The Big Love » (Bargain)

Sex and the City's Carrie meets Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in Alison Hopkins, the heroine of Sarah Dunn's The Big Love. Touted as an author to watch by New York magazine, Sarah Dunn is poised to take this literary genre to the next level.

Alison Hopkins isn't just looking for Mr. Right . . . or even Mr. Big. She's holding out for the Big Love.

When 32-year-old Alison's first real boyfriend unceremoniously dumps her - he steps out to buy mustard for a dinner party and never returns - it's time for Alison to reassess her lifelong search for romantic fulfillment. Does true love even exist? Is every romantic involvement with a coworker inevitably doomed? Does sex without commitment always lead to disaster? Is a girl's evangelical Christian upbringing an impediment to her finding true happiness?

Funnier than any "chick-lit," as poised and accomplished as any literary debut this year, The Big Love is a big-hearted, hilariously entertaining novel that readers all across America are falling for.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

The cover of The Big Love features a bed and the title in pink neon letters. It is an indication of the kind of opportunity that awaits any heroine in a flirty, effervescent novel of this genre. But the image also evokes, however back-handedly, the book's sense of a higher power. Alison already has one kind of big love in her life when she strikes out in search of something more earthly.

It's a testament to this book's sparkle that Ms. Dunn is able to express all this in warm, good-natured fashion without raising hackles.