Miranda's Big Mistake

May 4, 2009
Taking a position as a trainee in a posh London hair salon may not seem the ideal situation for finding Mr. Right, but this breezy, whimsical novel from best-selling British chick-lit author Mansell (An Offer You Can't Refuse) introduces just such a heroine, Miranda, to a wide range of men, from panhandler to racecar driver, on her way to true love (and true retaliation). In a series of escapades too over-the-top even for Bridget Jones, feisty but accident-prone Miranda joins forces with other unlucky-in-love ladies, including a pregnant woman abandoned by her no-good husband and an aging but still-game landlady with a terminally greedy son. Plotlines and characters interweave with unexpected but satisfying results, including delicious comeuppance for the offending males. Summarizing the girl-power revenge plot, however, fails to do justice to the shenanigans that fill it out, making this a winning read. While Mansell's British humor doesn't always translate, Miranda's got more than enough irresistible transoceanic charm to promise that this, the first of several Mansell novels Sourcebooks is introducing to the U.S., should net a passionate new audience eager for the more.