Mary Elizabeth Pope
The stories that make up this fine debut collection are thematically linked by characters who, from blind dates to back seats to a drinking game gone wrong, discern something true about love. In “Reunion” a divorced empty-nester faces up to the one who got away. In “Junior Lifesaving” a young woman conceals her competence to maintain a relationship with a man who is threatened by her strength, only to be faced with a terrible choice. In “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” a newly-minted college graduate must choose between adolescence and adulthood when she finds herself falling for her boyfriend’s father. And in the title story, “Divining Venus,” an eleven-year-old turns to a Ouija board with questions about love when her classmates, teachers and parents don’t have the answers.