The Affair

April 23, 2001
Installments of The Diary of V, which began as a Redbook
Web site serial in 1997, are joined and expanded in this funny but frantic new novel. Midwestern college town therapist Valerie Tisdale is a journal-keeping everywoman brimming with appetite, energy and a hapless bent toward self-destruction. When she meets Eddie, owner of the plant company that services her office ficus, his sexy presence unleashes longings that V's husband Roger won't fulfill and aggravates V's growing discontent with her marriage—which is already threatened by signs that her chilly spouse has been unfaithful. Troubles also brew at work, where a colleague threatens to expose V's liaison, a power-hungry new partner angles for her job and an armload of nutty clients act out with abandon. The book leaves her jobless and spouseless, but with two sequels already in the works, it's clear V's problems are far from over. Kent, a frequent contributor to national women's magazines, propels her heroine from crisis to crisis as relentlessly as any Victorian melodrama, and, in the end, there's little that's truly fresh in this middle-aged Bridget Jones knockoff. Still, V's honesty about everything from stretch marks to extramarital sex makes her an amusing companion, and busy soccer moms will appreciate the brevity of the story segments. Agent: Sandy Dijkstra. (June 1)Forecast:Print advertising in magazines such as
Redbook and
People should generate brisk early sales for this trilogy, but these numbers are likely to taper off once impatient fans realize that they needn't wait for the next installment to be published in Sept. They can read the continuing saga on-line at Redbook's Web site.