Love Walked in by Marisa De Los Santos (2005, Hardcover)

Synopsis
As this sentimental but deeply sincere fiction debut opens, Cornelia, a 31-year-old café manager, is waiting for her life to change. At first, she thinks she's found all her answers in Martin, who seems to have stepped off the screen from one of her favorite romantic classic films into the café. Meanwhile, Clare, a sensitive, precocious 11-year-old who barely sees her father since the divorce, watches in sadness and desperation as mental illness slowly creeps over her beautiful, vivid mother. When Cornelia and Clare finally meet, Cornelia realizes that it wasn't Martin she was waiting for.

Key Details
Author:	Marisa De Los Santos
Language:	English
Publisher:	E.P. Dutton
Format:	Hardcover
ISBN-10:	0525949178
ISBN-13:	9780525949176

Size
Length:	307 pages
Thickness:	1 in
Weight:	20 oz

Publisher's Note
A tribute to classic film and true romance, LOVE WALKED IN tells the story of two women Â? one older, one younger Â? 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 Â?Jimmy Stewart is always and indisputably the best man in the world, unless Cary Grant should happen to show up.Â? So imagine CorneliaÂ's 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 CorneliaÂ's 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 CorneliaÂ's 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

Â?Love Walked In is a brilliant novelÂ?beautiful, 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.Â?
--Julianna Baggott, author of Girl Talk, The Miss America Family and The Madam


Harboring romantic notions about golden-age Hollywood film stars, thirty-one-year-old Philadelphia cafT manager Cornelia Brown embarks on a too-good-to-be-true relationship with the debonair Martin Grace, while across town, an eleven-year-old abandoned girl seeks out her estranged father.

Industry Reviews
"Charismatic language and a compelling Philadelphia setting are two of the delights of this joyously real novel.....Constructed with a loving touch that doesn't feel deliberate so much as exactly right, this novel will make readers believe in love in all its permutations." (TOP PICK!)
Romantic Times BOOKclub - Cindy Harrison (01/01/2006)

"De los Santos's writing engages throughout this powerful story. It's impossible not to cheer for these characters as they search for happiness. A timeless gem." (starred review)
Kirkus Reviews (01/01/2006)