The Strange Courtship of Abigail Bird

Description

A quirky, heartwarming story about two eccentric bookworms who fall in love, described by some readers as a "page-turner."Meet Ishmael Archer, a man beset by a profound lack of social skills, an obsession with classic literature, and the peculiar speaking style of a Dickens character. While he yearns for female companionship, a bitter divorce followed by a series of romantic disasters have left him emotionally fragile. The situation changes when Professor Archer teaches a summer creative writing class, where he encounters the luminescent Abigail Bird, a student whose passion for literature equals his own. Unfortunately, her past failures at love also equal his own so their romance proceeds undeclared as they both shyly dance around the subject. This undefined relationship is cut abruptly short when Abigail suffers a head injury that causes fiction to become fact and vice versa. Although Abigail is inexplicably changed, Ishmael decides to resume his courtship but must find a way to connect with the Abigail Bird with whom he had originally fallen in love. Will Ishmael’s strange new courtship of Abigail succeed? Will she change back to her original state? Will he find the nerve to risk rejection and declare his love? Did she love him prior to her accident? The novel is peppered with a cast of eccentric characters—a college dean obsessed with orchids, a Greek landlord with an affinity for Hemingway, and a self-important writer who vies with Ishmael for Abigail’s affections.