Strange Courtships: Nine Romantic Stories

This collection brings together nine "well-crafted" and "original" tales of contemporary women seeking love. Most of the stories were published in literary magazines, and a few are brand new. From the mysteries of early love to online deceptions, Carla Sarett aims to capture the charm and wit of older Hollywood romance, but tinged with the metaphysical. This is romance-deconstructed, turned on its head, and approached with humor—with characters that "enter your daily life."

In Sarett's world, love always surprises: a physicist and violinist are bound by a memory; in a reverse take on Hitchcock's Vertigo, a scorned art historian takes revenge by creating an online persona, and a chance encounter leaves a man searching for "a mirage in hot sand." These are balanced with comic tales of marital friction, awkward wedding proposals and even more Internet dates gone awry. Plus, for readers who have enjoyed "Career Girl" and "Skinny Girl," there is another installment of this woebegone heroine's search for happiness.

Some reader praise for Nine Romantic Stories:

"Carla Sarett is a writer who simply and elegantly expresses intelligent themes…big themes supported by deep feeling and a hint of the magical. Her careful prose feels pleasingly old-fashioned…unaffected, yet stylish." – Dan Essman, poet

"A writer to watch…These stories beguile the imagination, made as they are of well-crafted language at once precise and lyrical, and situations that reveal truth with humor and pulse." – Cheryl Snell, author, Rescuing Ranu

""At the beginning of "Mandolinata," the narrator describes the suit Kim Novak wore in Vertigo—how it is well tailored and has great style. The same can be said of each story in Ms. Sarett's beautifully crafted collection."—Barbara Alfaro, author, Mirror Talk