Ardor

by Lily Prior

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  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF LILY PRIOR

  PRAISE FOR Ardor: A Novel of Enchantment

  “[An] irresistibly funny, subtly wise, and zestfully romantic fairy tale…. Prior’s lustful farce is a merry romp through love’s arduous maze.”

  —Booklist

  “The tables never stop turning in Lily Prior’s latest hothouse fantasy.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  PRAISE FOR Nectar: A Novel of Temptation

  “Deep into an Italian landscape of Once Upon A Time, Lily Prior has conjured—yes, conjured, for Nectar is magic—a novel as enchanting as it is enchanted…. Intelligent, imaginative, sexy, side-splittingly funny.”

  —BINNIE KIRSHENBAUM, author of Hester Among the Ruins

  “[A] hilarious novel…. [A] witty, well-spun yarn. Smells like a winner.”

  —People

  “A bawdy Chaucer tale…. Think of [Ramona] as Moll Flanders or Tom Jones, or perhaps the anti-Candide, sailing uncaring past the embarrassing trouser bulges, the brawls and the suicides she causes…. A picaresque work…. These seem to be scenes out of Brueghel, even Hieronymus Bosch.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “Prior is a great joke teller. She understands pacing, characters, and the power of a perfectly delivered punch line, which makes Nectar…delightful…. It might have been tempting to make Nectar a fable about greed and desire, but Prior is having far too much fun to let such moral heft ruin her riotous tale.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “[A] rambunctious novel…. Prior propels this dark tale with sensuous descriptions of opulent banquets, hurly-burly street scenes, horrendous natural disasters, and providential encounters.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  PRAISE FOR La Cucina: A Novel of Rapture

  “Sumptuously appointed, celebratory and sensuous, this debut novel is a mouth-watering blend of commedia dell’arte and Greek tragedy. Prior cooks up a cinematic yarn full of characters so rich you’ll fear they’re fattening, but readers will be sure to splurge on this saucy tale chock-full of sex, recipes, and murder.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “[A] succulent saga…with a sensuous tone, a folkloric narrative style and a most original set of characters, La Cucina could well satisfy the hungriest of appetites.”

  —People

  “Reminiscent of Laura Esquivel and John Irving, mixed with a healthy dollop of Gabriel García Márquez, Prior’s debut is clever, untamed, funny, and at times shocking.”

  —Library Journal

  “La Cucina is a heady concoction, like a long meal with relatives, by turns funny, frightening, sad, and joyful. I’ve rarely seen a first novel of such originality and confidence.”

  —VALERIE MARTIN, author of Mary Reilly and Italian Fever

  “A wonderful novel; a festival of life and all its pleasures, bursting with passion and extravagant color. Similar in some ways to Like Water for Chocolate, this novel celebrates love, the family, the body, and food with a joyous, hopeful exuberance.”

  —JOANNE HARRIS, author of Chocolat and Five Quarters of the Orange

  ALSO BY LILY PRIOR

  La Cucina

  Nectar

  Copyright

  ARDOR. Copyright © 2004 by Lily Prior. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © MAY 2007 ISBN: 9780061873331

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