A big-heart­ed, wise, unceas­ing­ly buoy­ant nov­el about a woman who, after escap­ing a bruis­ing mar­riage, the­o­rizes that hap­pi­ness is pos­si­ble sole­ly with the erad­i­ca­tion of all romance – only to find a love that could change her life for­ev­er

Sylvie Broder was taught ear­ly to embrace joy. The grand­daugh­ter of Holo­caust sur­vivors whose great­est pri­or­i­ty was enjoy­ing the life they’d snatched back from Hitler, Sylvie believes in the tena­cious pur­suit of plea­sure — yet, some­how, finds her­self trapped in a suf­fo­cat­ing, emo­tion­al­ly abu­sive mar­riage. With enor­mous for­ti­tude, Sylvie frees her­self and turns to grad­u­ate school, where she devel­ops a new phi­los­o­phy: Straight women will find true lib­er­a­tion and hap­pi­ness only once romance is erad­i­cat­ed.

Now, Sylvie prides her­self in sep­a­rat­ing sex from ten­der­ness — hav­ing fun with men, but nev­er com­mit­ting to one. Then she meets Rob­bie and Abie, and finds her phi­los­o­phy sore­ly test­ed. A warm and gen­tle man, Rob­bie treats Sylvie with patience and enor­mous kind­ness, offer­ing her com­fort she has­n’t had since child­hood. Abie is pas­sion­ate and dynam­ic, a man who chal­lenges Sylvie, and with whom she finds her­self con­stant­ly dis­armed. With both men, she feels a deep desire that looks, wor­ry­ing­ly, a lot like love.

Clev­er­ly con­struct­ed, delight­ful­ly fun­ny, and beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten, The End of Romance is an anti-romance romance nov­el that charts its fal­li­ble hero­ine’s tumul­tuous jour­ney to love and hap­pi­ness with eru­di­tion and deep feel­ing — a sto­ry for any­one who, despite their very best efforts, has fall­en in love, and won­dered why.