Beginner's Greek – James Collins
Boy Meets Girl, Loses Girl’s Phone Number in Debut Novel
Lightning strikes for corporate financier Peter and Holly as they meet, separate, and meet again in this charming and clever novel.
Boy Meets Girl
It was what Peter Russell had always hoped for. As he sat on an airplane on his way from New York to Los Angeles, the seat next to him empty, he watched the other passengers board and waited. He always wondered if he’d be seated on a plane next to a beautiful young woman, and if they would fall in love. This time, he thought, it was really going to happen.
And it did. A woman his age, with reddish blond hair and a trim figure, took the seat next to him. Peter was terrified – not only of speaking to her, but that his dream might just come true and he just might screw it all up. Knowing he would have to kill himself if he didn’t talk to her, he agonized over the right words to say and the right tone to say it with. As he opened his mouth to speak, she spoke to him.
Peter and Holly chatted through the entire cross country flight, and at baggage claim, she handed him her phone number. But when Peter got to his hotel room and went to take the slip of paper out of his pocket, it was gone. He turned every article of clothing, every item in his suitcase inside out but the scrap of paper had disappeared.
Boy Meets Girl Again
Things are not going well for Peter. Three years have passed since his encounter with Holly and he still thinks about her every day. Meanwhile, he is preparing to get married in just two weeks to Charlotte Montague, a girl he loves but isn’t in love with, and his boss is out to destroy him.
Peter’s “despicable” best friend Jonathan Speedwell has married Holly, whom he met in New York. Jonathan has recently published his second novel, and is sleeping with both his editor and her assistant, to Peter’s outrage. Charlotte, meanwhile, harbors a secret crush on Jonathan but believes she isn’t pretty enough for him to return the favor.
Beginner’s Greek is not only the story of Peter and his unrequited crush on his best friend’s girl – it’s a marriage of several troubled and unlikely relationships woven together in several sub plots that make up this brilliant and charming novel. In the end, everyone gets what they deserve, even if it isn’t what they wanted.
Collins, James
Beginner's Greek: A Novel
New York, Little, Brown and Company, January 9, 2008
