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The Flirt

A Novel

ebook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Perfume Collector comes this charming, witty novel about a “professional” flirt.

“Unique situation for an attractive, well-mannered, morally flexible young man. Hours irregular. Pay generous. Discretion a must…”

When struggling, out-of-work actor, Hughie Venables-Smythe sees the mysterious job description in the classifieds, he’s convinced he’s found his destiny. For, though he’s become accustomed to running out of credit on his cell phone, sleeping on his sister’s sofa, and begging the waitress at the local café to let him slide yet again on his bill, he longs to treat his lover—the sexy, sophisticated, and amorously ruthless lingerie designer, Leticia Vane, to the finer things in life. But how is he to win her heart if he can’t even pay for dinner? When he learns that his lucrative new position means flirting with married women who have been neglected by their spouses, he can’t believe his luck.

Soon initiated into the extraordinary secret fraternity of the Professional Flirt, Hughie promises to have an exceptional career ahead of him. However, the life of a Flirt is a curiously lonely calling and there’s one absolute rule his new employer has: he must remain single. Only—how can he live without the delicious Leticia Vane?

Surely, there’s nothing wrong with using a few of his newly polished romantic skills on the side to quietly seduce the woman he loves . . . is there?

As clueless as he is handsome, Hughie gamely decides to throw his already complicated life into utter chaos . . . and discovers exactly why a Flirt’s professional and personal life should never mix.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 5, 2008
      When charming, penniless would-be actor Hughie Armstrong Venables-Smythe answers a mysterious London ad for “an attractive, well-mannered, mentally flexible young man,” he learns that he’s to become a professional flirt, hired not to make conquests but to bring a touch of romance into the lives of unappreciated women. The catch: being a hopeless romantic, Hughie takes his job a bit too seriously. Deftly combining a sweetly improbable premise with witty, sometimes luminous writing, Tessaro (Elegance
      ) tells the stories of Hughie’s numerous clients, whose lives intersect in unexpected ways. They include Leticia, an emotionally repressed but sexually adventurous lingerie designer; Rose, a clueless waitress who accidentally becomes the darling of the London art scene; and Olivia, an emotionally abused socialite overdue for a transformation. Along with humor and a high London hipness quotient, Tessaro scores with keen insights into romance’s perceptual and emotional hall of mirrors.

    • Library Journal

      July 15, 2008
      Unemployed actor Hughie Venables-Smythe gets by on his good looks and boyish charm. Then one day, he sees an advertisement that changes his life. Valentine Charles, "procurer of rare domestic services," is looking for a "morally flexible" young man, and Hughie fits the bill to become a professional flirt, someone who boosts women's egos. However, when Hughie begins to use some of the techniques he's learned to enhance his own love life, nothing goes as expected. Tessaro's third novel (after "Elegance" and "Innocence") boasts a large cast of entertaining charactersthe plumber who loves the waitress who loves Hughie; Hughie's on-the-edge vixen lover who owns an exclusive lingerie store; Hughie's sister; an attorney and his perpetually pregnant wife; and a wealthy woman with a loutish, overbearing husband. With its delectable details and delicious characterizations, this book serves up a tasty slice of British life. Suitable for fiction collections of all sizes.Shelley Mosley, Glendale Community Coll. Lib. Media Ctr., AZ

      Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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  • English

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