A funny and poignant love story, woven into the fabric of life in a small Kansas town, about a waitress and a state trooper who have to find themselves before they can find each other. Filled with convincing characters and details of small-town life, this novel has the charm and humor of Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes.
In the eponymous town of Venus, everybody's minds seem to be on love. Marvelle Holman adores her German Shepherd, Hoyt; teacher Crystal Turner is in love with a 16-year-old boy, and Holly Parker, the protagonist of Judy Troy's sparkling first novel,
West of Venus, is determined to divorce sex from affection once and for all. Venus, Kansas, is a small town, the kind of place where everyone is connected to each other: Marvelle, Holly, and the twice-divorced Sue-Ellis Howard waitress together at the same restaurant, The Hearth; Crystal's teenaged lover happens to be Holly's son. Sooner or later, every character--from the town undertaker to the cop to the veterinarian--passes through The Hearth, each with his or her own set of love-related problems.
Judy Troy has a flair for comedy and an ear for dialogue. Repartee flies thick and furious at The Hearth, and Marvelle in particular is a master of insults and the quick put-down. Car crashes, heart attacks, and even funerals have their darkly humorous side. And in Holly, Troy has crafted a truly memorable heroine, confused, wounded and--like everyone else in Venus--afraid of love but willing to fight another day. West of Venus marks the promising debut of a fine literary voice.
