Amy Jenkins — Honey Moon

Flame 2001 Paperback. Like her spiritual sister, Bridget Jones, Honey is a single Londoner with a taste for unattainable men, funky outfits, and a self-deprecating sense of humor. Unlike B.J. however, Honey's saga of self-realization starts off with her engagement to a wonderfully sweet and likeable fiancé, Ed. On her 'hen night,' the British version of a bachelorette party, her girlfriends ask her to retell the story of the night she met the love of her life, and Honey begins to describe her first meeting with a man who is definitely not Ed. Actually, the love of her life happens to be a Hollywood film-writer named Alex who she met in a restaurant seven years earlier. After a perfect night of soul-mating, a dash to the airport, and a postal strike, Alex was never heard from again, leaving Honey just enough rope to hang herself on what ifs until Ed came along. Now, with the wedding plans rolling, Alex surfaces again, and Honey struggles to match fantasy and reality and find the true love of her life. Though Honeymoon can feel distastefully coy in its moments of self-consciously produced stream-of-thought sequences, author Amy Jenkins mixes in enough humor and romantic suspense to make the reader swallow it. Honey is entertaining, if not always likeable, and the cast of eccentric friends will make you smile as you flip through the pages as fast as your fingers allow. --Nancy R.E. O'Brien. (ISBN: 9780340117266). Good.