Hunting Unicorns
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
American Maggie Monroe is a journalist for New York's hard-hitting current affairs show Newsline. Independent and fearless, the more cutting-edge the story, the happier she is. But when her next assignment turns out to be an in-depth documentary on the decline of England's ruling classes, she's furious at being sent to cover a bloody tea party.
Meet the Earl and Countess of Bevan, eccentric, maddening and with family secrets to hide.
Meet Daniel Bevan - their eldest son. Funny, attractive and hopelessly alcoholic.
Meet Daniel's responsible brother Rory - angry, self-mocking and strictly teetotal.
When Maggie discovers Rory to be an uninvited chaperone on the first stop of her journey the two look set to clash. Maggie finds herself torn between her journalist ideals and coming to terms with a greater understanding. This unlikely romantic comedy paints an endearing portrait of a family, which like so many others, holds itself together despite its evident frailties.
‘Hilariously accurate . . . A gifted writer with a pithy, poetic style’ Wendy Holden, Daily Mail
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pollen's flashy, witty, urbane romantic comedy digs affectionately at the blue-blooded English. Assigned by current affairs show Newsline to determine if the English aristocracy is "a dying breed who after centuries of appalling behaviour were finally getting their comeuppance," American journalist Maggie Monroe enlists the help of the London agency Stately Locations to meet and interview the well-born owners of those homes. Beleaguered Rory Jones runs the agency, which nets needy owners of crumbling great houses tourist money; unbeknownst to Maggie, he's also the heir of the exalted Bevan family thanks to the untimely death of his older brother, Daniel. Maggie and her film crew brush up on Burke's Peerage and invade the English countryside, running over peacocks and smoking pot in pricelessly appointed bedrooms. Despite Rory's injunction, Maggie ventures to the Bevan mansion and wins over Rory's dotty parents. As cousin to the queen, Rory's father, Earl Alistair, is "pure Newsline Gold... and a total anachronism." He's also an impoverished and rather sweet alcoholic and the son of a Nazi collaborationist. Pollen (All About Men) ventures into these and other dicey areas dealing with the old aristocracy (i.e., sex) in a most engaging, irreverent manner, using alternate points of view for Maggie and Daniel, who, from beyond the grave, observes the action with wry detachment. Pollen's characterizations veer into the stereotypical, but charmingly so; in the end, Maggie and Rory are two young people in search of authentic experience, despite differences of birth and country.
