Three lonely people come together in this poignant and witty novel of thwarted dreams, scandalous secrets, and star-crossed romance After being jilted by her fiance, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylwin is married doesn’t stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin’s wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola’s romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie’s eighteen-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin’s roving eye. Set in London in the early 1960s, No Fond Return of Love is a delightful comedy of manners that comes full circle as Dulcie discovers a love as unexpected as it is liberating. ‘With sheer joy I read Barbara Pym’s . . . No Fond Return of Love.’ -Mary Gordon ‘. . . comic, heartrending, brave; in short, like life itself.’ -Shirley Hazzard ‘No novelist brings more telling observation or more gentle pleasure.’ -Jilly Cooper ‘A splendid, humorous writer.’ -John Betjeman Barbara Pym (1913-1980) was a bestselling and award-winning English novelist. Her first book, Some Tame Gazelle (1950), launched her career as a writer beloved for her social comedies of class and manners. Pym is the only author to be named twice in a Times Literary Supplement list of ’the most underrated novelists of the century.’ She produced thirteen novels, the last three published posthumously. Her 1977 novel Quartet in Autumn was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
