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That Paris can be said to have top billing in the title of Gregory Curtis memoir is meaningful not only because the City of Light is the book s primary setting, a place Curtis visited repeatedly with his wife Tracy during her life and one he continued to visit after her death, but because of the massive presence that Paris holds in Curtis telling. To him, it is less a collection of buildings, streets, and people than a godlike being – huge, ancient, and deep, with its own sense of life and consciousness. It s a thing one is drawn to and yet it is indifferent to those who come to it. Paris didn t care whether I was there or not, Curtis writes at one point, which makes it a place that can be explored without objection or reprisal – a place one may discover fully, and in so doing discover oneself. ....
It s scorching. It s humid. You re two glasses of wine too many in. You re next to a beautiful woman, a woman who scares you a little, and you said you d stop putting yourself in these situations but for all your better judgment, you can t seem to tear your eyes away from her. But maybe you shouldn t sweat it. Maybe summers are for fun-bad decisions. How dangerous could things get? Per Austin author May Cobb s second thriller, The Hunting Wives: pretty dangerous. Protagonist Sophie O Neill engineered her family s move to the Piney Woods town where she went to high school but quickly finds herself chafing against the slow, stay-at-home life she thought she wanted. It s to her great relief that she eventually falls in with Margot Banks titular clique of Southern socialites, whose regular girls nights tend to start with shooting skeet and end with reckless, clandestine partying. In very little time, Sophie is in over her head but loath to leave Margot s intoxicating orbit. ....