Beginner's Greek (2008)

JAMES COLLINS' BEGINNER'S GREEK Debut novel squeezes a surprising amount of charm out of its well-worn boy-finds/loses-girl plot

Beginner's Greek has a classic romantic setup: Kinda awkward young financial type Peter meets girl-of-his-dreams Holly, loses her phone number, then spends a lot of pages trying to prove his fantasies really do match fate. As such, James Collins' debut relies on a stunning number of familiar tropes — the meant-to-be lovers thwarted, the hapless romantic in love with his best friend's girl, the treacherous boss. But he makes magic of it all by infusing those would-be clichés with so much old-school charm that you want to believe, and with so much patient detail that you actually can. A-