Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Avon / HarperCollins
Release Date: March 30, 2004
ISBN: 0060561432
Awards:  
Format Reviewed: Advanced Reader copy
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Genre: Fiction
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Lynda E. Lukow

Reviewer Notes: Sexual content

Review Two

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Miranda Blue Calling
By Michelle Curry Wright

      After a steady diet of unacceptable relationships, Miranda Blue decides to go on a man-fast. And where better to do it than in an apparently tilted hovel in Nowhere, Colorado? There, Miranda withdraws from the world, maintaining steady contact only with the elderly clientele of her phone companionship service and the neighbor across the street.

      And what a neighbor Billy Steadman is. He escaped to Otnip after his wife's death to live as a somewhat reclusive hydroponic farmer. From the moment he meets the lovely woman from across the street, he becomes oil to her vinegar--separate unless shaken, but when mixed they make an excellent dressing for the tossed salad of people in their lives.

      Ms. Wright is a fantastic storyteller whose fresh voice welcomes readers into her characters' emotionally elaborate world. Miranda and Billy's relationship builds slowly; their banter is natural and entertaining, and the eventual acceptance of their mutual interest is fitting, not forced. Supporting characters such as Miranda's clients, the local denizens and Billy's friends serve integral purposes in their well-defined presences. The plot contains no convenient contrivances. Descriptions of settings are vivid but not overdone. Miranda Blue Calling is a charismatic novel written in a comfortable pace, and it is definitely a keeper. Awesome work, Ms. Wright!