Synopses & Reviews
A tribute to classic film and true romance, LOVE WALKED IN tells the story of two women one older, one younger and the unexpected ways in which their lives are forever changed by chance.
For thirty-one-year old Cornelia Brown, life is a series of movie moments, and Jimmy Stewart is always and indisputably the best man in the world, unless Cary Grant should happen to show up. So imagine Cornelias delight when her very own Cary Grant walks through the door of the hip Philadelphia café she manages. Handsome and debonair, Martin Grace sweeps Cornelia off her feet, becoming Cary Grant to Cornelias Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable to her Joan Crawford. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, eleven-year-old Clare Hobbes must learn to fend for herself after her increasingly unstable mother has a breakdown and disappears. With no one to turn to, Clare seeks out her estranged father, and when the two of them show up at Cornelias café, the lives of Cornelia and Clare are changed in drastic and unexpected ways. A cinematic and heartfelt debut that pays homage to the classic Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, Love Walked In is sure to win over critics and readers of contemporary fiction.
"A touching, triumphant story of the power and variety and responsibility of love. A joy to read, filled with characters you wish you knew in real life. Love Walked In is every bit as engaging as the classic movies Marisa de los Santos lovingly invokes."
--Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club
"An impossibly warm, acute, romantic spree, with room in its heart for all of us. Marisa de los Santos offers us two fine young heroines, Cornelia and Clare, and she trains a rich, brimming, silver screen light on their sorrows and elations. Since Love Walked In borrows so magically from the spirit of a certain Frank Capra film, I'll second the motion: It's A Wonderful Novel."
--David Schickler, author of Sweet and Vicious and Kissing in Manahattan
Love Walked In is a brilliant novelbeautiful, hilarious, rich in detail and cultural commentary. While an expose of our desires for old world romance, elegant leading men, and the perfect shoes, this novel is also a bone-deep examination of inner lives, the bonds between women, and the prospects of borderline madness.
--Julianna Baggott, author of Girl Talk, The Miss America Family and The Madam
Review
“This is a book that will be passed from friend to friend with the words, ‘You have to read this.’” —
Richmond Times Dispatch
“Love Walked In, by Marisa de los Santos, is the kind of book that makes you want to hunker down on a chilly day in a comfy chair and read straight through ’til dark...This [is a] poignant, heart-tugging story about a single woman and a little girl who develop an unlikely bond.” —The Washington Post Book World
“A bewitching, warmhearted grown-up fairy tale about old movies, charming princes, and finding happily ever after in the place where you’d least expect it.” —Jennifer Weiner, author of Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, and Little Earthquakes
“Marisa de los Santos’s funny and beautifully written love story is as luminous as the silver screen.” —Lolly Winston, author of Good Grief
“A touching, triumphant story of the power and variety and responsibility of love. A joy to read, filled with characters you wish you knew in real life. Love Walked In is every bit as engaging as the classic movies Marisa de los Santos lovingly invokes.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club
“Exquisite and stylish, Love Walked In proves that love in all of its forms—romantic, friendship, familial—is all around us.” —Sarah Jessica Parker
Synopsis
When Martin Grace enters the hip Philadelphia coffee shop Cornelia Brown manages, her life changes forever. But little does she know that her newfound love is only the harbinger of greater changes to come. Meanwhile, across town, Clare Hobbs—eleven years old and abandoned by her erratic mother—goes looking for her lost father. She crosses paths with Cornelia while meeting with him at the café, and the two women form an improbable friendship that carries them through the unpredictable currents of love and life.
Love Walked In, the first novel by award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos, is bursting with keen insight and beautifully rendered prose. Invoking classic movies to illuminate the mystery and wonder of love in all its permutations, Love Walked In is an uplifting debut that marks the entrance of an enchanting literary voice.
About the Author
An award-winning poet, Marisa de los Santos currently teaches English at the University of Delaware. Love Walked In is her first novel. Her first collection of poems, From the Bones Out, was published by the University of South Carolina Press in 2000. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Southwest Review, Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Virginia Quarterly Review.