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Boyd Tonkin, The Independent\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Dean writes with beautifully controlled clarity about family ties, social class, the generation gap and the vanished England of the past. She's extremely funny, but also humane and moving.' The Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Dean is able to demonstrate her unobtrusive skill as the creator of comic set-pieces. .painfully funny. A clever plot and plenty of surprises.' 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He spends most of his time away on business, sleeping with other women and pushing psychiatric drugs on a developing market. Back in Provence, he and his wife, Val rie, no longer share a bed, and his teenage son, Maxence, is hearing voices. When Richard begins an affair with a neighbour, Rachel, he discovers that Val rie, too, is having an affair - with Rachel's husband, Jeff. Suddenly, a routine trip to Africa to sell pharmaceuticals is more than he can handle and his life starts to implode as he realizes that the idea of a life full of that love he has cherished is a mere illusion.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'With wry humour, Dean captures the gloom of existences imploding in incongruous surroundings.' The Observer\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Engaging.it is hard to stop turning the pages.arresting.fizzes with talent.' Sunday Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Wonderfully complex and original novel about desire, disappointment and mental illness, largely set in ex-pat Provence.Louise Dean's lovely rendering of her awful people makes The Idea of Love an enormous delight.' The Independent\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'An acute, cynical wit. An unforgettable study of the dark side of the mind.' The Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'This dark novel is interesting and original, a study of love but not a romance and a story with many morals.' The Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'In her third novel, Louise Dean regards with a sardonic eye a group of scalded lovers ricocheting between desire, despair and dipsomania.Dean's portrayal of Maxence's madness and his mission to save souls is tender and funny, and lifts the novel far above the torrid soul-searching of its narcissistic lovers.' 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