A hilarious, multi-layered, modern mashup of
Don Quixot
e,
Cold Comfort Farm
, and
The Thirteenth Tale, The Seductive Lady Vanessa of Manhattanshire
is an ingenious must-read for fans of romantic fiction, literary satire, and books about books.
Famous Arabic translator Oona Noor receives a mysterious manuscript from Cairo entitled
The Seductive Lady Vanessa of Manhattanshire
and realizes she has discovered a masterpiece. The book, written by an unknown author named Aisha Benengeli, spins the tale of Maxine More, a divorced, romance novel–obsessed New Yorker who envisions herself as a Georgian Lady and sees the world entirely through the prism of her beloved books. Designating her cleaning lady Magdalena Cruz as her lady-in-waiting, Lady Vee embarks on a series of misadventures. She mistakes a plumber for a famous alpha male; pursues her poodle-owning crush, Nelson Dodge; dispenses misguided advice to the lovelorn and goes man-hunting on New York’s Upper East Side. Heartbroken when the manuscript ends abruptly, translator Noor journeys to Cairo, hunts for the concluding pages, and uncovers a stunning confession from Lady Vee’s creator Benengeli about her own romantic troubles. As the author struggles to find happiness for her crazed character and herself, the translator desperately searches for the elusive writer. In the end, this delightfully inventive novel unspools three tales about three very different women, each on a quest for a perfect love story.