In a New York Times review of the book, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote that Alison Lurie “has quietly but surely established herself as one of this country’s most able and witty novelists." Foreign Affairs is a supremely entertaining masterwork about two American scholars, both alone in London, who find romance in the most unlikely places.

Prim, divorced, and middle-aged, Vinnie Miner gave up on love long ago. On her way to London to research a book about children’s folk rhymes - a scholarly pursuit that even her fellow academics sneer at — she finds herself sitting next to the man who will change the course of her life. Brash and naïve, he is a sanitary engineer from Oklahoma on a package vacation. Also in London is Vinnie’s colleague, the young, handsome English professor Fred Turner. His marriage and self-esteem are both on the rocks, but he is about to find consolation in the arms of the most beautiful actress in England. Stylish and highborn, she introduces Fred to a glamorous, yet eccentric, London scene that he never expected — or prepared — to encounter.

"Foreign Affairs in a perfect literary rom-com... [it] is the rare book that — much like certain rom-com heroines — is an object lesson in having it all...I won’t give away the book’s ending, I’ll only say that it’s not as tidy as a typical romantic comedy, which isn’t to say it’s not warm and funny and slightly tricky—it’s all of that. If there were a Foreign Affairs bucket hat, I would wear it in a heartbeat." - Jessie Gaynor, Lithub

“There is no American writer I have read with more constant pleasure and sympathy. . . . Foreign Affairs earns the same shelf as Henry James and Edith Wharton.” – John Fowles

Foreign Affairs

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