The Adult Fairy Tale Romance Novel

Word is already spreading, dear reader, about a story that may become one of the hottest new books on the fall list. Your scribe found the following tucked under the windshield wiper of his car while it was parked on Greenwich Avenue, and he hastens to share it with you:

Reader review: If anyone had told me a month ago that I would be reading a novel about an apprentice tooth fairy, I would have told them that they have more holes in their head than their teeth alone could account for. But that was before someone slipped me a copy of "Trevor and the Tooth Fairy", asking for my reactions.

Despite - or perhaps because of - its improbable title, I was hooked from the first sentence on. Now, lest anyone think I am an easy mark, literarily speaking, let me modestly say that my A.B. with honors in English from Harvard and my M.Phil in Comparative Literature from Yale make me nobody's patsy. I can tell a hawk from a handsaw, and a well-written book from a shopworn refugee from the slush pile.

Let there be no mistake that "TATTF" is a minor masterpiece in a brand-new genre - the adult fairy tale romance novel - and a book that may well develop into the "hit" of the new publishing season. Listen, if you will, to this fresh authorial voice:

"Two troublesome facts jerked anthropologist Trevor Masterson awake from his favorite erotic dream.

"First, he'd fallen asleep facedown on his specimen tray, and now miscellaneous debris dug into his skin, clinging to his chin like a dirt goatee.

"Second, the female form struggling to free herself from the mosquito netting looked nothing like Katrina--the only female on Trevor's team--and more like a Victoria's Secret model."

Thus Trevor meets Daisy, who is about to complicate his life past all reparation. One morning he awakes, unsure "...which roused him from his stupor--the crick in his back from balancing on the hard desk or the warm, stiff nipple poking in his ear." What happens shortly thereafter is so mind-bending that you wouldn't believe me even if I told you.

Trevor soon finds himself realizing that he had "...the distinct impression that his next few words would make the difference whether she stayed a little longer or disappeared in a puff of smoke." But the course of true love rarely runs straight and true: "Daisy followed Trevor down the gray hallway to the Anthropology lab, careful to stay at least two feet behind him so he wouldn't singe her eyelashes with his perpetual glowering."

There's much more to share, but this will give you a sense of the vivacity of debut author Erica Ridley's writing. I am sure "TATTF" will be one of those books that people pick up and think, hmm...this isn't for me - and then read it regardless and wind up gabbing about it to all their friends. I mean, some books are just *meant* to be read, regardless of such superfluities as age or sex or genre or preconceptions or what-have-you. And this is definitely one of them.

Well, dear reader, you now know as much as your scribe does. Word has it that Ms. Ridley has graciously agreed to do a book signing here in Greenwich once the book is published. The line may not stretch around the block, as it did when Stephen King came to Town recently, but it could easily fill the sidewalks of Arcadia Road, or Greenwich Avenue, or Grigg Street, or perhaps all three. One word of caution, gentle reader: make sure that your children are at least of Judy Blume age before letting them near this book; one gathers from the excerpts of the anonymous reviewer that this is not your average bedtime story.