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" I love to read romantic comedies. Can you suggest some titles? Margo responds: In the best romantic comedies, love and its effect on the central character drives the story. Of course, Jane Austen has long been considered the queen of the romantic comedy with Emma and Pride and Prejudice. More recently, Bridget Jones&amp;#039;s Diary and some chick-lit successors have been giving these classic stories of romantic tension a more modern twist. Jorge Amado&amp;#039;s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, for example, is about a woman who remarries after her husband, a cheater and a rogue, dies. She chooses a more conventional man this time around to avoid the heartbreak her first husband caused her. But when her first love comes back as a ghost, she realizes how much she misses him. In love, Amado&amp;#039;s novel tells us, we seem to crave both craziness and stability. I was delighted earlier this year when Harlequin reprinted Jennifer Crusie&amp;#039;s Anyone But You in hardcover. First published as a paperback in 1996, the novel, a great little tale of the triumph of love over differences, features a 40-year-old divorc\u00E9e, her hunky 30-year-old neighbor (a doctor) and a dog named Fred. It is the half basset hound-half beagle who brings this unlikely pair together. The Little Lady Agency, a new first novel for London-based journalist Hester Browne, also revives the spirit of the old romantic comedies of yesteryear. Tired of her routine life, Melissa Romney-Jones decides to don a blond wig, call herself Honey and start up an agency offering old-fashioned dating services to bachelors. Not surprisingly, she falls for one of her clients, a sexy American named Jonathan who needs help figuring out the London social scene. But she soon starts to wonder: Is he falling for Melissa or Honey? Browne&amp;#039;s tale doesn&amp;#039;t have any surprises \u2011- boy meets girl, complications ensue, and finally boy gets girl \u2011- but, as in all romantic comedies, it&amp;#039;s really the comic journey that counts, and Browne delivers. I just regret that Katharine Hepburn isn&amp;#039;t around to take on the role of Melissa/Honey. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a21254/books-romantic-comedies-apr06/>