I wanted to underline them! (not recommended for a library book, so I'm getting one of my own). What I particularly liked was that the book's title was reflected in different contexts in the plot and that it focussed on the intricacies of finding a love, not necessarily "falling" in love.

This love story is well told and is refreshing and realistic in this too explicit, too over-the-top, writing era; a story about getting another chance to re-live a life where every regret can be replaced with a beautiful memory given an imagination, National Geographic :-) and a flair for words..

If you like words, you'll love it!

I'm a fan of novels about journalism, about fate-twisting romances, and about colorful characters. This one has it all. Throw in the clever utilization of e-mail as the 21st-century version of the Love Letter, and you have a rich modern-day tale of star-crossed lovers who, despite the advances of modern technology, have to confront the same issues that men and women have dealt with for centuries -- passion, jealousy, keeping secrets...and the fact that communication between the sexes can be difficult whether it's face-to-face or computer-to-computer. A good read for the beach this summer.

Anyone who doesn't like this book has forgotten those magic summer days that went on forever and the first time you rolled in free fall down a hill - the story is magic, beautifully articulated by someone who obviously remembers. It left me wanting more.

In the early 1980s, Annie Hollerman worked as a journalist at a respected newspaper. The star reporter Andrew Binder was her boyfriend. Together they were dubbed A-squared and expected to run the NY Times soon. However, at twenty-six her rising career implodes due to an error on her part that leads to the editorial brass firing her and Andrew subsequently dropping her.

Two decades later, Baltimore Star News features editor Jack DePaul, the divorced father of an adult son through a mutual friend meets Annie. He feels he has encountered his soul mate. However, the literary agent is wary of males so Jack begins a campaign to win her heart. Ignoring the classic courting with flowers and candy, Jack scribes a series of romantic emails that picture a life together if they had only met twenty years ago. As he rewrites their separate pasts into one of togetherness, she knows that he cannot reedit the scandal she caused back in Carolina. Annie ponders confessing her mistake that ended her reporting career though the risk of telling him could lead to Jack ending their loving relationship.

Whoever said males can't do romance need to read THIEF OF WORDS. This is a terrific second chance tale starring two charming lead protagonists. Annie is a haunted heroine who the audience adores and will want her to find happiness or at least contentment. Jack is a closet romantic whose email courting seems so modern yet so old fashioned. John Jaffe has provided a powerful contemporary romance that shows love can happen to anyone, but especially those young at heart.

Harriet Klausner

All I wanted was a good, mindless read, but I fell in love with a tale about falling in love! Now I can't check my email without a small hope that someone has rewritten one of my not-so-fond memories and turned it into a sexy adventure! Anyone interested?