Anything for an A

Dr. Nan St. Claire is an English professor at one of the best universities in the country, Duke University. Nan is a runner and adoring companion to three animals: her loving dog, Miss Virginia, PhD (Pretty Hound Dog), and her two tolerating cats, Rochester and McMurphy. (Anyone who can remember the novels which feature the characters for whom the cats are named deserves a prize.) Nan is 20-something, single although looking, and trying hard to be a good Catholic in a world in which sometimes Catholicism doesn’t make much sense, especially since she curses like a sailor, lives next door to a creepy peeping Tom, and has a slight crush on her gay best friend. As do many women, she has body-image issues and despairs of her “Honor Roll chest” (straight As) and swears she can feel the fat growing on her rear end when she misses a run. Nan, although earnest and genuinely nice, has an interesting, amusing, and slightly ironic outlook on life, love, and religion—(but not on Miss Virginia--she’s too perfect for irony.)
When one of Nan’s former students is found drowned in the wading pond in the Duke Gardens, Nan finds herself becoming involved, not only in the murder, but also with the extremely good-looking and available detective assigned to the case. And just as the reader will not find any gruesome details relating to corpse dismemberment or bloody, mutilated body parts, neither will the reader find any overly graphic sexual scenes. (After all, the author’s mother is going to read this.)