The Republic of Love - Softcover

"A touching, elegantly funny, luscious piece of fiction." --The New York Times Book Review
"Superb. . . . It takes courage for a serious literary novelist to toast love with the exuberance Shields does here." --The Boston Globe
"A valentine for all seasons . . . delightful, funny, touching . . . romance for grown-ups of either sex." --Toronto Sun
"Mythical and modern, ironic and moving, exhilarating and melancholy . . . a love-surveying story that is enticingly seductive." --The Times Literary Supplement

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Stone Diaries gives us a love story for the ages: the tale of two polar opposites on a rocky road to romance He's a thrice-divorced late-night talk-show host. She's an unmarried folklorist obsessed with mermaids. He lives for the present. She lives in the past. Both are leery of commitment. Neither has ever known lasting love. But when Tom Avery and Fay McLeod meet, it's love-or at least lust-at first sight. And then fate starts to throw them curveballs. Shifting between Tom and Fay's stories-from their complicated histories through their present-day angst-The Republic of Love features delightful secondary characters in the lovers' friends and families, including Fay's seemingly happily married parents and her beloved godmother, Onion. As Tom and Fay forge bravely ahead into a romantic minefield, they make startling discoveries about each other and themselves. With her trademark wit and irony, and a deep compassion for her hero and heroine, Carol Shields gives us a celebration of love in all its guises.