West of Venus

In the eponymous town of Venus, everybody's minds seem to be on love. Marvelle Holman adores her German Shepherd, Hoyt; teacher Crystal Turner is in love with a 16-year-old boy, and Holly Parker, the protagonist of Judy Troy's sparkling first novel, West of Venus, is determined to divorce sex from affection once and for all. Venus, Kansas, is a small town, the kind of place where everyone is connected to each other: Marvelle, Holly, and the twice-divorced Sue-Ellis Howard waitress together at the same restaurant, The Hearth; Crystal's teenaged lover happens to be Holly's son. Sooner or later, every character--from the town undertaker to the cop to the veterinarian--passes through The Hearth, each with his or her own set of love-related problems.

Judy Troy has a flair for comedy and an ear for dialogue. Repartee flies thick and furious at The Hearth, and Marvelle in particular is a master of insults and the quick put-down. Car crashes, heart attacks, and even funerals have their darkly humorous side. And in Holly, Troy has crafted a truly memorable heroine, confused, wounded and--like everyone else in Venus--afraid of love but willing to fight another day. West of Venus marks the promising debut of a fine literary voice.