Jennifer Vandever
Books
American Tango
A novel about men and women, love and loss, regaining passion and, of course, the tango.
Rosalind Plumley needs something.
She's a thirtysomething artist in Portland, Oregon whose output has dwindled to decorative paintings of hummingbirds for the upscale children's boutique where she works. She’s married to a depressed, blocked writer more interested in smoking pot than writing his screenplay while her eccentric family (the daughters are all named after Shakespearean heroines) threaten what little sanity she has left.
A tango class leads her on unexpected journey as she discovers the surprising path of her own desires and a new understanding of her family's complicated history.
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This book is charming, sad, hopeful, poignant and touching.... Her characters are unforgettable--layered and complicated and true. She has an amazing ear for dialogue and, despite a spiraling series of dramatic events, her comedy resounds.
Stephen Jay Schwartz, LA Times Best-selling author of Beat and Boulevard
How to keep moving forward when your life has stalled out — that’s part of the push and pull that writer Jennifer Vandever wrestles with in her taut and funny new novel .... with swift and entertaining prose.
Portland Tribune
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Signed copies available from Broadway Books (Portland, OR).
Cover design by Allison Halstead Reid.
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Print and ebook editions available from
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks
The Brontë Project
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An irreverent and comic look at love, literature, and pop culture, and a guide to reconciling the mythology of romance with the reality of modern love.
Clever .... A zippy romp in which Vandever skillfully parodies academia and Hollywood .... Witty and artful.
New York Times Book Review
Young scholar Sara Frost's unsuccessful search for the lost love letters of Charlotte Brontë hasn't won her any favor at her university, particularly now that the glamorous and self-promoting Princess Diana expert, Claire Vigee, has introduced her media-savvy exploits to the staid halls of academia. But it's not until Sara's fiancé suddenly leaves that she begins to question her life’s vocation and is forced to reconcile the mythology of romance with the reality of modern love.
Along the way, Sara discovers that the life and writings of Charlotte Brontë may have taught her more than she ever guessed about the virtues of being a romantic with the heart of a pragmatist.
Originally published in 2005 by Random House (US) and Simon & Schuster (UK) the book is now available in a new edition from Melograno Press.
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It's never anything short of lovely to find a new writer like Vandever: funny, witty, smart, thoughtful .... You'll want to see more from Vandever and soon.
Buffalo News
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Wickedly funny. -- Christian Science Monitor
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A brilliant first novel of love: so original, so enchanting, so poignantly true that it defies you to put it down.
Karen Quinn (author of The Ivy Chronicles)
A first novel that is fresh, playful, intelligent, and consistently entertaining.
The Boston Globe
A sweet read even a Wuthering Heights fan can love. Entertainment Weekly
A rollicking romp through the fun-house hallways of academe and the narcissism of celebrity.
Kirkus Reviews
Wickedly clever . . . Vandever's irreverent debut novel dips into Victorian letters for inspiration, dredging up romantic angst to frame and foil a love story set in the age of new media.
Publishers Weekly
Published in Spanish, Italian, Polish and UK editions.