Deal — Becky Cochrane

The delightful new novel from the authors of He's The One and It Had to Be You. New Year's Eve, 1999. Millennium celebrations light up the sky from Sydney to Seattle. But in the Houston living room of Aaron Fisher, the fireworks have fizzled! A gathering with his closest friends has devolved into a depressing deconstruction of the sad state of all of their love lives. Fed up with the moaning, Aaron comes up with The Deal: They all have until next New Year's Eve to find true love or stop whining about it. The ensuing 12 months will answer many questions: Will Patrick, Aaron's straight roommate be able to ride the waves as his girlfriend, Vivian, decides whether she is Betty Crocker or Betty Friedan? Having embraced her lesbianism (and turned her back on her trust fund,) will Miranda stop sucking the life out of every romance? Will Alexander stop dabbling with men's hearts the way he dabbles in music and his parents' bank account? And will Aaron keep his end of the deal when the truth is he's happy with a life of bar buddies, gym buddies and bed buddies? It's a year of surprises for all of them, as they take on unfaithful husbands, vindictive rumormongers, well-intentioned stalkers, pixie drummers who write bad poetry and marauding palmetto bugs. But most of all, they will discover much about themselves through the surprising, touching and hilarious revelations produced by a year of exploring the nature of love.

Becky Cochrane and Timothy J. Lambert have been writing partners since 1998. Becky is a small-town Alabama girl turned teacher, writer and editor. Timothy fled rural Maine at a tender age for a decade in Manhattan. Both now live in Houston and are a part of a group of writers known collectively as Timothy James Beck, the author of It Had to Be You and He's the One.